Okay, I’m an idiot. Just to preface this. But let’s say I’m in space. There’s no wind resistance right? If I accelerate, I’ll maintain that speed. Why can’t I just burn more fuel and go faster?
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Anyone that asks this question should play Kerbal Space Program. If you manage to land on the mun (the programs equivalent of the moon) you’ve answered this question and about 20 other questions you might have about orbital mechanics and accelerating through space.
The short answer is that since there is nothing to brace yourself against, every meter of speed you accelerate is basically your ship going that way because it’s shooting reaction mass out the other direction. The faster and more efficiently you can shoot mass out your rocket the faster you can go before running out of fuel.
Which is basically why an Apollo rocket is the closest humanity has gotten to “not quite a slowly exploding nuclear bomb” (because the fuel used is EXTREMELY explosive). Scientists even talked about using nuclear bombs to go fast into space (Orion Project).
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