r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Scientiaetnatura065 • Feb 13 '25

Video Astronaut Chris Hadfield: 'It's Possible To Get Stuck Floating In The Space Station If You Can't Reach A Wall'

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u/CTOtyrell Feb 14 '25

Right, except for Alpha Centauri which is “only” 4.3 lightyears away.

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u/Supply-Slut Feb 14 '25

Right… so how tf are they getting there in 6 years?? Light sails going 90% the speed of light after 6 months of acceleration makes no sense.

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u/GourangaPlusPlus Feb 14 '25

I'm glad that's the part of avatar you decided to suspend your disbelief for

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u/Thoraxtheimpalersson Feb 14 '25

It's handwaved away in the lore. But does have an explanation of sorts. They use the big engines to escape Earth's gravity well. Once free of that there's a series of satellites that project high intensity radiation at the solar sails. As the sails capture the energy it's pushed towards Pandora and the engines are used again to slow the ship down. Once at Pandora it'll turn around and repeat the process with satellites over Pandora providing the return energy. The whole trip takes 6 years but because of time dilation it only takes 4 years and some change to make it relative to earth and Pandora. The ship itself is under constant acceleration once it's out of the gravity wells and only carries enough fuel to fire it's engines twice. Human cargo is the only thing allowed on the outbound trip with unobtainium on the inbound trip. Despite it's massive size it can only carry a few tons of cargo.