Millions of pounds of thrust and just barely pulling 0.39g and can't even do it for a week.
And this is using fusion to spit mass out the back.
Decent delta-V though.
Damn you Loren K Wiseman for destroying my expectations!
I have also learned that specific impulse is God.
Ion drives. Low thrust, but high specific impulse. Fusion is probably a decent power source, though, especially if you can manage a magnetohydrodynamic power tap from the charged plasma to go along with the traditional thermal power generation.
ReplyDeleteMHD will suck thrust when applied. I've got that as part of the drive.
ReplyDeleteThe specific impulse of my drive is actually VERY high. In high impulse mode it has 1,551,724 seconds, in high thrust I get 310,345 seconds.
Ion engines with my tech assumptions are just 31,607 seconds.
Helium atoms at 0.06 c are hauling the mail!
Even though my tech is in the realm of plausible, I'm still moving around some epic amounts of energy.