[extropy-chat] (Link) Antihydrogen Propulsion

[Hara Ra]

Read the paper, I have to cynically say, Hey, found some mice, now let's 
build a mousetrap industry. After 35 years of watching hot fusion making 
lotsa baby steps, always we'll have something in 30 years, and the splotchy 
history of the NIF at Livermore LRL I smellith another boondoggle in the 
making. A few basics to consider:

1) 1 milligram of anti H2 is 2 mg of energy, approx 1KiloTon of explosive 
energy here. This is considerably MORE than the worst possible nuclear 
plant breakdown, say Chernobyl, involving an order less energy over much 
longer time.

Point is, once we get beyond micrograms, the facility must be space based.

1A) The high energy gamma output of such an incident goes almost entirely 
into radioactives when hitting other matter. Not nice.

2) Production efficiency is exhorbitantly low. SPSS anyone?

3) Merely a tiny complaint here - you need a really GOOOOOOOD vaccuum for 
this stuff. Cosmic radiation and natural radiation will be unavoidable and 
create a fairly strong radiation source no matter what you do.

4) I cannot see any way to make the matter-antimatter reaction be 
containable into a beam with enough directionality to be of any use. As 
mentioned in the paper for containment, 10^12 Teslas for the ions. The 
Gammas can't be contained by anything. (Well, if you want to use the kind 
of grazing incidence technology used for Gamma Ray satellites, but the mass 
ratio of such a thing is truly unreasonable.)

(sigh. Remember, uploads, nano and 1% lightspeed are doable, no need for 
this stuff....)
(so, no matter ...... ((:((  )

At 11:12 PM 10/24/2004, you wrote:
>http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0410511
>
>'Controlled Antihydrogen Propulsion
>for NASA's Future in Very Deep Space'

==================================
=   Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob)    =
=     harara at sbcglobal.net       =
=   Alcor North Cryomanagement   =
=   Alcor Advisor to Board       =
=       831 429 8637             =
==================================