To the Stars!

[loinburger]

I was assuming we would just accelerate like a mofo with ion drives or something. I'm no scientist.

According to the ancient flight simulators I used to play, humans black out at 9 G's of acceleration, at at some point beyond that their organs probably start to implode

[Elok]

I meant just keep accelerating forever at 1g with negligible friction/resistance/whatever. Pardon the lack of clarity.

[loinburger]

Another aspect of the Revelation Space spaceships is that they had carbon nanotube nosecones, since the interstellar medium gets very soupy if you're traveling at .99c

[Donegeal]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion Nuclear Pulse Propulsion seems to be the most practical. Send our missiles into orbit and use them as fuel to get to the stars. However, Loin, you bring up a good point. How much acceleration can the people aboard take? While NPP seems to be fast enough, is it capable to getting up to speed without killing the crew?

[loinburger]

In "The Rediscovery Of Man" series (which tracks the progression from low-tech to high-tech/magic-tech), at one point they use solar sails powered with lasers based on Pluto so that the ship can continue to accelerate beyond the solar system. I forget if the author addressed deceleration.

[loinburger]

Another option that would greatly reduce resource consumption and possibly increase G-force resistance is to extract the starship crews' brains+spinal cords and wire them directly into the starship - this was done to some in-system security forces in the Revelation Space universe. Once their tours of duty were over they were either grafted back into their old preserved bodies or else grafted into newly cloned bodies (I forget which) - the latter would obey your "no suspended animation" policy.

You could also upload the crews' brains into the ships' mainframes, but somehow that feels like cheating - why are you colonizing other star systems if you can just make do with a computer powered by a solar panel?

[Donegeal]

Seeing as the ship is going to have to colonize a planet at AC (or obviously one of the stars there) rather than just smash into it, deceleration is going to be just as big of an issue as acceleration. Because of this, I don't think solar sails are practical.

[loinburger]

You might be able to reverse the sail or something when you approach the new star, but this limits the boost you can get from Pluto-based lasers, and it might also be a problem if the new star is significantly smaller than the home star

[Guynemer]

Screw that, I'm with Lal--"the sane, emotionally balanced person's choice."

YOU ARE MY ENEMY NOW.

[Elok]

Somebody's been reading too much lewd Deirdre fanfic. Remember, xenofungus dildos guarantee a xenoyeast infection.

[Guynemer]

(Guynemer-Seething)

VENDETTA UPON YOU.

[Al B. Sure!]

I only ever played with the Spartan Federation. Free Market, Police State, Knowledge is the way to roll.

[The Mad Monk]

Here's a continuous-thrust travel time calculator.

Doesn't help you with the underlying mechanics, but really, nobody can help with that.

[The Mad Monk]

I only ever played with the Spartan Federation. Free Market, Police State, Knowledge is the way to roll.

I figured you'd be Corazon's *****.

Knowledge? There only one true path of knowledge, and that path is owned by the University of Planet!

SCIENCE!!!

[Al B. Sure!]

I figured you'd be Corazon's *****.

Knowledge? There only one true path of knowledge, and that path is owned by the University of Planet!

SCIENCE!!!

Spartans with that government makes them rich (+2 economy), advanced (+2 research), with a large and elite military (+2 morale, +2 support). You have -1 efficiency and -1 industry but I think those costs are more than made up for by the additional wealth from economy and what you save with the support.

Lots of ecological destruction, though, and you're prone to probes but ehh whatever.