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The Bradbury Revisited
Oct. 7th, 2010 08:09 amSome time ago, I asked for some help on some calculations (http://plutherus.livejournal.com/255206.html). I was trying to figure out how interstellar travel times, assuming a constant acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 (i.e., 1G, i.e., all those aboard the space ship will experience Earth-normal gravity throughout the trip.)
I recently revisited this calculation, after the discovery of Gliese 581g, 20 light-years away. I had no better luck doing the calculation this time. (It has occurred to me that in the intervening 7 years, I could have learned enough calculus to make the calculation easy.)
Fortunately, someone else had the same question - physicist Dave Goldberg. Apparently, he did the calculations for Alpha Centauri in his book, A User's Guide to the Universe, and has recently re-done them for Gliese 581.
More details are at his blog. He still doesn't show his work, there, though. I've added his book to my Amazon queue, so I'll eventually see if it's in there. His conclusions, though, are similar to my own:
To get to Gliese 581, while accelerating at a nice comfortable 9.8m/s^2, would take roughly 6.1 years from the traveler's perspective, or 22.4 years from Earth's. (That is, they will get the signal saying the travelers have arrived safely about 42.4 years after they leave.)
A couple of assumptions he makes, though, that I disagree with:
First, he writes:
Right, but why would you lug all that fuel around? Leave it here, and use it to power, say, a giant laser, which could push an interstellar craft along using a solar sail. Also, Goldberg writes that:
But, of course, there's no reason to collect the energy on Earth. By the time we've gotten to the point where we're seriously considering an interstellar manned flight, we should be able to build a giant particle accelerator and anti-matter factory orbiting the Sun, somewhere inside the orbit of Mercury, perhaps, where solar cells, plus the gravity of the Sun itself, should make things much more efficient.
EDIT: Turns out he did show the actual math used, in a later post: http://usersguidetotheuniverse.com/?p=1249
I recently revisited this calculation, after the discovery of Gliese 581g, 20 light-years away. I had no better luck doing the calculation this time. (It has occurred to me that in the intervening 7 years, I could have learned enough calculus to make the calculation easy.)
Fortunately, someone else had the same question - physicist Dave Goldberg. Apparently, he did the calculations for Alpha Centauri in his book, A User's Guide to the Universe, and has recently re-done them for Gliese 581.
More details are at his blog. He still doesn't show his work, there, though. I've added his book to my Amazon queue, so I'll eventually see if it's in there. His conclusions, though, are similar to my own:
To get to Gliese 581, while accelerating at a nice comfortable 9.8m/s^2, would take roughly 6.1 years from the traveler's perspective, or 22.4 years from Earth's. (That is, they will get the signal saying the travelers have arrived safely about 42.4 years after they leave.)
A couple of assumptions he makes, though, that I disagree with:
First, he writes:
Even if you have [an anti-matter drive system], you still need to lug all of that fuel around. It turns out that:
* To do the trip above requires (at least) 530 times as much mass in fuel as in the ship and cargo itself.
Right, but why would you lug all that fuel around? Leave it here, and use it to power, say, a giant laser, which could push an interstellar craft along using a solar sail. Also, Goldberg writes that:
The whole trip would require something like:
* E=1.8\times 10^{25}Joules
Or approximately 5% of the sun’s energy output in a second. That sounds reasonable, until you realize that that tiny amount would take approximately:
* 3 million years to collect on earth if the entire surface were covered with solar panels
But, of course, there's no reason to collect the energy on Earth. By the time we've gotten to the point where we're seriously considering an interstellar manned flight, we should be able to build a giant particle accelerator and anti-matter factory orbiting the Sun, somewhere inside the orbit of Mercury, perhaps, where solar cells, plus the gravity of the Sun itself, should make things much more efficient.
EDIT: Turns out he did show the actual math used, in a later post: http://usersguidetotheuniverse.com/?p=1249
