zapkitty wrote: Hmmm… how about something less ambitious?
Let’s try powering a small commercial space station in LEO first.
There you can learn about whatever quirks lie within the system in a working environment of vacuum and microgravity… but you have auxiliary systems on hand in case of teething pains… and Earth is only an hour away by capsule if things go really south on you.
Attached is a rorschach test… see what you can make of it… I don’t see so well myself but everything should be in place…
This would be an interesting and useful application of DP devices. And it may work without fusion already. It will then have under-unity energy efficiency, but there may be some advantages compared to already applied systems: probably less weight (far lighter compared to classical chemical propulsion), the fact that it is fed with electricity produced on the ship, far less fuel required, thus less fuel weight…