Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mmintl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Anti-matter space drives
Message-ID: <631@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 23:52:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.631
Posted: Fri Aug 30 23:52:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Sep-85 05:24:19 EDT
References: <437@ttidcb.UUCP> <228@bcsaic.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 12


I heard a talk by Dr. Robert Forward on this subject last year.  He is
quite convinced that anti-matter drives are quite possible.  The storage
problem was not, in his opinion, the critical barrier to development;
getting the anti-matter in reasonable quantities at a reasonable price
was.  (We can get it at an unreasonable price from particle accelators.)

He was of the opinion that a lump of anti-matter in contact with ordinary
matter would not explode, but "fizzle".  I don't what calculations this
was based on.  I'm sure it would not be healthy to be around it, though.
This does not mean that it is impossible to make an anti-matter bomb,
of course.  It just means that the trivial approach isn't good enough.