True. But that only eliminates the pinch-fusion generator. You still need the ginormous supercooled precision-tuned magnets, which might be a bit difficult to cobble together in the machine shop. :) It seems unlikely a ship would even have the right materials aboard to try.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 7:55 PM, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:

> On Feb 16, 2016, at 8:46 PM, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The physics and starflight-planning communities can't quite seem to decide whether a Bussard ramjet could work at all. But one thing that's clear is that they'd have to be purpose-built. You need truly ginormous finely-tuned magnetic field generators, all perfectly balanced to feed into a pinch fusion chamber without having to accelerate the fuel to your speed (which robs you of most of your potential thrust).

This is if you’re using it as a ramjet. As a Hydrogen atom collector for jump fuel, this might not be an issue...

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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