Talk:TrueSpace
Would it only take decades to reach nearby stars via Truespace? From what I know of modern science, it would take thousands of years to reach the closest star to us, Alpha Centauri. Then again, it takes us about a year to reach mars, whereas the vindicator closes the distance in seconds. -Fadookie 20:08, 9 Oct 2004 (CEST)
I would chalk it up to sci-fi technology. -- SvdB 20:42, 9 Oct 2004 (CEST)
I did some research, and it only takes nine months to get to mars on a Hohman Transfer Orbit (assuming you make the launch window, which occurs about every 2 1/2 years). It takes the Vindicator around 15 seconds to reach mars on maximum thrust. It takes us about 21,772,800 seconds. I couldn't find the distance between earth at the start and mars at the end of such a transfer orbit, but I derived the average distance of mars from earth by averaging its minimum and maximum distances. Mars is, on average 228.5*106 km, ot 228.5 Gm (gigameters). I'll use a basic formula to figure their comparative rates, distance=rate*time. So: 228.5 Gm = r * 15 sec. The TrueSpace rate of the vindicator is therefore about 15.23 Gm/S. I'll do the same caluclation for our current rockets. 228.5 Gm = r * 21,772,800 sec. Our current spacecraft move at the rate of about 0.00001 Gm/S.
Okay, got the rates. Now the hard part- shit. As it turns out, Proxima Centauri is slightly closer, but I'll use Alpha Centauri anyway. It's about 3.8x1016 m away, or 380,000,000 Gm. I'll plug in my rough figures with the same distance formula. This doesn't take celestial motion into account, so it'll be way off, but it should give us an idea of how long it would take. We'll do the Vindicator first: 380,000,000 Gm = 15.23 Gm/s * t. That means it should take the vindicator about 24,950,755 seconds, or about ten months. One of our modern rockets would take 380,000,000 Gm = 0.00001 Gm/s * t, so 38,000,000,000,000 seconds or 1309 milennia.
Wow, I spent way too much time on that. Still, it answers my question. It would take the Vindicator at least ten months to reach the closest star via TrueSpace. -Fadookie 21:20, 9 Oct 2004 (CEST)