The Apu-Punchau Eclipse

Jeff Wilson · 11 Jun 2008, 01:07 · from 2008-June.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:07:36 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Apu-Punchau Eclipse
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370806100930j27eed455j2f0108135077d988 at mail.gmail.com>
References: <cf4.2e47ed06.357fd706 at aol.com> <484E96F1.1010805 at io.com>
	<1f7617370806100930j27eed455j2f0108135077d988 at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <484F2558.1050806 at io.com>

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> Tzadkiel's Ship -- *counting its sails*, is significantly bigger than a mile
> in diameter, at least for purposes of shadow-casting. Solar sails have
> to be (a) very very large and (b) quite opaque in order to be effective.

LEO velocity is about 5 miles per second, so each second of eclipse is 5 
miles worth of ship, plus the penumbra penalty (altitude times twice the 
tangent of the sun's arc width (0.5 degrees)). There would also need to 
be some means of maneuvering the entire ship within a moment or a 
massive number of crew available to trim the sails in a like period of time.

The mentioned but not seen tender could also have been used, as it seems 
to have some indefinite capacity and size.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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