Generation ship design project

[Drashner1]

Re the limitations of lasers when it comes to larger particles - A thought that comes to mind is that more energetic systems might be employed for that kind of thing. This might include lasers able to rapidly dial up power to vaporize larger stuff, particle beams, or even antimatter particle beams or grains fired ahead of the ship. At the extreme, perhaps the plasma ahead of the ship could itself be made out of antimatter and/or the ships exhaust might be rapidly redirected ahead to vaporize or divert (or at least 'light up' with gamma shine) larger objects. This would all require constant replenishment and certainly have various limits due to limited amounts of amat, reaction time, and the size of the incoming object, but we already have amat being used for starships and getting much more use starting with the Federation.

Re pre-First Fed ships - As I recall all those missions ran more to .07-.12c - .2 or above didn't come along until the First Fed. Although the beamriders were intended to go faster than starships and might have run to .3c during at least the early Federation. But that's Golden Age stuff and perhaps breakthroughs in shielding were part of that. Perhaps being a beamrider meant that amat could be used more readily for shielding or there was extra energy available for higher powered lasers or the like?

A thread would probably be good if we want to start hashing out ideas. Liam and I have been discussing an eventual major overhaul of the propulsion pages and this would seem to make sense as part of it.

Todd