Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!kcarroll
From: kcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Orbital Artillery
Message-ID: <3562@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Feb-84 15:12:13 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3562
Posted: Mon Feb 20 15:12:13 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Feb-84 15:12:13 EST
References: <16648@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 20

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   Has anyone else on the net, upon hearing O'Neill's idea for using
mass-drivers throwing away tiny pellets of reaction mass ( say little
buckets of lunar dirt) as a high-efficiency rocket-engine, had the thought,
-Kieran A. Carroll
...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll
"Good Lord, who wants to fill the solar system up with billions 
more meteorites, especially around what will eventually be a crowded 
shipping region, the earth-moon region? Won'rt the probability
of hulling your ship increase dramatically?"
   Well, if so, I've just thought of the solution to this problem.
Just accelerate your reaction-mass to greater than solar-escape
velocity, and they'll go away and never come back.  If they hit a planet
with an atmosphere, they'll burn up.  All you'll have to be careful of is
that you don't aim your exhaust stream through a high-traffic area.  
Perhaps one of the "rules of the road" of the future will be that
you aren't to point your exhaust directly towards the earth ( for fear of
hitting low-orbit satellites), or towards the moon ( so as not to hit the 
mining base that sends up the fuel that you're using).