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Re:How far could a spaceship go if we never ran out of thrus... by cygx on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @08:10AM (#28127819)
No matter how fast you accelerate, you'll chew up distances at a local(!) rate of less than c, so it's enough to consider the limiting case of light and skip the complications introduced by acceleration. The analogous classical problem is the "ant on a rubber rope". If the endpoint of the rope moves at a constant speed, the ant will be able to reach it, no matter the rope's length. If the endpoint accelerates, the ant might not, and only be able to asymptotically approach some point somewhere on the rope.
Re:How far could a spaceship go if we never ran out of thrus... by stavros on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @08:21AM (#28127916)
Hmm, but if we treat the end of the rope as an object which accelerates at x m/s^2, and I accelerate at 2x m/s^2, wouldn't I eventually reach that object? I don't know what I'm not getting...
Re:How far could a spaceship go if we never ran out of thrus... by cygx on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @08:29AM (#28127986)
> and I accelerate at 2x m/s^2

A constant lab frame acceleration is incompatible with special relativity.

Re:How far could a spaceship go if we never ran out of thrus... by JZumun on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @09:31AM (#28128596)
You can never go faster than c, so you can never reach anything that's being moved faster away.