2006-11-05 08:44:54 · 15 answers · asked by cmo 1 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Other - Cars & Transportation
Actually, no amount of rockets would ever allow you to reach light speed. When an object reaches the speed of light its mass becomes infinite, so the power required to reach the speed of light is infinite. Thus, the light barrier cannot be crossed by anything with mass.
2006-11-05 08:54:56 · answer #1 · answered by Michael 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, the fastest "car" (more a rocket on wheels, really) was Thrust SSC, which reached 763 mph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_ssc). That's about 1/880,000th of the speed of light, and was achieved with 2 rolls-royce jet engines. So you might think that the answer would be 1,760,000 engines, but you'd be wrong.
For a start, the more engines you add, the heavier the car gets. Since most of the weight would be weight of engines, the power/weight ratio would stay more or less constant, and due to inefficiencies in transferring the power, after a certain point adding more engines would actually make it slower.
Add in more air resistance and it becomes impossible to build a rocket car much faster than Thrust SSC, long before the problem of increasing mass near the speed of light becomes a problem.
Unlikely we'll even see a Mach 2 car in our lifetimes, never mind anything remotely approaching the speed of light.
2006-11-05 09:49:23 · answer #2 · answered by wimbledon andy 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5
2006-11-05 08:52:05 · answer #3 · answered by Bella<3 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The physical explosive force of a rocket could not get a car to light speed, at least not using Hydrogen and Oxygen as the force never reaches the energy of light itself. If you cuold find a way to block magnetism from the car though you'll probably also block the mass (that's my theory) therefore the use of just a laser would accelerate it a good way towards the speed of light.
2006-11-06 09:48:43 · answer #4 · answered by Bealzebub 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It won't reach the speed of light because the car gets heavier as you approach lightspeed.
You need a hyperdrive so you can go in hyperspace where the laws of physics are different, but George Lucas has the patent on them and won't sell you any.
2006-11-05 08:54:45 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You would need a engine very similar to the millennium falcon to achieve that. however should you get enough rockets to achieve light speed you would probably go through time to the future. But be unable to travel back as per Einsteins theory. so you wouldn't be able to tell any friends you'd done it as they would not be around.
2006-11-05 08:59:00 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would guess 2 saturn 5 series rocket LOL
120 feet high 5 or more tons Each
2006-11-05 08:52:47 · answer #7 · answered by Paul G 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Stupid question since outside Sci-Fi no rocket CAN reach light-speed yet
2006-11-05 11:53:06 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It wouldnt make any difference - the exhaust from a rocket isn't travelling at anywhere near lightspeed, and Newtons Third Law dictates that, all other things being equal (which they never are) that is as fast as they could - theroretically - go.
2006-11-05 08:57:50 · answer #9 · answered by Stephen L 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Accelerating gadgets to the value of sunshine is impossible, on account that basically easy travels at that velocity. utilising atom bombs as gas may be undesirable, because of the fact the radiation might visit pot/destroy the rocket. Nuclear gas might would desire to be a controlled reaction. tl;dr No.
2016-10-21 07:51:46 · answer #10 · answered by crabbs 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋