- #1
Bab5space
- 111
- 12
The interesting thing about scifi space travel is that it remains hard even with scifi tech, so long you allow propellant and gravity limits to still exist.
In a way it is kind of a good thing, only in that it prevents widespread easy RKV starship use.
My question is how long would travel take if I give the specification and dimensions of the Venturestar but upgraded it with a literal ton of antimatter safely stored with scifi inert material (so long they do not crash)?
Serious Upgrade: A jump drive. Get to anywhere in vacuum within 7 LY in a blink. Takes an hour to spool up the drive each time, so don't expect to jump instantly.
With my modifications both thrust and delta V increase dramatically.
Mission Profile: Visit an Earth-like world 65 LY away.
Timeframe: 65 hours of spooling up the jump drive is a given, but the real issue is orbital speed differences.
The destination planet has a 100 kilometer speed difference with our Earth and also is orbiting counterclockwise, while our Earth orbits clockwise but rotates counterclockwise.
The Challenge: How long will it take our heavily upgraded Venturestar to reach this new world once they are in the star system? Let's assume we jump 65 LY into the system and attempt to use our propellant abd antimatter to match speed with the 100 kilometer speed difference, then do one more jump into low planetary orbit. So that is a total of 67 houts spooling up, plus however long it takes to match the speed difference via thrust.
How long would 1g take to match a 100 kilometer speed difference in orbital direction going opposite our starship's original orbit?
Why it matters: Plot events. Mission profiles are necessary, since even with antimatter one cannot go anywhere with impunity due to lack of propellant, plus TWR matters for landing anywhere. So some planets will simply be off limits forever if the orbital speed difference is too high... like for example 1000 kilometers per sec orbital speed difference. That may sound implausible but it is an example of a an Earth-like we would probably be unable to visit quickly even if we jumped into their system with antimatter powered rockets.
Discuss.