Whether it’s this engine or not, I always thought the old fire a rocket once on this end, travel for 6 months, then fire a slow down rocket approach is crazy.
If you just have an engine that can operate for the whole trip as needed, you are there in a few weeks.
THe problem as speed approaches the speed of light is that if you hit something the size of a grain of rice it is the equivalent of a small nuclear bomb.
No, the same action/reaction thrust/reverse thrust approach is here.
The difference is the top speed (currently advertised at around 47,000 mph). So whatever the calculation of accelerative force to that point (say, a few days), coast for 5 weeks, rotate the ship, and decelerate.
/johnny
It’s not crazy, it’s really the only thing we have unless you build the ship in orbit. The amount of fuel required to get to even low Earth-orbit requires such a huge thrust/weight ratio that your payload can’t be more than a small percentage of the weight of the spacecraft. That payload is anything that isn’t fuel or fuel containment, so a real “engine” is pretty much out of the question unless you’re launching from a platform in space where you’ve been able to assemble your spacecraft from multiple Earth-based launches.
You can do that with an ion engine, but it is such low thrust it all ends up being the same anyway.
In practice, even with a super-scifi engine you still don't need to run it very often -- it isn't like you have anything slowing you down you need to compensate for.
The only real reason to run your engines the whole time would be to provide artificial "gravity" via acceleration. And if you have the technology to do that you probably have the technology to create artificial gravity anyway.
“If you just have an engine that can operate for the whole trip as needed, you are there in a few weeks.”
I didn’t read the article, but assuming a nuclear engine - perhaps then we could also LEAVE mars. As it is now with a rocket - you can check in, but never check out. Although I imagine you would have some intrepid explorers that would take on the mission. Set up a permanent camp, be resupplied from earth, etc.
If you can accelerate continuously, then you have to decelerate at some point -— starting at approximately the half-way point between the start and your destination. Ideally, you can just turn yourself around and point the rocket in the opposite direction.
Unless you can decelerate using some other means, like aero-braking.