SERIOUS QUESTION!
why not just accelerate at a constant velocity = 1g
and decelerate half way from your target at a constant rate of - =1g
seriously? newton? anyone?
no ???
ion drives front and back, with thick shielding to protect from debris, and a spherical ship in the middle that can rotate so it is always facing away from acceleration
you could even turn the ion drives around as-well, so they both point the same way
it's a fact to even get up-to speeds capable of traversing the galaxy you'd have to accelerate for months with any current technology, so why not just use that to your advantage?
i really think that could work
but you still come back to the power / fuel requirements.
anything but ion is too fuel inefficient, but ion is too slow accelerating
what we need is a super ion drive ( impulse )
and a battery the size of a plannet.
actually, a diesel generator ion engine would be the roflcake
they had one on red dwarf. epic comedy value. all the worst parts of every drive system
i guess nuclear / uber ion is the only real option right now
it's just a matter of tricking ion drives into producing actual acceleration
and, i already know the spinning wont work, the ship has to be radically large to make that even feasible which means it needs a drive unit the size of an oil rig to spin it constantly
it just doesn't work.
steeple said:
this isnt really news... I've seen a show about it a while back, and they said that we wont be able to be born and grow in space, unless we'd create artificial environments, which is a very possible solution...
so, now that this problem's solved, lets get back at acquiring faster-then-light speed again, shall we?
i actually had an idea about that, if you built an enormous laser at the destination, and shone it at the craft to power it you could 'suck' the craft towards you by using an ion drive powered by the laser
all you'd need is a really enormous capacitor to store the power and some derivative of a steam engine or photo receptor to convert the light to power
that way you solve the ion engine fuel issue
but obviously you need to send the enormous laser out first, and create a ferry link.
this could be done with robots.
if you really want to get clever, you could fit it with a alcubierre drive
( WARP DRIVE )
really.
go look it up.
and that would tip the balance.