 April 27, 2016 - 12:17pm | Okay you all know I have been plugging away at old TSR stuff and some of it involves space ships of old... 2072 CE OTC: Terran probe Magellan reaches Tau Ceti; discovers terraformable planet (Gaea). (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) So I am working on a crazy combined timeline and in rereading my notes and I suddenly found myself wondering how fast where some of these ships and if they had Artificial Gravity how that would effect acceleration and deceleration... For example: 2288 CE OTC: Warden completed; trials and loading begin for 45-year voyage to Xi Ursae Majoris double-star system. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) My understanding is Xi Ursae Majoris is about 30 light years away, so that is 1 light year traveled for every 1.5 Earth years. Not sure but I think that is around .67% of the speed of light, but that is not taking acceleration or deceleration into account. So how fast could a ship accelerate with Artificial Gravity? Normally we would not go faster than 1G in Knight Hawk so I am wondering if the ship's system would be set up to decrease and increase Artificial Gravity as needed to counter the effects but the ship would still not want to go faster than 1G acceleration for passenger safety... does that sound right? 2104 CE OTC: The Three Suns, the first Human manned interstellar spacecraft, launched toward the Alpha Centauri system. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) 2120 CE OTC: Three Suns arrives at Alpha Centauri, establishes first extra-solar Human colonies at Gagarin, Armstrong, Greenwood, and Sorokin. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) So the Three Suns traveled 16 years over about 4.367 light years, so that is roughly 1 light year equals about 4 years of travel. 2132 CE OTC: The Humanity launched for Tau Ceti system. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) Tau Ceti is 12 light years away... so maybe 48 years about? As I did not find an arrival time for Tau Ceti. I am assuming the way the dates are listed we are observing the dilated time and not time on the ship... 2047 CE OTC: Columbus, Magellan, and Marco Polo unmanned Terran interstellar probes launched from Terra orbit. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) 2061 CE OTC: Terran probe Columbus reaches Alpha Centauri and maps local planetary systems. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) So 14 years of travel to go about 4 light years so 3.5 years pass for every 1 light year. So 20 years travel time to go 12 light years so 1.67 years per light year. I am thinking Marco Polo is implied to have headed to Xi Ursae Majoris but the probes are all traveling at different speeds which makes not a whole lot of sense if they are all based on the same design... 2109 CE OTC: Thorium fusion propulsion system perfected by Humans and goes into system-wide use. (Before The Dark Years, Dragon 88) I am guessing this is what the interstellar ships where using. I am wondering about this, insight and thoughts?
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