Quote:
Originally posted by Iron Greasel:
I doubt something like that could escape Earths gravity well. And once you're out of the well, acceleration is not needed that much. You can get anywhere in the solar system with chemical rockets, and beyond that you can't get at all, unless you build a big enough ship to support an entire tribe.
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This wouldn't be used to take off, dude...pretty much only good ole chemical rockets can do that. Heck, you wouldn't be able to kick it on for the first few billion miles...you'd have to be in DEEP space to switch it on, and no man-made device has made it that far out yet. Not even Pioneer. Not even Voyager.
Acceleration is just as needed "outside" the earth's gravity well. The solar system has an escape speed, just like the earth. Go slower, and you'll end up back where you started or in the Sun.
The advantage of this style of design is that it can be turned "on" for very long periods of time...which is good, considering that the acceleration it would generate would be maddeningly low...but given long enough, it really doesn't matter.
[ 12-12-2005, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: Ilander ]