Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG
I was going to make a joke about a giant pulse & glide.
But that's probably not the way they'd do it: instead, accelerate half way there, turn the ship around and burn fuel to decelerate the rest of the way. Not P&G!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
The coolest alien navigators calculate the voyage time spent using the P&P&P (pulse & pivot & pulse) method. Then they calculate shorter pulses with a glide in the middle, factoring in the higher acceleration that a lower fuel load will allow.
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A good-sized solar sail should allow you to save fuel on braking... Or you could use the solar wind collected by the sail at your destination for reverse thrust.
Gonna need an incredible amount of fuel to do the pulse-pivot-pulse with continuous thrust throughout the trip.
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Christmastime is always a bummer for me. Christmas traffic and cold weather mean no more high mileage trips. I've just seen 3.5 km/l (about 8 mpg) in city driving for the first time in years. None of my short-cuts worked. I had to endure half-an-hour of traffic just to go a single mile. (The highway leg after was better, but given I had a diesel, I was not happy getting a mere 30 mpg on that leg and 12 mpg overall.
)
Ho ho ho. Time to break out the bicycles.