quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
(Someone with more physics knowledge than me will have to tell me if thrust to weight ratio is applicable to to ships operating in a vacuum. 
)
Geo
Well, technically it's a thrust to _mass_ ratio, since weight is mass * gravity (well, technically it's acceleration due to gravitational attraction, not "gravity", but why nitpick that much?) & there's not much gravitational attraction going on in deep space.
Anyway, the point is, thrust to mass ratio definitely has an effect, no matter how much or how little gravitational attraction is being exerted on the mass. After all, momentum and energy are functions of mass. To go a step further, the idea of thrust is that it expends energy to create an acceleration (i.e., change in velocity, which applies to changes in speed, direction, or both); that acceleration, when acting upon a mass, causes the mass to change velocity.
All right, now I'M confused. What the heck was I talking about?
