Propulsion Performance Statistics

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Statistics for various kinds of Propulsion Technology used in the Orion Arm

Modosophont Ship Drive Stats (Typical Mass fraction 0.5 to .98)

Type	Isp	delta-v, km/sec	Thrust to Weight
Chemical rocket
Cryogenic	400+	10	100
Stable	200+	8	80
Hybrid	500+	12	120
Stellar Thermal	200	5	1000
Photo-electric (Ion)	~2000	30	.001
Chemical Photon
Standard	450+	15	20
Stellar	~9000	100	.0001
Internal Fission
Solid	800+	20	30
Liquid	1800+	50	80
Plasma	~8000	100	50
External Pulsed Plasma
Basic	~5000	60	5
Developed	~20,000	180	20
Advanced	~100,000	800	100
External Fission/Fusion
Basic Fission	~30,000	200	200
Fission/Fusion	~1000,000	5000	300
Internal Fusion
Basic	~1000,000	8000	100
Advanced	~3000,000	30,000	500

Proportion of Selected Drive Types used in 10600 AT

Drive	Inner Sphere	Middle Regions	Outer Volumes
Various Low S:	0.5%	3%	4%
Antimatter Drive	0.1%	3%	4%
Conversion Drive	16%	7%	3%
Conversion Ramjet	39%	45%	41%
Displacement Drive	4%	3%	1.4%
Halo Drive	6%	1%	0.5%
Voidships	1%	1%	0.1%

Typical Performance Parameters

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Drive	Cruise velocity	Max Velocity	Range, LY	Typical Acceleration	Notes
Various Low S:	0.01c	0.1c	25	0001-10g	Fission, Fusion, Amat catalysed, etc.
Antimatter Drive	0.2c	0.7c	100	1-20g	Early Conversion Drive
Conversion Drive	0.84c	0.88c	200	1-50g	Monopole Fusion
Conversion Ramjet	0.84c	0.96c	10,000+	1-20g	Monopole Ramjet
Displacement Drive	0.84c	0.98c	1000	1-100g	Reactionless
Halo Drive	0.84c	0.99c	5000	1-1000g	Reactionless, g-compensated
Void Ships	0.999+c	0.999+c	5000+	N/A	Reactionless, g and time-dilation not applicable

Relativistic Distortion

The following shows the amount of distortion in length, mass, and time, that occurs in a ship travelling at non-relativistic, sub-relativistic, and relativistic velocity (as indicated by percentage of c - the speed of light). The closer to the speed of light a ship is, the greater the Lorentz contraction, hence the more compressed the ship appears to an external observer.
Relativistic Mass also increases, as does time dilation, but rest mass remains constant. So for a 100 meter long vessel travelling at 95% of c its length (along the axis of movement) to an external observer would be 31 meters, its relativistic mass would have increased almost 3 times, and for every normal hour that passes the crew only age 18.7 minutes.

Velocity % c	Length (metres)	Mass (tonnes)	Ship hour (in minutes)
0	100	100	60
10	99.50	100.50	59.52
20	97.98	102.06	58.70
30	95.39	104.83	57.20
40	91.65	109.11	55.00
50	86.60	115.47	52.10
60	80.00	125.00	48.00
70	71.41	140.03	42.75
80	60.00	166.67	36.00
90	43.59	229.42	26.18
95	31.22	320.26	18.71
99	14.11	708.88	8.83
99.9	4.47	2,236.63	2.78
99.99	0.71	14,142.20	1.17
100	zero	infinity	zero

Interplanetary Transport

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Metric Engineering

Propulsion Technology

Ships

Text by Mauk Mcamuk and Chris Shaeffer
Initially published on 28 April 2009.