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A NASA ion engine while under test at the Glenn Research Center. It can propel spacecrafts to speeds of up to 320,000 km per hour (i.ibb.co)

submitted 4 months ago by Blaze@reddthat.com to c/interestingasfuck@lemm.ee

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEXT_(ion_thruster)

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[–] wisha@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The grandparent comment is correct. There is no such thing as engine-specific “maximum speed”. If you add more fuel, you can always go faster (until the speed of light).

[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Even "until the speed of light" has a caveat (hear me out). Would you call getting from A to B in 1 hour on your watch instead of 2 as "faster"? If your answer is yes, then there's no limit to how "fast" you can go. You could get from here to the Andromeda Galaxy in one minute. It's just that for the Andromeda and the Milky Way a LOT more time would have passed.