>From Robin, > In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:33:34 -0400: > Hi, > [snip] >>Robin van Spaandonk wrote: >>> (BTW minimum travel time to Mars at >>> 1 g is 2 days.) >> >>I did not know it was that close. Any idea what the max is? > > The simplest calculation yields 4.5 days, but that's a straight line through > the > Sun (the longest time is when Mars and Earth are on opposites sides of the > Sun I > presume). Since going through the Sun could be a bit problematic, my guess is > that a somewhat more circuitous route would take a bit longer. Of course you > could also benefit from the "slingshot" effect using the Sun which would > either > reduce the travel time, or the amount of fuel consumed (by accelerating at > less > than 1 g, but still getting there in the same amount of time). > > Regards, > > Robin van Spaandonk
A catastrophic failure of the EM drive would not be good at mid flight. I would imagine the amount of accumulated velocity at the half-way mark would be more than sufficient to sling a spaceship out of our solar system within weeks - that is, if the EM drive was incapable of "decelerating" the accumulated velocity. Shades of "Space 1999" ... a rather forgettable SiFi series hatched from the 1970s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999 Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
