Re: hyperspace (was: cloaking device rules)

Alun writes:

> > > However, nuclear reactors are currently used in some spacecraft.	
>  > Current spacecraft? Which ones?
>  
>  Pioneers 10 & 11, Voyagers 1 & 2, Galeleo, basicaly, anything headed
into
>  the outer solar system - the sunlight isn't strong enough for solar
panels
>  to be practical beyond (I think) the orbit of Mars. Actually,
"Nuclear 
> reactor"
>  could be a bit of a misleading term since it conjours up a picture of
a
big
>  building putting out mega-Watts of power, whereas the
radio-thermo-isotope
>  generators (RTGs) used on spacecraft are much smaller, with power
outputs
>  of a few hundred Watts - their big advantage is that they keep
working
>  for decades (the Voyagers are still going...)

OK, I'm caught up now. I wasn't thinking of RTGs as reactors; I was
thinking
about something powerful enough to power a manned ship.

>  > How do they plan to incorporate this? The idea of controlled
nuclear
>  > explosions sounds a bit dicey to me, and I can't imagine such a
ship 
> having a
>  > great deal of combat maneuverability!
>  
>  It's hard to imagine any realistic spacecraft having a great deal of
combat
>  maneuverability.

Touche. 

>  > Nuclear power is great for generating
>  > large, sustained amounts of steam/electricity without the need for 
>  > refueling. But unless you can use electricity to generate gravitic
fields or some 
> >  such, how do you translate this into thrust? 
>  
>  Actually nuclear power is great for generating large amounts of HEAT.
>  Ground based nuclear power plants use this to heat water of gas and
use
>  the resulting steam or high preasure gas to drive turbines to produce
>  electricity. 

Fine, get technical on me!   ;-)   That was what I meant, but thanks for
clarifying. Nuclear ships use the same principle, with steam driving the
prop, right?

>  There's no reason why you can't pump water through the
>  core, let the core heat it into high preasure steam, and allow the
steam
>  to escape through the back of your ship - and there you have it:
THRUST

Very true, but then you still have an expendable fuel: water! When you
run
low on water, you have to head back to dock. And since water can't be
compressed, a large chunk of your mass is going to be taken up with
water
storage. I'm trying to dream up a system that doesn't require frequent
re-fueling. 

Scott 

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly
stop
whatever we are doing and devote our attention to eating."     -- 
Luciano
Pavarotti