 In order to improve on this performance while reducing size and cost, Dyson also considered an alternative "momentum limited" pusher plate design where an ablation coating of the exposed surface is substituted to get rid of the excess heat.The limitation is then set by the capacity of shock absorbers to transfer momentum from the impulsively accelerated pusher plate to the smoothly accelerated vehicle.Dyson calculated that the properties of available materials limited the velocity transferred by each explosion to ~30 meters per second independent of the size and nature of the explosion.