RE: Steam Powered Starships?

 ---- Noah wrote: 
> Maybe a jump engine is heat-powered - just keep 
> pumping live steam by it, or maybe thru a turbine for rotational
energy?  I 

that's it! warp drives work by spinning a lump of some exotic matter
(don't know what - that stuff with imiaginary mass or whatnot),
therefore causing the dimensions of spacetime to rotate and opening a
jump path. i know this sounds like PSB with a vengeance, but it is
actually vaguely similar to some real physics (i refer you to 'the
cartoon history of time' by gribbin and charlesworth; if you don't like
it, take it up with john gribbin!). the lump of stuff is rotated by a
steam turbine. maybe nearby magnetic fields (brought on by flow of
current) disrupt the effect, so it has to be mechanically powered?

> can see the gun stations quickly filling up with 'empties' from the
lasers 
> - we'd need big chain hoists for the rounds going from magazine to
weapon. 

yeah! roll on world war one (my secret agenda is revealed at last :-)!

Tom