Pytheas moves from Earth orbit on torch drive and swings around Jupiter towards Pegasus. The Survivors celebrate with drums, dance and song. Robots go EVA to deploy the lattice ramscoop and fire chamber. Although the interstellar vacuum averages only one atom per cc, mostly hydrogen, the scoop gathers enormous quantities of matter.
The ramscoop field blanks out electromagnetic communication although Pytheas can receive the modulated neutrinos that are usually aimed at targets hundreds or thousands of light years away.
Laser beams separate electrons from nuclei. Fields sweep plasma away from the hull into the fire chamber. An energy engine releases and ionizes suspended anti-matter and mixes it with the plasma, causing annihilation, nine times ten to the twentieth ergs per gram, which in turn causes and maintains fusion reactions in protons, driving Pytheas to near light speed.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The description you gave here of the technicalities of the "Pytheas" reminds me a lot of the "Eleonora Christine," a Bussard ram scoop space ship in TAU ZERO. I know speculation and studies of the possibilities of using such ships changed the possible designs to be used in the years between the publication of TAU ZERO and THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS. I wonder how the two ships differ from each other?
Sean
Sean,
Now that I do not know! Did the Eleonora Christune use anti-matter?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm almost sure it did not! If true, that would mean the use of anti-matter by the "Pytheas" is one of it's differences from the earlier model of a Bussard ram scoop we see in TAU ZERO.
Another diference is that the "Eleonora Christine" was larger than the "Pytheas." The former was designed to carry 50 persons, the latter only eight. And, of course, the computers we see in the "Pytheas" is much more advanced than what we see in the "Eleonora Christine."
Sean
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