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> reactionless thrust drives produce the same acceleration regardless of speed A) Where is that in the paper? Or am I missing something elementary to this? B)
by MPSimmons 10y ago
> reactionless thrust drives produce the same acceleration regardless of speed
A) Where is that in the paper? Or am I missing something elementary to this?
B) We don't even know if it produces the same level of thrust as speed increases. If it produces the same level of thrust across all speeds, then we have a problem, because as velocity increases, so does mass, and the same level of thrust would produce less acceleration over time, because of the increase in mass. Of course, that may only effect things at relativistic speeds.
- Tuna-Fish 10y agoSpeed relative to what, exactly? There are no preferred reference frames. A true reactionless thruster could always treat itself as if it's initial speed was 0, and so it took 0.5J to accelerate by 1m/s. Rockets do that too, but they get away with it because they stored the necessary extra energy into the kinetic energy of the fuel. If there was a reactionless thruster that did, in fact, get less efficient at higher speeds, then that would also be world-shattering physics news, because then you could measure it's performance after accelerating in different directions and eventually get a true rest frame that is privileged over the rest of the reference frames out of it.