Delta-V/Time Calculations Issue - Pyramid 3/79

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by KeplerMine

I'm just pointing out that I didn't make it up, it was the author who wrote it that way. I personally find it easier to describe it as straight flight, players will understand.

If acceleration is high, then sure, but you might as well use the simple square root (2 D/A) for that. Where it comes up in reality is as a simplification for things like ion drives or other very low thrust systems, where acceleration might last the entire flight, but is so low the time required is as much or more often more than a period ("year", though you're most likely to see it for orbit raising maneuvers rather than interplanetary ones) for either endpoint and the actual path is a spiral more than a line.