Re: [OT} Alderson Drive

> I just got an email from somebody who was looking for information on
> Alderson Drive.  According to him, there was a real person named
Alderson
> who actually had a scientific basis (accurate or not) that Pournelle
and
> other sci-fi authors have used.  (He got my email from the GZG
Archives,
> since there has been talk of the Alderson drive on the list in the
past.)
>
> Has anybody out there heard anything about this?  Is this true?  If
so,
> does anybody have any information pointers on the web?  (There are
> references to information sources in the Archives, but no links that I
> could find.)

Jerry, I believe there is or was a Dan Alderson at JPL who worked out
the
details that Pournelle used.  The description--not as detailed as I'd
like--is in NSpace, which is a collection of stories and some essays,
mostly
by Larry Niven IIRC.