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Accelerating consistently at 1G (and then -1G for the second half), should take 6 years of proper time (from the perspective of the traveller) to get there.


Yea, actually the problem is not at all that we’d need too much acceleration for the human body. Accelerating at 1g for a couple years gets you to preposterous speeds (and we don’t even need any artificial gravity nonsense!). The problem is that accelerating at 1g for years would require a ridiculous amount of energy.


In his 1958 juvenile novel Have Spacesuit, Will Travel (I read it years later as a tween), Robert A. Heinlein described this as a "skew-flip maneuver" that would get someone from Earth to Pluto in five days at 8G (!). And apparently E.E. "Doc" Smith described it even earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Space_Suit%E2%80%94Will_T...

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/261753/what-was-th...


And because faster acceleration only gives you square-root returns, a leisurely 1G trip going the same distance is still over in 14 days.


Huh. I've heard lots of science fiction ideas for artificial gravity, usually starting with rotating space stations.

I never heard of anything so obviously straightforward as that, though. Surely impractical, but good to know!


You should read the The Expanse books (or watch the show).


Don't they use magnetic boots in the Expanse (at least in the show)?


Only when not under burn.




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