3 ms·
You'd still have the mass of the spaceship to accelerate. The point of the dust cloud hypothesis is that it works if the whole thing is very light. If you have
by dmurray 7y ago
You'd still have the mass of the spaceship to accelerate. The point of the dust cloud hypothesis is that it works if the whole thing is very light.
If you have a spaceship inside the dust cloud with its own means of propulsion, you don't need the dust cloud to get the same effect. Just use the propulsion and paint the spaceship white if you want to reflect a lot of light, or black if you don't.
- therein 7y agoBut then the shape of this light-absorbent object would be resolvable. If you surround yourself with a cloud of absorbent material, you get "plausible deniability" to your expedition. When you're asked, "hey were your forces in our solar system", you get to say "are you sure it wasn't just a cloud".