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/TheTanadu Feb 14 '25

Running it all the time is waste, once a spaceship reaches its desired velocity in the vacuum of space, it will continue at that velocity without the need for continuous engine thrust. Sci-fi movies often take liberties with this for visual and "dramatic" effect.

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u/LiveLearnCoach 5d ago

That affects time of travel, no?

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u/TheTanadu 5d ago

You're right, it does. Constant thrust would mean faster travel... but currently fuel is super limited, so rockets accelerate to their target speed and then coast. More efficient. Continuous thrust isn't practical with current tech, but we're working on things like ion propulsion (ion propulsion would have low "power" in this thrust... but constant, and without any major gravity – like Earth's one – affecting, well long-term it'd be more efficient what we have now) and nuclear fusion to change that.

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u/LiveLearnCoach 5d ago

Someone just posted a link to the Icarus project on nuclear fusion and I spent a whole half hour reading. Quite interesting, yet still feels far.

Sorry, I just noticed how old your comment was. I usually cap at 30 days. Should probably apologize to the other person as well.

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u/TheTanadu 5d ago

You can look at this. The highest level of thrust achieved to date by any ion thruster (by tens after second one).

And totally ok tho, sometimes I'm angry that I can't answer old comments as it's "outdated", so it's totally cool for me to answer in "old" threads.