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A comment on The Theory of Interstellar Trade. Parent comment

Re:The Theory of Interstellar Trade by MR4D on Tuesday July 17, 2018 @12:13PM (#17550723)
Uh, aren’t you just sending billions of photons then?

Sorry, I must be missing something, as this seams like you’re spending photons to move a package rather than just sending photons.

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Re:The Theory of Interstellar Trade by credit_guy on Tuesday July 17, 2018 @04:29PM (#17553057)
The problem is that all light sources are to some degree divergent. You can accelerate a package to a relativistic speed over a distance of the order of 100AU, which is thousands of times less than the distance to the closest star. Consequently, the light beam that you send spreads out thousands of times less over this distance. It’s still a lot, but you have a fighting chance.
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