If a constant acceleration starship started at rest, then accelerated at 25G (245m/s^2) how long would it take to fly an AU (149 597 871 kilometers)? I am a writer, so I have no experience with kinematics, but I do know that T= Distance/Velocity.

I'm having a problem with the ridiculously high numbers and unit conversion (m/s into 149 million km).

  • $\begingroup$ Remember that when you want to travel somewhere, you still need to decelerate before you arrive. In most scenarios, you would accelerate about half of the journey and decelerate about half of the rest. $\endgroup$ – Philipp Jun 28 '15 at 22:29
  • $\begingroup$ @Will - Please read What should I do when someone answers my question? $\endgroup$ – David Hammen Jun 29 '15 at 6:11

Wolfram Alpha can do things like this easily, handling the units for you. Just entering "time to travel 1 AU at an acceleration of 25 g" gives the answer. The result is 9.7 hours. You can click on "Show formula" to see the formula used. It is one step beyond T=Distance/Velocity.

That gets you up to 0.03 c (click "More units"), so relativistic effects can be mostly ignored.


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