Sun have lot of energy, so it can be used as energy source. If you plan to travel at % of c, you will need strong enough radiation and thermal shield anyway. And if you have such shield, why not just dive into Sun for refueling? Humans can stay at high orbit, when interstellar locomotive refuels.
Locomotive can harvest energy and matter from Sun and then use it to orbit around Sun, slowly gaining speed, until it will no longer will be able to compensate сentrifugal force. Then it can reach high orbit passively, pickup pilots on high orbit, and be ready to flight, with full tanks. Or it can dump fuel, and do another dive to Sun, for more fuel.
If it will survive Sun radiation at low orbit, then it may also survive interstellar travel at high % of C.
From that article the best case scenario is a billionth the acceleration you are looking for. And you can’t take a billion stars because then you have more mass...
Edit: the interesting part of discussing the 1g is probably less a realistic proposal and more how about how the concept of acceleration quickly runs up against our mental constructs of what acceleration and distance means. I don’t know the source, but it’s probably an enlightening to discuss what it means in the context of relativity.
Ok, it would be exciting to move the whole solar system to a nicer place in the galaxy. But how many years are we not going to use to evaluate the ethics and technical risks of the experiment? :)
> Particles accelerate to light speed all the time though.
No, they don’t, as far as we know.
There are particles that are always slower than light, and particles that always go at exactly light speed, but no particles that accelerate to (or decelerate from) light speed.
