[geeks] Carbon nanotube buckytape

[wa2egp at att.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
> Mon, 22 Aug 2005 @ 02:56 +0000, wa2egp at att.net said:
> 
> > A better example is you car will get better gas milage if you only fill the
> > tank halfway and run it until (almost) empty than if you filled the tank and
> > ran it until if was half empty.  I remember an old saying in the early days of
> > the space program: "A pound of payload costs a ton of fuel."
> 
> Actually, no, because the car example is not the same.  The car is more
> like a screw driven system in that it moves through a medium, instead of
> ejecting a medium to move.

We don't have cars that move by throwing something out the exhaust pipe
but if the vehicle's mass is less, then less force is needed to accelerate
the vehicle.  That applies to cars also.

> Granted, it rolls over the "medium", but the point is the difference
> being illustrated is that it is more efficient if you don't store a
> medium on board, but rather use one external to you.

Ah, but that was my point.  The less fuel you carry, the less fuel you
consume to move the fuel.  We're gonna be stuck with that unless we can 
figure out how to remove the Higg's bosons. :)

Bob