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  • A matter-antimatter propulsion system for manned interstellar flight

    Paper ID

    IAF-87-610

    author

    • J.R. Powell
    • C. Pelligrino

    company

    Brookhaven National Laboratory, Department of Nuclear Energy

    country

    U.S.A.

    year

    1987

    abstract

    The major problems of interstellar flight are addressed in an integrated design of a star ship, Valkyrie. It employs a large diameter (~1 km) thin superconducting current ring to magnetically channel the reaction products from repetitive pellet explosions (either matter- antimatter or fusion) to generate thrust. The thermal intercept fraction on the star ship is very small, ~10-®. Waste heat is radiated to space by a droplet radiator, which also protects against interstellar dust/gas. Maximum velocities in the range 10 to 20% of light speed appear possible.