# stl collection new item *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 02 Dec 1999* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Michael Andre-Driussi *02 Dec 1999, 13:00* . . . which reminds me: I collect slower-than-light stardrives. I recently ran into something I haven't seen before, and I'll post a few notes about it in the hopes that someone else has seen its ilk before. (And yes, I am aware of the internet list of ftl/stl drives--it is a fine and wonderful thing, yet last time I looked, this one wasn't there; and it had been years since the list had been updated or ammended.) In this book, published in the late 80s, the starships use a "two stage" stardrive (but the stages aren't jettisoned, as you will see): the first stage fuses deutirium and creates an energy plasma exhaust; the second stage adds (presumably "small" if not "minute" amounts of) antimatter to the plasma, thereby enriching the plasma so that the vehicle can reach 90% lightspeed. I get the first stage (pretty standard stuff); it is the process of the second stage that I have never seen before, and I can't quite grasp how it is supposed to work. (Nevermind the usual mass ratio problems!) Has anybody seen any scientific speculation on such an odd device? That is to say, I'm wondering if a Bussard-type wrote this up and it was used by the author; or if another sf author used it somewhere else beforehand; or if the author dreamed it up him/her self. Thank you for your indulgence! =mantis= ---