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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
linuxgal@techhub.social ("🌈 ☯️Teresita🐧👭") wrote:
For a human to visit another star system in his lifetime requires velocity change on the order of 20 percent that of light, twice, once to accelerate and a second time to stop. The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation says this isn't happening, not with fission thermal engines, which we've researched, and not even with fusion propulsion, which we haven't. The presence of interstellar hydrogen would require double shielding, one for the drive and one for the forward bulkhead, which over the span of the flight would become equally radioactive. Micrometeorites striking at 0.2c would be devastating, but they are statistically inevitable. A slower multi-generational star ship would have to be perfectly self-regenerating for centuries despite being much smaller than the scale of a planetary biosphere. Supplies and expertise to keep the ship in working order would have to be maintained for centuries in a dictatorship so absolute not one act of sabotage or terrorism or even a work slowdown could be permitted to succeed. #03
