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timeasmymeasure
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No, actually...
Date: 2006-06-13 02:18 pm (UTC)If you're playing "Hard SF" and "reasonably near-term tech", which is where we are, the limits aren't how much human beings can take. You cannot MAKE a constant-boost drive in the range of 3G and consume power that makes sense to build in a relatively short time (say, a few years). While disposable boosters and so on have their place (especially in stopping, using the sort of inverse of the slingshot effect), *NO* ordinary reaction-mass limited approach (which includes standard rockets, NERVA, and electric/ion drives) can in the long run (and that "long run" is actually pretty short) match any constant-thrust drive, even if that constant thrust is very low. I'm playing with constant accelerations in the range of 0.01g. And those are requiring, depending on method, many gigawatts of power. Getting g+ accelerations with similar methods would require many, many terawatts.