3 ms·
With a ship that accelerates at a constant 1G, you can go pretty much anywhere in the universe in less than 50 (subjective) years [1]. And when I say anywhere,
by thrance 2y ago
With a ship that accelerates at a constant 1G, you can go pretty much anywhere in the universe in less than 50 (subjective) years [1]. And when I say anywhere, I mean anywhere.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/s4tbry/oc_space_travel_with_constant_acceleration/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/s4tbry/oc_...
- diggan 2y agoMaybe I'm mistaken, but that graph would be for passing by places, as it doesn't include the time it would take to slow down from that constant acceleration, if you want to actually visit any other places than your zipping spaceship.
- creato 2y agoThe title of the graph says it is for accelerating half way, then decelerating the other half
- aardvark179 2y agoThis comes up every time this sort of thing is discussed on HN. Sustained 1 g acceleration takes a staggering amount of fuel, and carrying enough to slow down again makes it even worse.
- thrance 2y agoIt's definitely sci-fi for now, but we can always imagine some far out way to store energy much more densely than antimatter. A huge amount of photons orbiting a micro black hole on its Schwarzschild radius, would only weigh as much as the black hole and let you store a potentially infinite amount of energy.
- aardvark179 2y agoNo, they would have as much mass as the black hole plus the energy of the photons (they still distort spacetime and exert a gravitational force, and have inertial mass) and you still have to move that mass with you. You may have increased your fuel density, but you haven’t reduced its mass compared to antimattter, and you still have not dodged the relativistic rocket equation.
- shikon7 2y agoThat's exactly the point. The limiting factor to space travel is how to achieve acceleration, and not the acceleration limits of the human body.
- thechao 2y agoThe CMB becomes deadly well before these speeds (the rear facing light burns you; the forward facing light nukes you). That's not even accounting for objects in space, or the light from stars, which will be amplified according to the Lorentz factor. EDIT: here's a small discussion: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/196171 https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/196171 There's a whole PBS SpaceTime episode about this, but I can't find it, rn.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoAnd at high enough speeds, you don’t want to be carrying anything metal with you, eddy currents as you pass through magnetic fields will melt your wedding ring.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- db48x 2y agoA mere engineering problem.