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Re:A Visionary Project Aims for Alpha Centauri, a Star 4.37 ... by vacri on Tuesday April 12, 2016 @08:04PM (#11484653)
> The electronics in precision guided mortars in the US army survive 50,000g

And then are immediately 'disposed of'. That is, quite literally, a fire-and-forget problem; those electronics don't have to keep working for months or years.

Re:A Visionary Project Aims for Alpha Centauri, a Star 4.37 ... by XorNot on Wednesday April 13, 2016 @05:22AM (#11486817)
Yes but they do have to keep working after those 50,000G. Which is the thing: provided they survive acceleration, the remaining problem is cosmic rays. But we're talking about such small craft here that we'll be able to launch literally hundreds, probably thousands - the real challenge is getting the 100GW laser array built. Once you have it...no reason not to use it.
Re:A Visionary Project Aims for Alpha Centauri, a Star 4.37 ... by jessriedel on Saturday April 16, 2016 @02:24PM (#11511683)
Similar to XorNot, I don't really see the mechanism by which high acceleration could substantially reduce long-term reliability of the solid state electronics without breaking them completely.