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I'm pretty ignorant of these details, so: why do atomic bombs only take us to 8% of the speed of light? What happens if we're at 8% and explode a couple of more bombs?


Freeman Dyson did the math, and I am not a physicist. I am assuming some sort of mass/energy trade-off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...

He figured 133 years to Alpha Centauri but without carrying extra mass to slow down. I assume you'd have to double that at least if you carried bombs to decelerate.




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