SLD
Contributor
That is if you had a space station somewhere outside of say Jupiter’s orbit, and you built a huge rocket ship and simply set it on a course away from the sun, towards a far away star, with a simple acceleration of 1g, what speeds would you achieve and how long could you sustain such an acceleration realistically?
I guess it would depend on the fuel type. But if you could sustain a 1g acceleration for a long period of time you’d reach relativistic speeds after several hours. 3600 seconds x 9.8m/s/s.
Leaving earth orbit on chemical rockets we achieve an acceleration of 3g’s for several minutes on rockets that are larger compared to humans. So maybe in space we could build a rocket that is several kilometers long, mostly fuel, but a sizable living space, And accelerate it at 1g towards a star and reach it within a lifetime without an issue. Of course at some point we will need to reverse course and slow it down at 1g to reach orbit So we don’t fly by.
I once read that given a continuous 1g acceleration, you could explore the universe within a lifetime, due to relativistic time and space dilation. 1 g solves the problem of gravity. But is such an idea utterly unrealistic because one could never build such a rocket? Would some kind of nuclear powered rocket work? It seems to me that a nuclear explosion type rocket, assuming you could control it, would give you far more than a 1g acceleration And you couldn’t sustain life inside such a protected capsule. You’d pull too many g’s. Maybe there’s a middle ground, but all I keep reading about are projects that give us a much slower, but very long, sustained acceleration, e.g. light sails.
of course why sustain the acceleration after reaching speeds of, say, over .9c? Due to relativity, you aren’t likely to go much faster. And will you still feel the acceleration as 1g once relativistic effects really begin to kick in? I guess I’m still confused about the impact of special relativity on the travelers v. those who remain earthbound.
I guess it would depend on the fuel type. But if you could sustain a 1g acceleration for a long period of time you’d reach relativistic speeds after several hours. 3600 seconds x 9.8m/s/s.
Leaving earth orbit on chemical rockets we achieve an acceleration of 3g’s for several minutes on rockets that are larger compared to humans. So maybe in space we could build a rocket that is several kilometers long, mostly fuel, but a sizable living space, And accelerate it at 1g towards a star and reach it within a lifetime without an issue. Of course at some point we will need to reverse course and slow it down at 1g to reach orbit So we don’t fly by.
I once read that given a continuous 1g acceleration, you could explore the universe within a lifetime, due to relativistic time and space dilation. 1 g solves the problem of gravity. But is such an idea utterly unrealistic because one could never build such a rocket? Would some kind of nuclear powered rocket work? It seems to me that a nuclear explosion type rocket, assuming you could control it, would give you far more than a 1g acceleration And you couldn’t sustain life inside such a protected capsule. You’d pull too many g’s. Maybe there’s a middle ground, but all I keep reading about are projects that give us a much slower, but very long, sustained acceleration, e.g. light sails.
of course why sustain the acceleration after reaching speeds of, say, over .9c? Due to relativity, you aren’t likely to go much faster. And will you still feel the acceleration as 1g once relativistic effects really begin to kick in? I guess I’m still confused about the impact of special relativity on the travelers v. those who remain earthbound.