Recent content by adoucette

The inverse square law also applies to lasers. Still there are some aspects which make it better for spacecraft then radio waves, but would not matter at the distances we are discussing. Consider our current Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, which has transmitted data 10 million...

Well you could possibly do it with the Shuttle, which had an airlock for EVAs, but its not a realistic solution since we have reverted back to relatively small capsules to go to and from space.

They were unusable in any existing capsule. Not that we couldn't design capsules with huge doors. But we haven't.

I agree with your "coin of the realm" comment, but the price one has to pay with that coin increases with the square of the distance. So for instance, even using huge antennas on Earth, and a decent size antenna on Voyager 1, we are nearing the range we can talk to it, but at 1 LY distance, it...

I think it was proposed, but never developed because once you inflated the ball, you couldn't exit or enter any existing docking adapter or capsule door.

Wouldn't the limiting factor be that those stranded would not have suits that allowed them to transfer to this craft?

Well a couple of things, the major one being using 1 g acceleration to near the speed of light. The amount of fuel, even using a nuclear powered vehicle, with an ISP far greater than we have today, would take an enormous amount of fuel. The mass of which then makes accelerating (and having the...