Normally you can ignore the drag from the Interplanetary or Interstellar media, but if you had a ship that could travel at high relativistic speed, pushing past 0.9c, 0.99c, 0.999c, etc., you actually would have to consider the drag from it. Ships going that fast would have to be designed with aerodynamic principles in mind, just like atmospheric craft.
This is new and surprising to me. Do you have a source? It seems to me that if it gets to a point where you need to design your ship using aerodynamic principle, you should also be able to drive your ship using aerodynamic principle (i.e., push on stuff around the ship, instead of expelling propellant from the ship as usual spacecrafts do).
I suppose if you could develop some type of sci-fi magnet ram-air funnel thingy you could make something work with the hydrogen atoms drifting around, but you’d still have to jet something out the back to keep going. Less like a rocket, more like an airplane.
This is new and surprising to me. Do you have a source? It seems to me that if it gets to a point where you need to design your ship using aerodynamic principle, you should also be able to drive your ship using aerodynamic principle (i.e., push on stuff around the ship, instead of expelling propellant from the ship as usual spacecrafts do).
I suppose if you could develop some type of sci-fi magnet ram-air funnel thingy you could make something work with the hydrogen atoms drifting around, but you’d still have to jet something out the back to keep going. Less like a rocket, more like an airplane.