XPost: sci.space.policy   
   From: henry@spsystems.net   
      
   In article ,   
   Roger Stokes  wrote:   
   >> ...ends up being around 4600 G-km, so getting   
   >> the length down to 10km or so requires operation at several hundred Gs...   
   >   
   >...I assume that typical cargo items   
   >could withstand (say) 50g constant acceleration if properly packed and   
   >oriented - correct me if I'm wrong.   
      
   Almost everything except sizable living organisms can take *much* higher   
   accelerations, if some attention is given to this during design.  Hundreds   
   of Gs are not much of a problem.  Thousands are quite manageable.  Even   
   tens of thousands are not as much of a challenge as you might think;   
   remember that WW2 proximity fuzes put *vacuum tubes* in artillery shells.   
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