In: Other
In an attempt to reduce the extraordinarily long
travel times for voyaging to distant stars, some people have
suggested traveling at close to the speed of light. Suppose you
wish to visit the red giant star Betelgeuse, which is 430 ly l y
away, and that you want your 20,000 kg k g rocket to move so fast
that you age only 38 years during the round trip.
How fast must the rocket travel relative to
earth?
How much energy is needed to accelerate the rocket to
this speed?
How many times larger is this energy than the total
energy used by the United States in the year 2000, which was
roughly 1.0×1020J1.0×1020J?