On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 19:11:22 GMT, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:



Let's assume an open-cockpit single-seater. Call it 200 lbs for the pilot,
another 100 lbs for his suit, 500 pounds of airframe, 20 pounds of avionics, and
50 pounds for batteries and life support supplied. Let's assume our rocket fuel
has a specific impulse of 250 seconds. That's a dry weight of about 870 pounds.


forgive my iggorance.
are we talking earth pounds, moon pounds or mass?
and if we are talking mass is it roman catholic, anglican or
engineering?
you get that for ruining dreams :-)


what is actually needed is for someone to do a Wright Brothers on
gravity.
aviation would go another quantum leap forward if we could just negate
the aircraft weight without all that drag.
it is amazing that with all our progress we havent made one single
inroad into understanding or controlling gravity.

Star Wars episode 1, The phantom menace was shown on local telly last
night. I'm amazed at how correct the understanding of an antigravity
world was in that film.
Stealth (ok, antigravity liftoff, now how do we get thrust?) Pilot