04-09-2011, 09:17 PM
Two overlooked considerations....
1. Along with speed of light travel requiring much of the ship's volume to be propulsion systems, the ship must also have the nescessary phaser weapons and defensive electromagnetic shielding. With the considerable activity of space pirates and their known propensity for hijacking high value cargo such as Fluxanium Slurry, much of the ship's volume must be in power sources for defense.
2. Another overlooked fact is that with Fluxanium Slurry, a "little dab'll do ya." The yearly needs of an average planet's entire population can be provided with less than 3000 cubic feet of the stuff.
In the above discussions, while the volume reduction of the cargo is important, perhaps too much emphasis has been placed on the subject of weight. Once out of the gravitational field, everything is weightless anyway. It is the mass reduction that matters, both while in a gravitional field and outside it. While everyone will agree that CEO Gibson is a businessman extraordinaire, perhaps he should leave the technical discussions to his engineers and scientists?
1. Along with speed of light travel requiring much of the ship's volume to be propulsion systems, the ship must also have the nescessary phaser weapons and defensive electromagnetic shielding. With the considerable activity of space pirates and their known propensity for hijacking high value cargo such as Fluxanium Slurry, much of the ship's volume must be in power sources for defense.
2. Another overlooked fact is that with Fluxanium Slurry, a "little dab'll do ya." The yearly needs of an average planet's entire population can be provided with less than 3000 cubic feet of the stuff.
In the above discussions, while the volume reduction of the cargo is important, perhaps too much emphasis has been placed on the subject of weight. Once out of the gravitational field, everything is weightless anyway. It is the mass reduction that matters, both while in a gravitional field and outside it. While everyone will agree that CEO Gibson is a businessman extraordinaire, perhaps he should leave the technical discussions to his engineers and scientists?