• Question: How fast can a rocket go?

    Asked by HannahD to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 14 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      A rocket, in theory could get faster and faster until it reached the speed of light, but there are 2 main obstacles to this.
      a) You would need to carry a great deal of fuel, or have a fuel that was very, very efficient (to provide huge amounts of energy without adding lots of extra weight).
      b) You could never actually reach the speed of light, because as you get closer and closer, you need more and more energy to increase your speed by even a tiny amount.

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 14 Nov 2014:

      What Helen said!

      With the additional issue that humans don’t do well under acceleration. We are okish up to about 3G if lying down, and with special training and equipment can manage about 6G, but after that people tend to black out. However 1G (earth normal gravity) is where we function best.

      So really we are quite limited in how quickly we can get up to a decent speed!

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