constant 1g acceleration is the only way to achieve relativistic effects and get a spacecraft across significant distances in a human lifetime as measured aboard the spacecraft.
Quote from: cjackson on 06/20/2014 04:50 amconstant 1g acceleration is the only way to achieve relativistic effects and get a spacecraft across significant distances in a human lifetime as measured aboard the spacecraft.Not really. I'd settle for measly 0.1g
Quote from: gospacex on 06/20/2014 08:38 amQuote from: cjackson on 06/20/2014 04:50 amconstant 1g acceleration is the only way to achieve relativistic effects and get a spacecraft across significant distances in a human lifetime as measured aboard the spacecraft.Not really. I'd settle for measly 0.1g I'm trying to do math in my head here. That would make for something like 12 years to get to Alpha Centauri
what about Bussard Ramjet. Couldn´t it provide enough fuel mass for fusioning your way to another star system at constant 1g acceleration?
Exactly what kind of technological leap and how much energy would be needed to accelerate/decelerate at 1g on a trip to another star system?
I understand that, barring wormholes, constant 1g acceleration is the only way to achieve relativistic effects and get a spacecraft across significant distances in a human lifetime as measured aboard the spacecraft.
It strongly suggests we are entirely alone, or worse, the unknown hurdle is still before us and our chances of surviving to achieve 1000th of c. are very slim indeed.
That involves quite a few assumptions...
Might be going rather off topic, but despite the mind boggling difficulty of interstellar travel when viewed in a single human lifetime, When considering the search for extraterrestrials the troubling problem is how mindboggly easy it appears.Even at a thousandth of c. an exponentially growing civilization should have been able to colonize every star in the galaxy about a hundred times over. The time to stop and colonize each world become irrelevant due to the rapidly growing number of worlds willing to engage in the next wave. It strongly suggests we are entirely alone, or worse, the unknown hurdle is still before us and our chances of surviving to achieve 1000th of c. are very slim indeed.
The odds of single cell life evolving may not be that low, but the odds of single cell organisms absorbing and then entering into symbiotic helper relationships with other single cell organisms that then allow for large multi-cellular organisms may be very, very, low.
Somebody has to be first. Might as well be us.