--- In sfconsim-l@yahoogroups.com, "rmrobinson1227" <Lyonesse@...> wrote:

> Though for his general mid-future interplanetary tech, Isaac is also
> pretty conservative. His whole "electric railroad" (my term, not his)
> tech of lasers scooting cargo canisters around the Solar System is
> probably more comparable to nuke-electric tech than torch tech.

> And even though Orion has the moral quality of a drive that operates
> by vaporizing kittens at 1-second intervals, I have to admit that it
> is the one plausible space drive for which you can cue "Ride of the
> Valkyries" when you light it off. :>

Now that I think about it, my trend has indeed been toward more and
more conservative.

When I first joined the list, my favored interplanetary warship drive
was mag-Orion. Very powerful. VERY expensive, and I didn't really
appreciate how expensive.

Then I sort of grudgingly accepted that probably nuclear-thermal or
nuclear-electric would be more practical. I still kept the idea of
laser powered civilian transport, which could also be used by the
military.

Then I had a big shift when I was reading about solar panel
performance and realized to my shock that within a few decades solar
panels would be on par with my baseline specific power values for
vapor core nuclear reactors (a beast which does not yet exist, whereas
solar panels do).

Currently, I still think laser powered civilian transport may
eventually be used for launching stuff from the surface of Earth and
maybe Mars, but solar-electric may be used for everything else. The
next century is simply not going to see the huge volumes of
interplanetary space transport which would justify a laser powered
launch system, but it will see a large civilian market for solar
panels pushing down costs.

So overall, my progression has been going from futuristic/expensive
propulsion systems which don't exist, down to conservative propulsion
systems which do exist.

Isaac Kuo