Dartz Wrote:Drive-type.... each booster is easily going to be as powerful as the orbiter strapped to it. Stellvia's big involvement could be the largest set of WFC-derived drives, some sort of hardtech heavy-thrust engine that gives a lot of punch going up off the ground, sort of like a massive V8. Would such a thing exist?
There are blueprints for ultra-low reaction mass thrusters (comparable in efficiency to the 'waved drives on the Epsilon Blade) in the WFC - all we need to do is choose a really big design.
Dartz Wrote:Currently the tanks are incapable of surviving reentry, however work is progressing on a Vulkan-2 system, based on the Uragan/Energia-II design, which would be capable of landing a fully complete base on a planet. Multiple tank modules could make for a start of a colony, especially if the makings of a dome where included with them.
Alternately, use them as the core of a space station... especially if you've already taken them all the way to Barnard's Star and don't plan to bring them back.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012