x

LESSWRONG

LW

Pasha Kamyshev — LessWrong

Pasha Kamyshev

Pasha Kamyshev

Message

128

2

9

9y

Pasha Kamyshev

128

9y

Megastructures can speed up interstellar travel, but they have to be HUUUUGE

In this blog we consider using megastructures to speed up an interstellar ship and whether we can beat the estimates provided by rockets. Previously I spoke about rockets, (also on substack) which can reach on the order of 1-10%c and really struggle beyond that either due to the rocket equation,...

Heat Dissipation Is the Main Constraint in Interstellar Travel

Writing truly hard science fiction, such as Will of the Stars means contending with the laws of physics as they actually are, rather than as we would like them to be. In particular, I am going to assume that the speed of light is a real constraint and that the...