Interstellar Flight

Borg Cube

I've been kicking around this idea for starship propulsion for a while. Basically, the idea is to shoot a stream of iron atoms out the back at very high velocities, like half the speed of light. I did some math and figured out that it ought to work, force being equal to mass times acceleration and all. But then I thought maybe I ought to figure out how much energy that would take. That turns out to be quite a bit, like a billion times as much energy as our biggest nuclear power plant. Assuming I've done my math right, that kind of squashes my idea. But let's see where this leads us.

If we could compress a billion watt power plant into a hundred foot cube, then a billion such power plants would make a cube 100,000 feet on a side, which would be roughly 20 miles. Oh, a Borg Cube!

I have no doubt we could build such a thing if we put our minds to it. I mean, people have building enormous structures since forever. Problem is that the mass of such a power plant would be enormous, so you would need to carry an even larger amount of reaction mass, like a thousand times bigger than the power plant. Something like an iron asteroid would work. This much mass is going to accelerate very slowly, but it will get you there. By the time you arrive all your reaction mass will be consumed so all you will have left is the cube, which is why Borg Cubes are only seen in their bare state. They have arrived, so they have consumed all their reaction mass.