How does it work? Is the mass of the system low enough that it could accelerate itself to a higher speed than chemical rockets?
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Hi Trevor! The basic idea is to unspool a ribbon of high temperature superconductor into a simple ring, along with an integrated sun & planetshade + a little solar. The darkness passively supercools, the panel drives a simple dipole field. = way more plasma confinement, cheap.
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What is the advantage of that over just big solar fields in space, and does it make the transport problem any less onerous than space based solar power?
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Oh sorry, I never saw this! Well, one big advantage is that you get a mag shield for free Another is that you can (probably) get orders of magnitudes more specific thrust. I realise this is aggressive! Ion thrusters have really anemic thrust so far, but it could go up.
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