Re: Having seen Iron Man

Allen Thomson wrote:
> On May 11, 11:47 am, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derk...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> you could run a car with it
> 
> The drive chain would have to be pretty beefy: "multiple gigawatts" is
> multiple millions of horsepower.

It's throttleable. Stark's doctor said it would run his heart's 
electromagnet for fifty years, to which Stark replied "or something 
bigger for 15 minutes."

> Anyway, as it happens,  gigawatts of electrical power is getting into
> the range of what you need to build interesting electrical/
> electromagnetic rockets with a decent combination of thrust and Isp.
> Real space****ps, IOW.

If we're going beyond just the power source and including the other 
features of Iron Man's armor in the equation, it appears to have some 
really spiffy thrusters (called "repulsors") that could do the trick. 
They look like rockets but they can't possibly be since there's no room 
for all that reaction mass. I'm guessing the rocket-like flame is just a 
side effect and it's really just accelerating air via some 
electromagnetic means.

No air in space, but if it's not picky about what reaction mass you feed 
it it's still quite convenient for tooling around the outer solar system 
where mineable volatiles are plentiful.