Quote:
Originally Posted by mmartin798
This does bring the whole size and weight of the reactor into play. The 17% scale model is has engines putting out over 2MW. If we scale this up and there are no additional efficiencies to the air moving parts of the engine, we are looking at... let see carry the one.... we will be looking at about 12 MW needed for operation. How big and heavy will this reactor be?
(Numbers calculated unitizing the model and assuming thrust increases by squaring and mass by cubing)
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Canon reactors (3rd Edition) had insanely high output IIRC. Something like 100Mw for 500kg.
The numbers
here seem a little more plausible. Though personally I am not sure would not include the smallest reactor.
I still always seem to come back to 3He being necessary for those types of numbers as it would need minimal shielding. If the project can get a hold of about 4 tons of it I think things move into the feasible realm.
The only potential sources for that 4 tons take me far into the realms of science fiction where we are accessing someone's refined fuel source (crashed starship or use of something like the Stargate). Sorry for going way OT