Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 ggr 10/10/85; site bentley.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!bentley!kwh
From: kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: antimatter stardrives
Message-ID: <654@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 16:25:12 EST
Article-I.D.: bentley.654
Posted: Fri Mar 21 16:25:12 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 21:58:54 EST
References: <22000015@hpfcla>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
Lines: 23

In article <22000015@hpfcla> ajs@hpfcla (Alan Silverstein) writes:
>Now here is an example of using "finesse" rather than "brute force".  I
>suspect (and hope) that if we ever achieve Universe-spanning means of
>travel, it will be by use of finesse, not brute force.  The latter tends
>to be more expensive, dangerous, and "polluting".
>
>If you can twist space to produce antimatter, why can't you twist it to
>wormhole from hither to yon, and forget the stardrive?

Also, it is often assumed that it is intrinsically expensive to lift a mass
from Earth's surface to orbit and beyond.  Here, the finesse solution is to
schedule flights so that whenever one is departing, another of equal mass is
arriving; either a space-elevator or an orbiting bolo could be run with
minimal energy requirements.

I don't know about the feasibility of twisting spacetime (I do suspect that
a wormhole could only take you to a point in your future lightcone, so no
"instantaneous" teleportation), but A. Offutt & R. Lyon described a finesse
interstellar train in _Rails Across the Galaxy_, which appeared as a serial
in _Analog_ beginning August, 1982.  The engineering difficulties present a
problem, but no new laws of physics are needed.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint