/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11028593
Remember pushing a merry-go-round on the playground? And you'd time your pushes to match the passing of some kind of handle or bar? The merry-go-round would go faster and faster until it reached a limit. As your hand would try to make contact with the spinning merry-go-round, it was already going as fast as your arm could push. You couldn't keep accelerating it.

Your arm is your thruster, and the speed and strength of your arm, can only create so much thrust, and the merry-go-round can only accelerate to that limit. A larger, more athletic person's arm could move faster, and accelerate the merry-go-round to a higher speed than you could. This is because the thrusters are built different (like some rockets might have different propellants that exit at different speeds and energies).