Subject:
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Re: Wings [was: Re: Building big]
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Wed, 20 Jun 2001 07:54:58 GMT
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Viewed:
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157 times
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On 20/6/01 5:54 AM, "William R Ward" <bill@wards.net> wrote:
> Actually, this is false. Space is a vacuum - there is no air, only a
> few stray molecules of gas or cosmic dust. As a result, there is no
> friction and thus no need for wings or streamlined shapes on space
> craft. Also, there is very little gravitational pull, so the lifting
> power of wings is useless.
Actually, if you're travelling at near-light velocities, the density of the
interstellar medium becomes high enough (especially within solar systems, so
I guess that would be intrastellar medium) that a streamlined shaped would
become essential. Even then, there would be both heavy erosion of whatever
impact-shielding you have, and heavy drag on the ship.
Unless of course you have a star-trek type deflector shield that pushes all
the gunk away from your ship. :)
Later,
David Drew
Famous quote from a convention...
Q: How do the inertial dampeners work on Star Trek?
A: Very nicely, thank you.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Wings [was: Re: Building big]
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| (...) That may be true, but I don't think anyone knows for sure, because we haven't tried going that fast yet. My spacecraft follow a very "hard SF" policy - no FTL travel, no artificial gravity, etc. But that's not to say that it's the only way... (...) (25 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Wings [was: Re: Building big]
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| "Jesse Alan Long" <joyous4god2@yahoo.com> writes: [...] (...) [...] Actually, this is false. Space is a vacuum - there is no air, only a few stray molecules of gas or cosmic dust. As a result, there is no friction and thus no need for wings or (...) (25 years ago, 19-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
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