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No, you understand the issues correctly. It is the universe that's lacking some concepts, thereby confusing some ideas.

You are correct, even 1g acceleration soon makes speeds rather spectacular and unsafe. For example, it would allow to go from Earth to Mars at their farthest (if they're both in aphelion and on opposite sides of the Sun) in about 10 days (50% accel, 50% decel and detour around Sun).

This distance is 401 million kilometers, maximum speed will be about 1.4% of c.

It doesn't sound much, but taking into account zodiacal dust this will mean that ship, encountering a speck of dust on the bigger end of the scale (which is 0.1 pg to 0.1 mg), will be hit with a force of anything between 15 MJ to 30 GJ (for comparison 155 HE artillery shell produces about 55 MJ, 10kT tactical nuke is about 480 GJ). Since dust density is about 5 particles per cm3, this would be near-constant bombardment of the ship's bow...

I'd say no ship would survive that, double-hull, anti-spalling and all that...

The other problem is sudden loss of gravity. Not so much for humans, but for the spaceships themselves... Space ships must have very robust structure, to deal both with positive and negative g forces, and those are very different creatures in terms of what ship herself, it's equipment and parts can be subject to. Contrary to popular belief, this is a huge problem for engineers.

And, of course, there is the question of breathable atmosphere inside of a ship... This is also tremendous force in space. We can build light on Earth, because atmospheric pressure is equalized both inside and outside your house, car, whatever. But remove atmosphere from one side of that equation and you have either boom or splat. There is an awesome video on the internet showing what happens to a railcar cistern when air is pumped out of it... [Of course, there are vessels built to withstand that (i.e. a submarine easily deals with 1 atm of outside pressure on it's hull), but I think it's still an awesome visualisation of the atmosphere problem] This air pressure is number one structural concern in every vessel we currently have in space (as a humanity). Definitely ISS has that issue in spades (inflatable compartments notwithstanding, no matter how cool they are - and they are very cool!!). And, of course, atmosphere has a mass too - which is 1.3 kg/m3, so if ship is big enough it needs to be accounted for.

Yet another problem is mass distribution. It is not a great example, but astronauts and their equipment/cargo is carefully laid out, not just piled on top of one another... And there's a reason EVERYTHING there is strapped down - astronauts including (and they're not moving during boost for that reason as well; though it's hard to do anything at 3g). Sudden, even small change in distribution of mass inside ship during accel/decel and results can be catastrophic. Now, space shuttle is not the Donnager, but those rules still apply...

So, bottom-lining it all, I agree with you that there's a lot missing in there to complete the picture...

No, you understand the issues correctly. It is the universe that's lacking some concepts, thereby confusing some ideas.

You are correct, even 1g acceleration soon makes speeds rather spectacular and unsafe. For example, it would allow to go from Earth to Mars at their farthest (if they're both in aphelion and on opposite sides of the Sun) in about 10 days (50% accel, 50% decel and detour around Sun).

This distance is 401 million kilometers, maximum speed will be about 1.4% of c.

It doesn't sound much, but taking into account zodiacal dust this will mean that ship, encountering a speck of dust on the bigger end of the scale (which is 0.1 pg to 0.1 mg), will be hit with a force of anything between 15 MJ to 30 GJ (for comparison 155 HE artillery shell produces about 55 MJ, 10kT tactical nuke is about 480 GJ). Since dust density is about 5 particles per cm3, this would be near-constant bombardment of the ship's bow...

I'd say no ship would survive that, double-hull, anti-spalling and all that...

The other problem is sudden loss of gravity. Not so much for humans, but for the spaceships themselves... Space ships must have very robust structure, to deal both with positive and negative g forces, and those are very different creatures in terms of what ship herself, it's equipment and parts can be subject to. Contrary to popular belief, this is a huge problem for engineers.

And, of course, there is the question of breathable atmosphere inside of a ship... This is also tremendous force in space. We can build light on Earth, because atmospheric pressure is equalized both inside and outside your house, car, whatever. But remove atmosphere from one side of that equation and you have either boom or splat. There is an awesome video on the internet showing what happens to a railcar cistern when air is pumped out of it... [Of course, there are vessels built to withstand that (i.e. a submarine easily deals with 1 atm of outside pressure on it's hull), but I think it's still an awesome visualisation of the atmosphere problem] This air pressure is number one structural concern in every vessel we currently have in space (as a humanity). Definitely ISS has that issue in spades (inflatable compartments notwithstanding, no matter how cool they are - and they are very cool!!). And, of course, atmosphere has a mass too - which is 1.3 kg/m3, so if ship is big enough it needs to be accounted for.

Yet another problem is mass distribution. It is not a great example, but in a space shuttle astronauts and their equipment/cargo are carefully laid out, not just piled on top of one another... And there's a reason EVERYTHING there is strapped down - astronauts including (and they're not moving during boost for that reason as well; though it's hard to do anything at 3g). Sudden, even small change in distribution of mass inside ship during accel/decel and results can be catastrophic. Now, space shuttle is not the Donnager, but those rules still apply...

So, bottom-lining it all, I agree with you that there's a lot missing in there to complete the picture...

No, you understand the issues correctly. It is the universe that's lacking some concepts, thereby confusing some ideas.

You are correct, even 1g acceleration soon makes speeds rather spectacular and unsafe. For example, it would allow to go from Earth to Mars at their farthest (if they're both in aphelion and on opposite sides of the Sun) in about 10 days (50% accel, 50% decel and detour around Sun).

This distance is 401 million kilometers, maximum speed will be about 1.4% of c.

It doesn't sound much, but taking into account zodiacal dust this will mean that ship, encountering a speck of dust on the bigger end of the scale (which is 0.1 pg to 0.1 mg), will be hit with a force of anything between 15 MJ to 30 GJ (for comparison 155 HE artillery shell produces about 55 MJ, 10kT tactical nuke is about 480 GJ). Since dust density is about 5 particles per cm3, this would be near-constant bombardment of the ship's bow...

I'd say no ship would survive that, double-hull, anti-spalling and all that...

The other problem is sudden loss of gravity. Not so much for humans, but for the spaceships themselves... Space ships must have very robust structure, to deal both with positive and negative g forces, and those are very different creatures in terms of what ship herself, it's equipment and parts can be subject to. Contrary to popular belief, this is a huge problem for engineers.

And, of course, there is the question of breathable atmosphere inside of a ship... This is also tremendous force in space. We can build light on Earth, because atmospheric pressure is equalized both inside and outside your house, car, whatever. But remove atmosphere from one side of that equation and you have either boom or splat. There is an awesome video on the internet showing what happens to a railcar cistern when air is pumped out of it... This air pressure is number one structural concern in every vessel we currently have in space (as a humanity). Definitely ISS has that issue in spades (inflatable compartments notwithstanding, no matter how cool they are - and they are very cool!!). And, of course, atmosphere has a mass too - which is 1.3 kg/m3, so if ship is big enough it needs to be accounted for.

Yet another problem is mass distribution. It is not a great example, but astronauts and their equipment/cargo is carefully laid out, not just piled on top of one another... And there's a reason EVERYTHING there is strapped down - astronauts including (and they're not moving during boost for that reason as well; though it's hard to do anything at 3g). Sudden, even small change in distribution of mass inside ship during accel/decel and results can be catastrophic. Now, space shuttle is not the Donnager, but those rules still apply...

So, bottom-lining it all, I agree with you that there's a lot missing in there to complete the picture...

No, you understand the issues correctly. It is the universe that's lacking some concepts, thereby confusing some ideas.

You are correct, even 1g acceleration soon makes speeds rather spectacular and unsafe. For example, it would allow to go from Earth to Mars at their farthest (if they're both in aphelion and on opposite sides of the Sun) in about 10 days (50% accel, 50% decel and detour around Sun).

This distance is 401 million kilometers, maximum speed will be about 1.4% of c.

It doesn't sound much, but taking into account zodiacal dust this will mean that ship, encountering a speck of dust on the bigger end of the scale (which is 0.1 pg to 0.1 mg), will be hit with a force of anything between 15 MJ to 30 GJ (for comparison 155 HE artillery shell produces about 55 MJ, 10kT tactical nuke is about 480 GJ). Since dust density is about 5 particles per cm3, this would be near-constant bombardment of the ship's bow...

I'd say no ship would survive that, double-hull, anti-spalling and all that...

The other problem is sudden loss of gravity. Not so much for humans, but for the spaceships themselves... Space ships must have very robust structure, to deal both with positive and negative g forces, and those are very different creatures in terms of what ship herself, it's equipment and parts can be subject to. Contrary to popular belief, this is a huge problem for engineers.

And, of course, there is the question of breathable atmosphere inside of a ship... This is also tremendous force in space. We can build light on Earth, because atmospheric pressure is equalized both inside and outside your house, car, whatever. But remove atmosphere from one side of that equation and you have either boom or splat. There is an awesome video on the internet showing what happens to a railcar cistern when air is pumped out of it... [Of course, there are vessels built to withstand that (i.e. a submarine easily deals with 1 atm of outside pressure on it's hull), but I think it's still an awesome visualisation of the atmosphere problem] This air pressure is number one structural concern in every vessel we currently have in space (as a humanity). Definitely ISS has that issue in spades (inflatable compartments notwithstanding, no matter how cool they are - and they are very cool!!). And, of course, atmosphere has a mass too - which is 1.3 kg/m3, so if ship is big enough it needs to be accounted for.

Yet another problem is mass distribution. It is not a great example, but astronauts and their equipment/cargo is carefully laid out, not just piled on top of one another... And there's a reason EVERYTHING there is strapped down - astronauts including (and they're not moving during boost for that reason as well; though it's hard to do anything at 3g). Sudden, even small change in distribution of mass inside ship during accel/decel and results can be catastrophic. Now, space shuttle is not the Donnager, but those rules still apply...

So, bottom-lining it all, I agree with you that there's a lot missing in there to complete the picture...

No, you understand the issues correctly. It is the universe that's lacking some concepts, thereby confusing some ideas.

You are correct, even 1g acceleration soon makes speeds rather spectacular and unsafe. For example, it would allow to go from Earth to Mars at their farthest (if they're both in aphelion and on opposite sides of the Sun) in about 10 days (50% accel, 50% decel and detour around Sun).

This distance is 401 million kilometers, maximum speed will be about 1.4% of c.

It doesn't sound much, but taking into account zodiacal dust this will mean that ship, encountering a speck of dust on the bigger end of the scale (which is 0.1 pg to 0.1 mg), will be hit with a force of anything between 15 MJ to 30 GJ (for comparison 155 HE artillery shell produces about 55 MJ, 10kT tactical nuke is about 480 GJ). Since dust density is about 5 particles per cm3, this would be near-constant bombardment of the ship's bow...

I'd say no ship would survive that, double-hull, anti-spalling and all that...

The other problem is sudden loss of gravity. Not so much for humans, but for the spaceships themselves... Space ships must have very robust structure, to deal both with positive and negative g forces, and those are very different creatures in terms of what ship herself, it's equipment and parts can be subject to. Contrary to popular belief, this is a huge problem for engineers.

And, of course, there is the question of breathable atmosphere inside of a ship... This is also tremendous force in space. We can build light on Earth, because atmospheric pressure is equalized both inside and outside your house, car, whatever. But remove atmosphere from one side of that equation and you have either boom or splat. There is an awesome video on the internet showing what happens to a railcar cistern when air is pumped out of it...

Yet another problem is mass distribution. It is not a great example, but astronauts and their equipment/cargo is carefully laid out, not just piled on top of one another... And there's a reason EVERYTHING there is strapped down - astronauts including (and they're not moving during boost for that reason as well; though it's hard to do anything at 3g). Sudden, even small change in distribution of mass inside ship during accel/decel and results can be catastrophic. Now, space shuttle is not the Donnager, but those rules still apply...

So, bottom-lining it all, I agree with you that there's a lot missing in there to complete the picture...

No, you understand the issues correctly. It is the universe that's lacking some concepts, thereby confusing some ideas.

You are correct, even 1g acceleration soon makes speeds rather spectacular and unsafe. For example, it would allow to go from Earth to Mars at their farthest (if they're both in aphelion and on opposite sides of the Sun) in about 10 days (50% accel, 50% decel and detour around Sun).

This distance is 401 million kilometers, maximum speed will be about 1.4% of c.

It doesn't sound much, but taking into account zodiacal dust this will mean that ship, encountering a speck of dust on the bigger end of the scale (which is 0.1 pg to 0.1 mg), will be hit with a force of anything between 15 MJ to 30 GJ (for comparison 155 HE artillery shell produces about 55 MJ, 10kT tactical nuke is about 480 GJ). Since dust density is about 5 particles per cm3, this would be near-constant bombardment of the ship's bow...

I'd say no ship would survive that, double-hull, anti-spalling and all that...

The other problem is sudden loss of gravity. Not so much for humans, but for the spaceships themselves... Space ships must have very robust structure, to deal both with positive and negative g forces, and those are very different creatures in terms of what ship herself, it's equipment and parts can be subject to. Contrary to popular belief, this is a huge problem for engineers.

And, of course, there is the question of breathable atmosphere inside of a ship... This is also tremendous force in space. We can build light on Earth, because atmospheric pressure is equalized both inside and outside your house, car, whatever. But remove atmosphere from one side of that equation and you have either boom or splat. There is an awesome video on the internet showing what happens to a railcar cistern when air is pumped out of it... This air pressure is number one structural concern in every vessel we currently have in space (as a humanity). Definitely ISS has that issue in spades (inflatable compartments notwithstanding, no matter how cool they are - and they are very cool!!). And, of course, atmosphere has a mass too - which is 1.3 kg/m3, so if ship is big enough it needs to be accounted for.

Yet another problem is mass distribution. It is not a great example, but astronauts and their equipment/cargo is carefully laid out, not just piled on top of one another... And there's a reason EVERYTHING there is strapped down - astronauts including (and they're not moving during boost for that reason as well; though it's hard to do anything at 3g). Sudden, even small change in distribution of mass inside ship during accel/decel and results can be catastrophic. Now, space shuttle is not the Donnager, but those rules still apply...

So, bottom-lining it all, I agree with you that there's a lot missing in there to complete the picture...