To go there in 30 days you'd need to disregard any orbital mechanics and just burn straight there. This would require an extraordinary amount of energy. Also surely making plasma from an electrical current must require, again, an extraordinary amount of energy. Also the faster you accelerate the more fuel you need to expend to DE-cellerate when you get there.

I dunno man, seems like bullshit. I'm no rocket scientist, obvs. But at a gut-feel level, this seems way off.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

You could always flip and burn.

[–] surph_ninja -1 points 6 days ago

Ok. And? Even if they don’t have an appropriate power source yet, still cool to have built the engine.

[–] sabin 4 points 1 week ago

Not to mention, if you accelerate your spacecraft to a speed faster than the minimum speed needed to raise your orbit as far as mars, you're going to have to slow down by the difference between your speed and that min speed when you go for a landing anyways.

The pace of the orbits alone decides how quickly your spacecraft will get there.