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Ion-Propulsion Craft Reaches The Moon
Rollie Hawk writes "It ain't warp speed, but it's exciting new technology at work! The European Space Agency put an ion-propelled rocket into lunar orbit today. While not much horsepower is generated, this method of propulsion could be ideal for travel in near-weightless space as it does not require any combustion to occur."
[conspiracy] On the other hand, if they can't find it... [/conspiracy]
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Warp 0.0001 more like it, Picard would say"E....N.....G....A....G......E"
Give me a Bussard Ramjet any day! Well, that and an extremely good handbrake.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"After hearing the news that the ESA's slow ion-powered probe has entered Moon orbit after a record-long 13 month voyage, NASA has announced that it will launch an even slower probe that propels itself by gliding on a trail of its own mucous."
That's right. What the movie doesn't make clear is that it was sped up by a factor of 10,000, because solar panels that size result in only a trivial amount of thrust.
No one on earth could do anything about it, but not everyone who goes to the moon is from earth. The Zhti Ti Kofft would probably destroy any U.S. base in no time, or at least conquer it, and say ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
That's right. What the movie doesn't make clear is that it was sped up by a factor of 10,000, because solar panels that size result in only a trivial amount of thrust.
No, the TIE fighters had a large bank of 48 car batteries which were kept topped up by the solar cells. Each TIE fighter had to charged up from the mains at least once every 48 hours, otherwise the battery would run flat, and you'd be stuck in space. In that case, the only way to start the engines was to plug an R2D2 unit into the cigarette lighter socket.
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