Escape the atmosphere.
Slowly accelerate for first half of journey.
Slowly decelerate for latter half of journey.
If I'm not mistaken, this sounds like the Trans-Linear Victor Principle.
Escape the atmosphere.
Slowly accelerate for first half of journey.
Slowly decelerate for latter half of journey.
If I'm not mistaken, this sounds like the Trans-Linear Victor Principle.
It was the title of that fictional book on a TV show, you are correct.
It appears to actually be "a thing", but not specifically named "Translinear Vector Principle" as on the show. Please see Wikipedia link to the theory below the following quoted TV show synopsis.
Here's the long winded definition of the theory from the show.
"The flight plan was based on an idea called the Trans-Linear Vector Principle, as put forth by ex-astronaut Addison Carmichael. Under this principle, the Vulture rocket lifted off for the moon under slow but constant acceleration. Although the initial velocity seemed much too slow to ever reach the moon, the steady acceleration soon brought the Vulture to great speeds once in space. Acceleration continued until they reached the halfway point between the Earth and Moon, at which time the ship began to decelerate ending in a smooth touchdown on the lunar surface. Total time to reach the moon was a mere 24 hours compared to three days for the Apollo missions. The trip back home followed the same procedure. The advantages of the Trans-Linear Vector Principle were many-fold:
Two days round trip to the moon and back.
A single stage rocket was all that was needed for the flight, reducing complexity.
No mid-flight orbiting of either the Earth or the moon. It was a direct ascent and descent flight.
No re-entry heating since the trip through the atmosphere was a slow, gentle descent.
No weightlessness since the ship was always in a state of acceleration or deceleration."
From Wikipedia. Looks like they added light speed and time dilation as variables in their posted equation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_travel_using_constant_acceleration
I would point out that the Wikipedia article doesn't mention "Trans-Linear Vector Principle", so I'm not sure how influential or notable that name is. So it may be a "a thing", but almost no one would use that fictional name.
Also there is nothing particularly insightful about the idea and from what I can tell, they don't really do that in The Expanse except for in very basic transits.
It is how a solar sail would work. Constant slow acceleration.
A solar sail would have to be pretty damn big unless you were doing multi-generational travel.
Yes it would. Unless it was initially propelled by a ground based laser. And Voyager 1 just sent back some interesting data on cosmic ray electrons. Think smaller. At our currant level of technology it could be used to sent out small probes. This is not to scale(did not do the math) but for a example. A 10 pound probe using a sail 1000x1000 feet wide. That we could deploy now(we could build that). May be bigger or smaller than that. Was just spitballing. I came to this site because I was just watching a old TV show called Salvage 1 that was made in the 70's. And yes it is fiction and in space the constant acceleration theory may work but not a launch from Earth.. Big fan of Star Trek. A lot from that show (technology) has really happened. My first cell phone was called a Star Tac.
I think you don't realize how minuscule the push is on a solar sail even if you get a laser to boost. The IKAROS solar sail was small at 14x14 m and managed to travel about 1.5 million km over six months, but for reference, the closest planet to Earth is Venus at over 130 million km, so a much bigger sail would still probably take years just to get to the closest planet.
Yes years to achieve but constant. Think long term. Check your message wall. The Expanse Wiki. You ciilydnaF person. And your first name starts with J.. And bye the way. The laser could in theory boost it to .1 c...
Waiting......
Keep waiting. There are lots of theories.
Funny. Just going to respond to your wall from here on. Unless you want my email address to respond directly.
What do you think?