Re: Best choice of FTL fuel?



Wayne Throop wrote:

: George W Harris <gharrus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
: I think Tingle was implying Albert said FTL was : impossible (which is also untrue).

Ah. That *does* make better sense, now you point it out. Hrm.
However, I still don't see why a hydrogen-to-iron process has "maximum energy output per gram of fuel". That seems...
just plain wrong.

Well, the idea was fusing the hydrogen to iron, and then totally converting the iron. That doesn't make much sense, because totally converting the hydrogen in the first place results in the same total energy release -- after all, the energy released by the fusion comes from the mass-energy of the nuclei.

The only way it would make sense to do the two-step process is if there were something seriously wrong with either or both steps.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@xxxxxxxxxxx && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
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