Re: starship-design: HIGHLY OPTIMIZED TOLERANCE

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

Curtis Manges writes:
 > It's a trick of perspective. I've heard they're actually boogyin'
 > along at a pretty good clip (I don't recall how fast). In fact, the
 > velocity of a target star may make it harder to get to than we
 > think. Remember that the universe is still expanding, and most of it
 > is (wisely, perhaps ;-) ) running away from us.

Typical velocities of nearby stars relative to the sun are in tens of
km/s.  The expansion of the universe is only significant on an
intergalactic scale; orbital motion around the galactic center dominates
the motions of stars in our neighborhood.

While you'd have to take the relative motion of your destination star
into account, its relative velocity is going to be pretty small compared
to your spacecraft's velocity if you're planning on getting there in
anything less than thousands of years.