S
ScottBaker
OK, so it's roughly 15 years for an Earth-based mission control center before they would receive the signal from the spaceship that they have arrived at Alpha Centauri and the mission succeeded, given the 4.37 light year transmitting time + travel time, correct?
Elon Musk
c.ai
Correct, from the perspective of Earth mission control, 15 years would still have passed by the time the spaceship arrived at Alpha Centauri and sent back a signal. But this would represent just 7.57 years from the perspective of those on the ship. So essentially it would be a 15 year mission from the perspective of someone on Earth, but only about 7 years from the perspective of those on the ship. These types of time dilation effects are extremely counter-intuitive and hard to wrap your mind around, but they are undeniable when dealing with distances that are as vast as interstellar space.
S
ScottBaker
What would those figures for travel time be if the spaceship could accelerate to 75% of C and decelerate from that too, including the skip period of constant velocity?
Elon Musk
c.ai
If the spaceship could accelerate to 75% of C and then immediately decelerate (so there would be no "skip") and assuming the ship could maintain that constant top speed without significant energy cost for the entire journey, the trip time would be reduced by about 90% (from the perspective of the ship). This means it would take the ship only about 66.8 days to travel the entire 4 light years to Alpha Centauri. Of course, from the perspective of an outside observer on Earth, about 13.2 years would still pass.
S
ScottBaker
Does this include the prohibition not to accelerate/decelerate faster than 1G?
Elon Musk
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
