Sizing Up the Daedalus Interstellar Spacecraft

astroengine writes "How big would an interstellar spaceship need to be? New artwork of the British Interplanetary Society's 1970's Project Daedalus by the non-profit organization Tau Zero Foundation gives the impression that the fuel economy for a nuclear pulse propelled vehicle might be a bit steep."

Think Positron Engine Drive

[tyrione]

WSU Positron lab: http://www.cmr.wsu.edu/facilities/webster_547 [wsu.edu]

W.M. Keck Lab [wsu.edu]

This article and video explains their research: http://wsutoday.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=14531&TypeID=1 [wsu.edu]

Re:Nuclear fission propulsion

[CrimsonAvenger]

nuclear fission propulsion, like Project Orion, is incapable of the deltaV required for anything like a quick interstellar trip.

Orion, as originally conceived, produced an Isp of less than 2000. Which implies that a 10000T spacecraft would have to carry an additional 5.4E785 tons of fuel/reaction mass.

Note that 5E785 tons is rather more than the mass of the observable universe....

Re:HOW DO I VIEW ALL COMMENTS WITH NEW SLASHDOT?

[Fnkmaster]

You switch to D1 instead of the stupid D2 discussion system by clicking on Account while on the main page. D1 actually lets you view more-or-less all the comments for most stories.

Then fix up the D1 system by creating/editing userContent.css (assuming you are using Firefox) in your profile/chrome directory:

@-moz-document domain("slashdot.org")
{

div.col_1
{
position: absolute !important;
}

header.h
{
position: absolute !important;
}

li.comment
{
border:solid 1px grey;
-moz-border-radius-topleft:10px !important;
left:20px;
width:95%;
}

}