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Re: starship-design: Genuine STR question



Antonio C T Rocha writes:
 > Use mass as a flywheel. Spin it up to store energy, brake to extract. Using
 > micro-G to your advantage, axles and couplings will not be necessary except
 > during actual spin-up or spin-down operations. Hence, no losses from
 > friction during "storage".

The only way a flywheel could store enough energy to propel a
starship at relativistic speeds would be for it to spin at
relativistic speeds itself, and then it would have additional
mass equivalent to the amount of energy it is storing.  There's
no way you could build such a thing with normal materials; even
neutronium won't hold together under such conditions.