Reply To: Iconography
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Jolly RogerTransmute wrote: Why not just use the DPFs to propel a very larger ship with water tank shielding and enough space for artificial gravity?
Water is heavy. We need to keep the mass down, as the higher the mass the lower the acceleration applied to the ship by the engines. Though we will have some water shielding to protect the crew from neutrons, a much lighter magnetic bubble (such as M2P2) will deflect the charged particles of the solar wind. If the bubble is large enough (many miles) the solar wind can propel the craft.
Artificial gravity can be generated aboard a small craft by revolving the crew’s quarters on a counterweighted tether with a radius of at least 730 feet. See SpinCalc
http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/SpinCalc.htm
… a DPF … does not have much thrust, … a DPF could not “take off” from anything larger then an asteroid.
A DPF does not throughput very much mass and is therefore not good for a rocket engine directly, but it could function as the power source for a High Power Helicon (HPH) plasma thruster, VASIMR or M2P2.
High Power Helicon
http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/HPH/
Note that a VASIMR and M2P2 may not be able to function at the same time, but a VASIMR may be able to be configured to function as an M2P2.
One suggested application of the HPH is the MagBeam in which it is used as a “plasma cannon” aimed at a M2P2-equipped craft to push it to a higher orbit. The “cannon” platform would have to be substantially more massive than the craft to be pushed.
(Personal speculation – could the polarity/frequency of the MagBeam beam/field be adjusted to create a “tractor beam”?)