One gee over the course of months is
insane. Even if you converted the
entire "fuel" reaction mass
directly into momentum, you're still carrying tens or hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel for any remotely habitable spacecraft. And no engine has perfect mass conversion. Matter-Antimatter has been simulated to be
maybe sixty percent efficient, fusion is around 17%, nuclear pulse propulsion a surprising 7%, fission nuclear gas rockets might max out at 12% but those numbers are dodgy as we don't have sharp numbers on gas core reactors.
As an SF writer, it's pretty interesting, though, to think of the weird shapes a society would take when your astronauts are outliving entire civilizations. I imagine a sort of neo-Polynesian culture, with travellers never quite knowing how the place will look if they ever come back that way.
As an SF writer, it's pretty interesting, though, to think of the weird shapes a society would take when your astronauts are outliving entire civilizations. I imagine a sort of neo-Polynesian culture, with travellers never quite knowing how the place will look if they ever come back that way.