a giant lightbulb just went off in my head, but it didn't hurt. i would like some input to the following idea

Question

my idea is about high-speed space travel. currently, it takes years for our space probed to reach objects within our solar system. this is too long. if we went faster, it would take less time to get there. so why don't we go faster? because we're limited to what we bring with us as far as feul, weight, etc. so I thought of a way to make better use of the fuel that we can already bring into orbit. it requires very complex engineering but it should work.
let's say we launch a space ship(probe) into orbit. after escaping earth's gravity there is a limited supply of fuel left to provide the thrust which will propell the probe to regions of space. say that amount of fuel is a million gallons. this number does not reflect the needed fuel for slowing down or the return trip. so we have a million gallons of fuel that we'll use to accelerate to our cruising speed. so we put the pedal to the metal until we burn all that fuel. let's say that process takes a day. so for 1 day we're accelerating

then we run out of fuel so our speed remains constant until other forces act upon us. crashing into a planet would be a prime example of this. and at this speed, let's just pretend it's 5% of the speed of light. it takes us however long to get to say jupiter. currently, our probes take a few years to get there. this is the fastest we can go or else we won't have enough fuel to make it home. or we can just forget about that and call this a one way trip to crash into jupiter. so the only fuel we need is to get there. but we've reached our maximum speed by burning all our fuel. so how can we overcome this? well, I came up with a way to make better use of the fuel we do have. in other words, i've come up with a way to go faster that 5% of the speed of light using only a million gallons of fuel. and i'm not suggesting we use lighter probes or more potent fuel. same fuel, same ship, same weight, just a much faster cruising speed. It's all in the wrist. Really, it's all about figure skating.

OK, we begin launching 2 spaceships into orbit instead of just one. once the ships are in space and have a lot of room to play, they set up. by a lot of room I'm talking thousands of miles apart, and hundreds of thousands of miles from anything else. you connect a rope to the left side of each ship. this is a very strong rope. the ships then pull it tight and hit the gas. they each have a million gallons of fuel but they burn all that while attached to each other. the spin begins to increase in speed. both ships want to go straight, but the pull from the other ship makes them go in a circle. the amount of Gs experienced would eliminate the possibility of using people. but here's the trick. once they reach the maximum spin (using all the fuel) they each begin to draw the rope in. and just like when a figure skater pulls in her arms and legs they spin a lot faster. so the angular velocity of the ships will increase. then, they both let go and fly into space in opposite directions. presto

by doing this, we should be able to acheive speeds much greater than 5% the speed of light. again, that number is pretend. in my example, originally we had a ship with a million gallons of fuel, was able to acheive a speed of 5%. with this new idea, using 2 ships each with a million gallons of fuel being able to each reach speeds up to 20 or 30%. and, you get to go in two directions instead of one. i'm sure there's just as many interesting things in the universe in each direction. so, in essence, by doubling the amount of fuel, you more than double your speed. I don't know how to do the calculations for this, which is why i used made up values. but in theory, the math makes sense.

I'm sorry if that was a bit confusing to read. I meant for my figures of a million gallons, a 1000 miles, etc to be totally for the sake of conversation. not real values. I didn't want to take the time to search for how much fuel was required for our previous space missions. Understand that when I said 1million gallons, i meant "whatever amount of fuel they've used last time" I just watched a special on TV about the probe that landed on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. I think it might have been called the Cassini mission. well, that probe used X amount of fuel to get there. I'm saying we use my idea and use that same X gallons of fuel, but increasing angular velocity instead. then increase that velocity by decreasing the radius, the by letting go that increased angular velocity turns into linear velocity, so now that probe gets to saturn in half the time.
I didn't figure out what 5% of c is. it's just the variable I chose to make my sentences make sense. 1000miles was a gues

a note on one of the answers.

Here on earth, when you increase speed, the resistance from air friction also increases. the faster you go, the more air friction there is trying to slow you down. that's why when you jump from an airplane, you accelerate towards the ground and then reach a terminal velocity. that's when the force of air friction balances out the force of gravity so you get Zero net acceleration. ie, a constant speed.
In space however, there is no air friction so as long as there is a "force" (rocket propultion), there is an acceleration. remember Newton's formula F=MA? well M is the ship, F is the rocket, there MUST be an Acceleration.
This formula can also be in the form:
F1 + F2 = M(A1 + A2)
this explains why when you jump from an airplane F1 is the force of gravity, and F2 is the force of friction. F1 is negative (pulls down) and F2 is positive (pushes up) so that side of the equation is 0, so the right side must equal 0. M is your ship, not 0.

and as for your car example, that's even less like my example in space. The reason your car can't go past a certain speed is not really because of air friction. it's because your transmission only has a limited number of gears. and your engine can only rev so high. Not at all the case with a rocket in space. there are no gears, just a constant force. a constant force yeilds a constant acceleration when no other forces act upon the object. That's another of newton's laws. oh wait, not exactly. I was thinking of "an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless a force acts upon it" but it works just the same.

Answer 1

My friend,
Don't take it hard that no one doesn't understand you.
But at least I tried.
I started reading but I was lost on the way. Too much stuff for reading.:(
But you have good chances if you talk about it to your shrink.
Take always your medication on time...and be always careful your medication not to be out of date.

Good Luck:)

Answer 2

Some basic problems.

Even if you burn 1 million gallons of fuel, you do not necessarily get more acceleration. Imagine a car engine with the accelerator pushed to the floor - there is a maximum speed beyond which you no longer accelerate.

Unlike a figure skater, where the most mass is already in the center, your idea puts all the mass out at the ends of 1000 miles of some form of rope - that doesn't exist yet - that can withstand the force of objects going 5% light speed. You will use up a great amount of energy to pull the ships together to get the speed increase you imagine.

In space travel, most of our fuel energy is used just escaping the gravitational pull of the earth.

There are control issues. Imagine driving a car at 400 miles per hour. How much time do you have to respond to situations such a cars cutting in front, pedestrians, etc. Extend that to space where you want to travel over 1/2 million miles an hour and you can imagine the control problems we'd have (remotely from earth), to avoid big things, not to mention the impact issues from space dust on our ship (imagine a sandstorm).

And then of course, we have our current technological levels and the laws of physics limiting our ability to do any of this.

But good thinking on the problem.

Much more to read at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_propulsion

Answer 3

Another problem would be building a craft large enough to carry that volume of fuel out of the atmosphere.

The Saturn V rocket, one of the most powerful rockets ever built, had a mass of 6 699 000 pounds. More than 90% of that was fuel. It could carry a payload of only 269 000 pounds into a low earth orbit. A million gallons of fuel would weigh in excess of ten times more than this.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

I have the gas,you bring the space ship.

Answer 6

HUH? WHAAA?