New Scientist: Solar super-sail could reach Mars in a month
Okay, so this is very, very cool. I do have a couple of questions, though.
First, would 60 megawatts of microwaves harm humans?
Second, how fast of an acceleration are we talking about? Would humans be able to withstand accelerating up to a velocity of 60 kps?
Obviously, my true concern is:
Will this technology get me to Mars?
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4 comments:
60MW of anything is bad news. But microwaves are fairly easy to shield against, so no worries.
As for the acceleration. Well, 60kps is not an acceleration rate. It's a velocity or a delta-v. moving at 60kps is no more harmful than moving at 6kps (though both are what we call VERY FAST).
60 kilometers per second per second is an acceleration rate, and no human could stand up to that kind of impules. The article says "up to 60kps of the course of an hour". That, works out to a little more than 16.66204 meters per second per second or about 1.700208 gravities.
It would not be fun, or for the faint of heart (you would weight almots twice your nomral weight for an hour,) but it is totally survivable. A fit person can sustain up to 5 g's for extended periods. Morst can hold out under 3 g's.
Based solely on typos you should realize that was me.
The anal amount of decimal precision is another hint.
Sam
Blah, I know that a velocity isn't an acceleration; that's why I asked "how fast of an acceleration are we talking about?" Should have said "much" instead of "fast", I guess. There are no good adjectives for acceleration ;P
But thanks for noticing that detail I missed about how long it would take to accelerate to that speed.
Sorry. I miss read you.
Sam
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