<story><title>If the Earth were 100 pixels wide</title><url>http://www.distancetomars.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ohazi</author><text>Is anyone else a little bothered by the fact that the reported speed was 1/5 the speed of light, yet the flyby necessarily increased to well over the speed of light in order to actually get you to Mars before you got bored and closed the tab? Traveling &lt;i&gt;at&lt;/i&gt; the speed of light would have taken 5-20 minutes. Traveling slower than that would have taken even longer...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aqme28</author><text>Travelling &lt;i&gt;at&lt;/i&gt; the speed of light would have taken 0 seconds for you, the traveller, but 5-20 minutes for your observer.&lt;p&gt;However, the Lorentz factor at 20% of the speed of light is ~1.02. This means the distance you travel is only about 2% shorter, so relativistic effects aren&apos;t the reason for the discrepancy.</text></comment>
<story><title>If the Earth were 100 pixels wide</title><url>http://www.distancetomars.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ohazi</author><text>Is anyone else a little bothered by the fact that the reported speed was 1/5 the speed of light, yet the flyby necessarily increased to well over the speed of light in order to actually get you to Mars before you got bored and closed the tab? Traveling &lt;i&gt;at&lt;/i&gt; the speed of light would have taken 5-20 minutes. Traveling slower than that would have taken even longer...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aetherson</author><text>Yeah, I hadn&apos;t realized that they were doing that, and it does bother me.  I don&apos;t mind the idea that we&apos;re going FTL, but they should explain that in the text, not just report 20% of the speed of light.  Ironically, it makes the distances seem shorter than they are, in a thing that seems designed to make you understand how long they are.</text></comment>