Actually, there is a drive concept called Bussard Ramjet, which relies upon scooping up hydrogen ions while the ship is moving at relativistic speeds. The intake is augmented with conical magnetic field to extend the range of the scoop. You don’t need huge fuel tanks to power such engine either - collected ions are compacted to produce thermonuclear fusion which is used to propel the spacecraft.

However, I don’t see sense in having more than one such intake. Maybe a second one for redundancy…

It’s fun to discuss plausibility of some purely hypothetical design on an imaginary spaceship 😃