3 ms·
Orion was great, but not quite that great. Alpha Centauri would have taken around 45 years one-way for an advanced ablation-cooled one-megaton pulse drive. Si
by randallsquared 16y ago
Orion was great, but not quite that great. Alpha Centauri would have taken around 45 years one-way for an advanced ablation-cooled one-megaton pulse drive. Since it wouldn't get any faster than 10% light speed, time dilation would be negligible (I assume you were thinking about time dilation, though the distance to AC doesn't really permit the kind of difference you describe).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)#Interstellar_missions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...
- cma 16y agoWell, the accelerations involved here would cause the most significant time dilation, right? I was going off of memory of the chapter "Saturn by 1970" in Dyson's "Disturbing the Universe". I probably mixed this up with something else; traveling at 1G acceleration to Orion (not in orion =P), would take 30 years--3100 years would pass by on earth.
- randallsquared 16y agoThe article I linked has some interesting specifics and discussion of Dyson's two interstellar Orion designs. In general, 1g for a year gets you fairly close to light speed, and time dilation really starts to have a noticeable effect. If you can accelerate at 1g indefinitely, then longer journeys are proportionately more reduced.