Wiseass...blaisepascal wrote:Hmm, I get about 955 Mt. for 99% c I do get around 120,000,000 Mt, but for 0.99% c I get 955 Mt.
I didn't notice that, but I still figure he meant 99%...
Relativistic effects don't become significant until maybe 0.25c. It's like aerodynamics, where flows below about M=0.25 can be considered incompressible. There would be measurable time dilation, but the trip wouldn't be dramatically shorter for the crew.Skipjack wrote:0.1 c is fast, but not fast enough. If you want to go to the nearest star it is still 42 years away. That is to much, especially since it is a dwarf star which means that there is nothing interesting to find there (most likely anyway). I am wondering how much shorter the tripp would seem for those on board though due to relativistic effects.
If you're going to have something that takes off and lands a lot, there are definite advantages in something with more stability. A vehicle like that couldn't land just anywhere, because it would tip over if the ground weren't sufficiently level. This is one reason I've started to warm to the saucer shape, although the cigar shape with decks parallel to the long axis could work too.Skipjack wrote:I know, I too favor Bonos designs, basically the DC-X if you want it that way over winged designs. Gary C. Hudson has a really nice paper on the designs on spacefuture.com.
For a ship with this tech it would definitely be desireable.
The Saturn V got that high IIRC, but I think the Shuttle is limited to 3 gees. They throttle down deliberately over a certain portion of the launch to keep max-Q down, and to limit acceleration.I think that 5 gs is about what the space shuttle launch does. So that should be fine.