Subject:
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Re: Hypothetical design question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Jun 2003 04:07:26 GMT
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Viewed:
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486 times
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In lugnet.space, Leonard Hoffman wrote:
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I think the biggest problem for a ship accelerating towards light speed is
not particles, but energy consuption. remember, the faster you go, the more
energy you need to propell yourself, and this increases exponentially.
essentially, accelerating matter to light speed would require an infinite
amount of energy, so if you are going close to light speed, and already have
the technology to do that, you’d probably also have figured out how to deal
with microparticles.
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-snip-
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-Jr.Mar.Hoffman
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Now I’m going to start this off with the fact I’m no physicist. I’m not an
expert. And everything I’m about to say is relayed from endless conversations
I’ve had with my father about space travel.
You see, my father worked for NASA for a great deal of time (30 years+?), and he
explained it to me this way.
The energy needed to accelerate in space is negligable, due to the lack of
friction due to atmosphere and terrain. You see, here on earth, you must use
more and more energy to go faster and faster not because you need that energy to
reach that speed, but because you need that energy to sustain the speed.
Atmosphere, gravity, terrain, all adds friction, fighting against your momentum,
and slows you down (unless you’re flying and terrain means very little).
In deep space, away from serious gravitation forces (like stars and planets)
there is little to no friction or forces to slow you down. Ergo it takes almost
no energy to sustain speed. You only need a little push to start you off.
This is why NASA scientists are looking into a pulse drive for deep space
travel. Pulsing the engine for acceleration and allowing momentum to cover the
distances.
That’s what the Apollo astronauts did to get to the moon. Short, controlled
burns. Too long of a burn, and they’d speed up too fast and miss their target
and crash or go flying far far away. Too short, and they’d slow down due to the
earth and moon’s gravity and could possibly crash.
Theoretically, any engine in deep space could allow you to travel to light speed
or very close to it, assuming you have enough fuel and time on your hands to
accelerate that long. Granted, the FASTER you want to accelerate, the more
engery you’ll have to use.
So basically if you had a large, low acceleration engine on the back of your
ship, you could reach almost any speed, as long as you left it turned on
constantly and were willing to wait. It would provide constant acceleration
with very little to know friction to slow it down.
As for errant particles, I like the idea of a magnetic wake shield.
--Anthony
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Hypothetical design question
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| (...) Ask your dad about that again. My comment was based on readings from Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time" and "Universe in a Nutshell", as well as various online physics FAQ. Granted, in space you don't have to worry about air friction or (...) (21 years ago, 25-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Hypothetical design question
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| (...) I think the biggest problem for a ship accelerating towards light speed is not particles, but energy consuption. remember, the faster you go, the more energy you need to propell yourself, and this increases exponentially. essentially, (...) (21 years ago, 23-Jun-03, to lugnet.space, FTX)
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