On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 10:00 PM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:

 

Does Traveller contragrav employ a means that requires constant power
input?  We don't know. 

That seems to be a given.  If it has a power requirement to operate, that implies that lacking such power, it will no longer operate.

(I mean, this is how everything else with a power input requirement to operate works; I see no reason why CG should be different somehow.)

 

All we know is that the vehicle design
sequence requires that contragrav lift units on vehicles be designed
to consume power. 

Yup.

 

This would be perfectly compatible with a device
that does not consume power for a stationary hover, but does consume
significant amounts of power when the vehicle is rising or
accelerating. 

This seems unlikely to me.  Hover implies ongoing thrust sufficient to provide lift equal to the weight of the hovering object in the local G field (or in other words, the mutual attractive force between the local mass and the hovering object.)

If you want to support the object for some period of time, you need to continue to provide power for that entire period of time, sufficient power for the CG to generate sufficient lift.

"Gravity never sleeps."

Dan

-- 

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine kook." -Alan Morgan

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