Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over
The Focus Fusion Society › Forums › After Fusion › Can a Focus Fusion rocket engine take us to the stars? › Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over
vansigEvan Carew wrote: Using the below formula, if you consume 100Kg of fuel on a 2000 Metric Ton vehicle, you end up traveling
.049 kps. This doesn’t seem to make sense. What am I doing wrong, or what is missing here? Is the exaust velocity an order of magnitude (or so) slow?
the mechanics of your calculations are correct. with 100 kg of reaction mass and effective exhaust velocity of 1×10^6 m/s,
Vf = Ve * ln(Mi/Mf)
= 1×10^6 * ln( (2 x10^6 +100 ) / 2×10^6)
= 49.99875 m/s
what’s wrong is conceptual: rockets expel a huge amount of reaction mass. as much as 99% of their total mass may be consumed.
as you can surmise, interstellar travel is infeasible unless/until an alternative to rocket propulsion is invented. since that appears to require new physics, it wont be happening any time soon on this planet.