a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
kleinbl00  ·  2025 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Relativistic Star Ship Calculator for Einstein's Universe

Savage. Such things shall be accomplished through VASIMR and Bussard ramjets. Only peons would lug their own fuel around! And yes I know that VASIMR doesn't get around this problem don't interfere with my dudgeon!

At some point several years back some wonk pointed out that we have no reason to assume the interstellar medium is uniform and that, erm, local space around us might actually be kinda lean. So... you could fire up your ramjet, set sail for the second star on the horizon and then flame out 400AU past Pluto.

I think Robert Park used to do the 1G-to-Alpha Centauri schtick with like a VW Beetle. Even that took an appalling enough amount of energy that nobody asked him about manned space flight for the rest of the quarter. For my part, having watched an office building full of LOX launch a satellite the size of a Honda at the cost of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, I've become a lot more jaded about leaving the stellar nursery myself.