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Hypothetical question regarding star travel, acceleration, and c?
Suppose that the technology was available to construct a spacecraft that had a maximum speed of something significant with respect to c, say 0.5c. Let's suppose that that spacecraft is a manned spacecraft.
Am I correct in thinking that there's nothing intrinsically life-prohibiting abut a human travelling inside a vessel that has a constant velocity of 0.5c? And would I also be correct in thinking that the only potentially prohibiting aspect of the situation would be actually reaching that velocity in anything remotely resembling a timely fashion. i.e. that the only potentially restrictive element here would be any enormous acceleration involved, and that if the velocity of 0.5c was reached by acceleration at a level acceptable to humans, then there would be nothing intrinsically limiting to the situation?
4 Answers
- ronwizfrLv 71 decade agoFavourite answer
The main risk would be the impact of micro meteorites at that speed, the kinetic energy of even a sand grain would be tremendous.
That said, it takes about a 5 months of acceleration to reach 0.5c and a year to reach 0.9c when the acceleration is a constant 1 g (so as to simulate earth gravity during acceleration). A trip the Alpha Centauri would there consist of 5 months of acceleration, about 7.5 years of coasting at 0.5c followed by 5 months of deceleration. The on board time would be reduced by some 10% due to relativistic effects.
- Jerry HLv 71 decade ago
You are correct that it isn't life threatening. It doesn't even require high acceleration, if you have time. The limiting factor is energy. It would take an enormous amount of energy to accelerate a vessel capable of carrying a human being up to .5c -- far more than we currently know how to store in any useful size container or apply in any kind of ground based launcher. The Bussard ram jet is a concept that attempts to solve that problem, but no one knows how to actually build one.
Another problem at that speed is any significant matter the vessel encounters moving the other way will impact at .5c, likely with catastrophic effect. We currently don't know how to shield against anything like that.
Source(s): High school physics. - desilusLv 44 years ago
specific, you're ultimate. travelling at a relentless velocity, there is not any acceleration. with out acceleration there is not any rigidity exhibited upon a mass. As to reaching the rate of 0.5c, a well timed trend may well be out of the question if meaning having a sustained acceleration extra beneficial than 7 situations Earth's floor gravity.
- Alpha-OriLv 41 decade ago
Yes you are right. Einstein's special relativity tells you that the laws of physics are the s same for everybody in uniform motion. So a civilisation living in a space ship at .5c relative to Earth or even at .99c would be able to live perfectly well... They would not feel squeezed or stretched, time would appear to run normal (for them) and so on...
