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"What has allowed so many Psychopathic Personalities to rise so high in corporations and government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Torchship  
  A spaceship capable of high acceleration.  

This word paints a wonderful picture; a rocket looks like an upside-down torch, rising on its tail of flames.

FORTY-SEVEN minutes later they were being packed into the scout torchship Salamander. She was in orbit close by; Joe, Kleuger, and their handlers came by tube linking the hub of the Station to her airlock. Joe was weak and dopy from a thorough washing-out plus a dozen treatments and injections. A good thing, he thought, that light-off would be automatic.

The ship was built for high boost; controls were over the pilots’ tanks, where they could be fingered without lifting a hand. The flight surgeon and an assistant fitted Kleuger into one tank while two medical technicians arranged Joe in his.

He held a torcher's contempt for the vast distance itself. Older pilots thought of interplanetary trips with a rocketman's bias, in terms of years—trips that a torchship with steady acceleration covered in days.

Technovelgy from Sky Lift, by Robert Heinlein.
Published by Imagination in 1953
Additional resources -

Another (more complete) description comes from Heinlein's later novel Double Star:

"The Can Do - that's this bucket - is about to rendezvous with the Go For Broke, which is a high-gee torchship. About seventeen seconds and a gnat's wink after we make contact the Go For Broke will torch for Mars - for we've got to be there by Wednesday."

See Bussard ramjet for a form of propulsion capable of even higher speeds.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Sky Lift
  More Ideas and Technology by Robert Heinlein
  Tech news articles related to Sky Lift
  Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein

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