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mickeylee mickeylee
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11 years ago
starting at 30,000 miles per hour and has some sort of engine that allows it to continuously use thrusters at that speed, will it continuously accelerate and what is the maximum speed it could achieve say in 30 days at that continuous acceleration?
I ask this because an object in motion will continue to be in motion unless acted upon by another force. In this case the other force is more and more acceleration. So if this continuous other acceleration lasts for 30 days, would that space ship be going at mindboggling speeds...compared to its initial 30,000 miles per hour?
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wrote...
11 years ago
What is the acceleration? Without knowing exactly what it is you cannot work out what the speed will be after 30 days.
wrote...
11 years ago
There are theories that the maximum speed is light speed.  I believe that it might be able for something to go faster but our molecular structure might not be able to withstand it.  Nevertheless, we  may not be able to detect it.
wrote...
11 years ago
Acceleration is not a force - it is the result of an ubalanced force acting on a mass.  However, to find out how fast the ship would be going, you need to know the acceleration.  Suppose it is teh same as teh acceleration due to gravity ont he surface of teh earth (9.8 m/s^2).  Thirty days of constant 1 g accleration increases speed by:

  v = gt  = 9.8 m/s^2*(30 days*24hr/day*60 min/hr*60sec/min)

  v = 2.5x10^7 m/s  (5.7x10^7 miles/hr) or about 8% the speed of light

As the ship continues to accelerate, relativity becomes important so the ship's speed will approach that of light but never get to the actuial speed of light.  That;s assuming you have an almost infinite source of energy to power the ship.
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