email from space, I mean in space

"Flight Of The Dragonfly" was the original Analog sci-fi serialization
that Dr. Forward made. He later expanded it the "Rocheworld" series,
following the crew on their way out from Earth and on arrival in the
Barnard's Star system; the later books in the series he did with his
wife and daughter.

If you look at the technical appendix to Rocheworld (the first book in
the expanded series), he put the power levels from the 1000 solar
pumped lasers in sun-synchronous orbit around Mercury as a bit over
1300 terawatts (~100 times our current electrical power consumption).

By the way, the title "Rocheworld" comes from the French scientist's
name who first worked out the Roche limit; this is the tidal effect that
causes a double-planet system in Forward's universe version of the
Barnard's Star system to share a common atmosphere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit

Indeed, highly recommended (especially the later books).

Shane

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile" wrote: