Submitted by Gari_305 t3_zoj9ga in Futurology
BlueSkyToday t1_j0wk7ye wrote
Reply to comment by chasonreddit in Nuclear fusion breakthrough: What does it mean for space exploration? by Gari_305
I suspect that the mass of the fuel is a very small portion of the mass of the engine.
chasonreddit t1_j0wnkve wrote
Really depends on the distance and expected acceleration. You would be surprised. With Hohmann orbits, well those are designed to use minimal reaction mass. It's still a huge proportion. To really get around even the solar system you really want constant acceleration and ultimately 1 G acceleration. Even at high ejection velocities that's a lot of reaction mass.
I won't vouch for the math, but I remember reading that even with a 100% mass conversion drive (the ultimate) a ship would use approximately half of it's mass to make a round trip to nearer stars at 1G.
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