what would it take to build and accelerate an object to 295000 kms/s? Like seriously, would it take nuclear propulsion or is it antimatter engine or solar sail?

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lsllc 7 months ago | parent [-]

The speed of light is 299792.458km/s so according to a quick Google search it takes 4.28x10^17J to accelerate 1kg to 0.98c.

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fecal_henge 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Thats nearly an entire camenbert.

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vivzkestrel 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

ok so obviously we cannot slingshot someone with that speed or even use chemical rockets to reach those levels. So are there newer propulsion systems being worked upon?

	▲	lsllc 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Ion thrusters [0], solar sails [1], nuclear pulse propulsion [2] are all things that have real research being done on them. There's more esoteric stuff (theoretical) such as the Alcubierre Drive [3] (Warp drive!) that's more of the realm of sci-fi. If you can maintain a constant 1g of acceleration, you'd get to ~0.99c in approximately 1 year -- but you need to carry/provide the energy to fuel whatever propulsion system you're using and the amount of fuel needed to maintain that 1g of acceleration increases as you get closer to c. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive