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[10ebbor10]

(Actually, redoing those calculations: 1G = 9,81m/sē  c=299,792,458 m/s meaning that you need about 30*10⁶. seconds or slightly under a year to get to 1 c. Do note that this doesn't incorporate any discrepancy caused by relativistic stuff.)

Do you mean that 1g (little 'g', different from big 'G', although I can't claim to be consistent on that point myself) would take you under a year to get to 1 c?

Anyway, the 'discrepancy caused by relativistic stuff' is mostly the point.  You'd never reach 1c (either objectively or subjectively), but as you asymptotically headed c-wards (from an external POV) you'd just be continually accelerating at your chosen capability of acceleration (fuel/energy allowing) and experiencing (from your own POV) a length-distorted rest-of-the-universe universe "accelerating the other way" for a shorter period of time, as you closed in on the target quicker than you might have imagined you should without those effects...

(Obviously, after half way it'd be decelerating to a stop, and back to 'normal' dimensions, at which point you'd wonder how you got from where you did in the time you experienced.  If you were totally unaware of the concept of dilation, of course.)

Ah, typoes overywhere. And yeah, that's what I meant.

[olemars]

Leonardo da Vinci's notebook has been fully digitized and made available online, thanks to the British Library's digitizing efforts. Too bad I can't read italian, much less mirrored renaissance italian. At least his drawings and diagrams are pretty to look at.

[Loud Whispers]

Leonardo da Vinci's notebook has been fully digitized and made available online, thanks to the British Library's digitizing efforts. Too bad I can't read italian, much less mirrored renaissance italian. At least his drawings and diagrams are pretty to look at.

Science just gave history a hug while it held humanity's hand in a platonic way.

[olemars]

He seems to have held a fascination for weight-and-pulley systems. And men. But mainly weight-and-pulley systems.

[Scelly9]

Leonardo da Vinci's notebook has been fully digitized and made available online, thanks to the British Library's digitizing efforts. Too bad I can't read italian, much less mirrored renaissance italian. At least his drawings and diagrams are pretty to look at.

GLORIOUS. Seriously, this is awesome.

[andrea]

I feel the sudden need to get a mirror.

although his handwriting doesn't seem easy to read.

[alway]

http://www.icosa.co/2013/02/lockheed-skunkworks-develops-compact-fusion/

So. Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks are claiming they have come up with a compact, practical way of generating power with fusion. They hope to have a prototype version up within 5 years, commercial version in 10.

[Sirus]

http://www.icosa.co/2013/02/lockheed-skunkworks-develops-compact-fusion/

So. Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks are claiming they have come up with a compact, practical way of generating power with fusion. They hope to have a prototype version up within 5 years, commercial version in 10.

Fusion has been promised for decades. Honestly, I'll believe it when I see it.

[Starver]

The old quote about this is something like "they used to say that Fusion Power is only [10|20|30|40] years away from being realised...  well it's been [10|20|30|40] years since then and Fusion Power is still only [10|20|30|40] years away".


(I also remember the Cold Fusion debacle of... ummm... the late '80s, I think it was.  I think... Fleischman and Ponds...? did their particular subset of the field no good.  Like a prequel to ?AL84001?, or whatever it was, except that was far less damaging to the idea of life on Mars, albeit we'd rather go and look for life on Mars than try to work it out from fragments of Mars that made their way to Earth without human assistance...  Cold Fusion, however, is held in slightly higher regard than homoeopathy, by most legitimate research institutes, if at all.)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'll never be sad to hear advancements in Fusion. It's a game-changer. Fusion is something we can go to the stars on.

[MaximumZero]

Are we taking bets on whether the JPL-Eagleworks or Lockheed-Martin get their little projects done first?

[Sirus]

I bet 100 fake Internet credits on Lockheed-Martin. No real reason.

[Gentlefish]

I skimmed the past dozen posts and I caught onto a bunch of space travel stuff, and slow but steady acceleration.

Why haven't solar sails been mentioned?

[Scelly9]

I skimmed the past dozen posts and I caught onto a bunch of space travel stuff, and slow but steady acceleration.

Why haven't solar sails been mentioned?

Too friggin slow. At least that's what I thought, anywhere I can learn more about them?

[Sirus]

Something tells me that they wouldn't work very well while traveling towards a star, which means that it wouldn't be terribly useful for interplanetary travel or whatever.