Answer to Question #66087 in Physics for Alexia

Question

A criminal (Alicia Badax) escapes from the space station prison. Alicia steals a small spaceship and blasts off to meet her associates somewhere in deep space. If she is to just barely escape, how long do her associates have to transport her off her ship before she is destroyed by a photon torpedo from the space station? In the story, the stolen ship accelerates in a straight line at its maximum possible acceleration of 25 m/s2. After 10 minutes all of the fuel is burned and the ship coasts at a constant velocity. Meanwhile, the hero of this episode (Major Starr) learns of the escape while dining with the station's commander. Of course she immediately rushes off to fire photon torpedoes at Alicia. Once fired, a photon torpedo travels at a constant velocity of 20,000 m/s. By that time Alicia has a 30 minute (1800 seconds) head start on the photon torpedo.