Quote:
Originally Posted by Ravensknight
But doesn't their mass keep going on Course X? So even if they flip over, they have to overcome their inertial mass to reach zero movement on Course X, then accelerate on Course -X?
Excuse my ignorance here. I find this really interesting and thank you for starting this thread up.
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Yes, they do need to overcome their momentum in their current direction and reverse it to go the other way. But the most economical way to do this is to directly reverse course, not to start accelerating sideways, keeping the same speed but changing your direction of travel until you've turned 180 degrees and started moving in the opposite direction, to do that requires the same acceleration in the direction you want to go *and* the sideways acceleration one way and back again.