[Xophmeister]

We already know how to get arbitrarily close to 1C: just keep adding energy to the system to produce enough thrust to overcome the additional mass of said energy's source and the relative mass increase from getting closer to 1C. It's just not practical and the laws of physics forbid it from ever being practical.

[jlebrech]

but if we keep trying there should be a spacefaring equivalent of Moores law?

what if instead of formula 1 we had races in orbit? this would push the boat out.

[avian]

I doubt any metric in Formula 1 doubles every 2 years.

To get something like Moore’s law you need a breakthrough that opens up possibilities for many orders of magnitude in improvements. Baring new physics there’s just nothing like that available for rocketry.

[3rdAccount]

No. Moore's law is about making things smaller for speedups.

We can't shrink Relativistic Physics like that to lower the energy required to reach 1c (infinite). Of course, it is possible that there is a better standard model of physics which does a better job of explaining things and which does say we can do so.

Another space race or space F1 would definitely make our engineering better and more reliable, but at massive cost and we still won't get FTL.

[logfromblammo]

Nearly all racing formats have banned certain technologies.

For instance, swimming banned LZR Racer swimsuits as "technology doping". Formula 1 has banned a variety of technologies, some just for increasing risk to spectators. America's Cup banned pedal power and cyborgs. Most human-powered races ban performance enhancing drugs.

I could easily see space racing banning negative mass.