News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri to find out. Parent comment

Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by bencompanion on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:41AM (#17828154)
Is that right? I assumed a railgun's acceleration would be about as high as we can go. Huh! In any case, anything that we accelerate like that is highly durable and rigid - you can imagine what happens if you accelerate one part of a 'soft projectile' at 60,000g and another part at 59995g.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by merpnderp on Thursday August 23, 2018 @12:44PM (#17828679)
Not much? Most things can easily withstand a 5g delta.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Are we alone? Tiny spacecraft will head to Alpha Centauri... by bencompanion on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @08:50PM (#17873308)
Most things like rigid metals or strong plastics, sure. Things like hair-thin strands of carbon fibre mesh and thin plastic films? Not so much.
[ Parent | on HN ]