Space friction at near light speeds.

[JBUMAerospace]

I understand that space itself has particles in it albeit far far apart. It occurs to me that if we accelerate towards the speed of light that we'll actually meet some space resistance that might cause heating on the surface of our ship.

 

[billslugg]

Welcome to SDC, JBUMAerospace!

Yes, interstellar space contains about 10^6 atoms per cubic meter. Intergalactic space about one atom per cubic meter. These are presumably mostly hydrogen.
If a space ship of one square meter cross sectional area was going at half the speed of light in interstellar space it would be going 150 million meters per second.
At that speed it would be sweeping up 1.5e14 hydrogen atoms per second which is 1.5e14/6.02e23 kg or 2.5e-10 kg.
The kinetic energy is 1/2mV^2 or 1/2 x 2.5e-10 x 150e6 x 150e6 joules per second or 2.8e6 joules per second which is 2.8 megawatts. The ship would need some pretty serious cooling on the front end in interstellar space.
In intergalactic space the heating load would be only 2.8 watts.

It would not be practical for other reasons though. A kilogram of mass at half the speed of light has an kinetic energy of 1e16 joules. The total electrical power used by the entire world is about 2e13 joules per second. We would need the entire electrical output of the world for 8 minutes for each kilogram of mass in the space ship in order to reach that speed.

 

[Phillip Huggan]

It is possible to plan for common events. Rare events like a thread of particles that just happens to be in your path is hard to know without telescopes, probes and cosmology. If your coating is crystal, it is vulnerable along the axis where the crystal planes meet. Less than one degree of angle repeated impacts might break your armour. They used to over build bridges 3x before computer modelling, and apart from harmonic collapse they have stood well. I view discerning the probability of rare dense particle streams as preventing bridge collapses, as key even if the particle density is known.

 

[Catastrophe]

if we accelerate towards the speed of light

Are you suggesting that this is realistic in the near future? Or is this just a hypothetical question about mankind's (also) just as hypothetical future?

Cat

 

[JBUMAerospace]

This is a truly old school video proving that the speed of light can't be exceeded. Amazing what a slide rule can do plus great eyesight!
The Ultimate Speed - An Exploration with High Energy Electrons - Bing video

 

[billslugg]

Great film! I was 10 years old when this was made. I was down in the basement making electromagnets out of old wire, nails and batteries. I would loved to have seen this back then!