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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To add,
Regarding the whole rocket fuel thing, that’s called the [Tyranny of the Rocket Equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation). The equation mostly describes the situation of overcoming gravity and lifting a payload off the ground. There are limits to how heavy a rocket can be given our material science today. As a thought experiment, if there were a rocky planet containing life elsewhere, with a civilization of comparable technology to us – if the planet were a bit bigger than Earth, then they could not build a rocket capable of escaping their planet’s gravity. They’d have to invent something more energetic, something stronger and lighter than what we can do today.
Once you’re in space, things are different. We could build a space ship in orbit of any size and load it up with all sorts of fuel and whatever. Technically, we could mine asteroids and other small bodies and potentially make the materials out there rather than down here. You’d have to play a game of time and orbital mechanics, perhaps several lifetimes to get the work done, but hey. It’s not necessarily practical or efficient.
But it would be nifty to accelerate like crazy. Not necessarily press you into the seat crazy, but, constantly crazy. A [1g](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_travel_using_constant_acceleration) rocket would accelerate at a constant rate that would put it’s payload under 1g of force. It’s a dandy way to simulate gravity! But it’s also fast. You’re not just getting to your destination, but you’re getting there faster and faster. All you have to do is half way through the trip, turn the ship around, and accelerate in the opposite direction – so you don’t overshoot where you’re trying to go. This could cut down trips across the solar system to just a few days to get as far out as Pluto. A trip across the galaxy would take 12 years – I’m quoting a figure, I don’t know if they factored in slowing down.
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