nexium said, "<font color="yellow">Magbeam seems to be a less <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">descriptive</font> name for <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">particle</font> beam. Negative ions are atoms with extra electrons. More often atoms lacking one or more electrons = positive ions, are focused <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">electro-statically</font> or magnetically into a narrow beam. In the latter case each <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">particle</font> has a positive charge; like charges repel, so the beam gets wider and thinner with distance, requiring a bigger target at the craft being propelled. A large number of weaker beams originating at different locations can converge at the <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">spacecraft reducing</font> the <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">speeding</font> problem. If we build thousands of <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">Magbeam</font> generators through out the solar system, some of them will be positioned so that they can <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">accelerate</font> the space craft perhaps 1/10th kilometer per second: 100 such pushes totals 10 kilometer per second which will allow the craft to coast the rest of the way to almost anywhere. ie in one billion seconds the craft can travel 5 billion kilometers = sometimes the distance to Pluto. I assumed the average speed was 1/2 as the craft is climbing out of the sun's gravity well. The craft would likely pass near the <font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">Centari</font> star system in a billion years or so, but that has no utility that I can think of. We can do this about twenty years after we start throwing huge amounts of money at the project.</font><br /><br />Jatslo said, "<font face="verdana" size="”2”" color="#99FFFF">Oh, you want to set up a daisy-chain along the trajectory. That is interesting. The craft could speed towards medi</font>