31–40 of 351 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) you also need time decelerate 2) speed of light is a hard limit, you cannot keep accelerating and you need more energy the closer you get to that limit
> 1) you also need time decelerate No that would be a waste of effort. A flyby mission definitely makes the most sense. The 3.5 years are with deceleration though.
Another point for anyone considering whether we should send a space-probe there... The current fastest man-man object is the Helios 2 space-probe, reaching something like 25 000 kilometres per hour. Proxima Centauri is 1.3020 parsecs away from Earth. So, just diving one by the other, we'd looking at something like 18 000 years as a rough order of magnitude for sending something from Earth to Proxima Centauri. You'd b…
I find it enjoyable to think about the technologies that might just be in the cards further into the future. If we ever figure out light-weight fusion drives, we could build light hugger space ships that accelerate to a decent fraction of the speed of light. At 1g acceleration it takes about one year to get to 0.9c, which would make the Proxima system accessible with a travel time of about 6 years. Or 8 years at 0.5g…
Propulsion maybe the easier part of engineering. Afaik we are nowhere near to life support and environment control that could be considered stable for a time period of maybe 10 years or more.
The biggest biological advantage, adaptation is meaningless for large organism on such a timescale and maybe dangerous on a microbial level.
Another point for anyone considering whether we should send a space-probe there... The current fastest man-man object is the Helios 2 space-probe, reaching something like 25 000 kilometres per hour. Proxima Centauri is 1.3020 parsecs away from Earth. So, just diving one by the other, we'd looking at something like 18 000 years as a rough order of magnitude for sending something from Earth to Proxima Centauri. You'd b…
I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think about getting to Mars in a reasonable timeframe and in reasonable numbers (to start a colony). We are not funding making our species multiplanetary for the last few decades because we were too lazy, how can anyone expect us sending anything to the closest star (other than the sun)... You can't.
Another point for anyone considering whether we should send a space-probe there... The current fastest man-man object is the Helios 2 space-probe, reaching something like 25 000 kilometres per hour. Proxima Centauri is 1.3020 parsecs away from Earth. So, just diving one by the other, we'd looking at something like 18 000 years as a rough order of magnitude for sending something from Earth to Proxima Centauri. You'd b…
I find it enjoyable to think about the technologies that might just be in the cards further into the future. If we ever figure out light-weight fusion drives, we could build light hugger space ships that accelerate to a decent fraction of the speed of light. At 1g acceleration it takes about one year to get to 0.9c, which would make the Proxima system accessible with a travel time of about 6 years. Or 8 years at 0.5g…
Maybe someone has a link to more information, that’s just what I remember from years ago.
Another point for anyone considering whether we should send a space-probe there... The current fastest man-man object is the Helios 2 space-probe, reaching something like 25 000 kilometres per hour. Proxima Centauri is 1.3020 parsecs away from Earth. So, just diving one by the other, we'd looking at something like 18 000 years as a rough order of magnitude for sending something from Earth to Proxima Centauri. You'd b…
this is why we don't see any signs of life out there. there really isn't any point in trying to venture beyond your home. universe is just too big even at the speed of light when you start venturing beyond your local group.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it enjoyable to think about the technologies that might just be in the cards further into the future. If we ever figure out light-weight fusion drives, we could build light hugger space ships that accelerate to a decent fraction of the speed of light. At 1g acceleration it takes about one year to get to 0.9c, which would make the Proxima system accessible with a travel time of about 6 years. Or 8 years at 0.5g…
Is the 6 years measured in the time-frame of a passenger on the spacecraft, or as observed from Earth?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it enjoyable to think about the technologies that might just be in the cards further into the future. If we ever figure out light-weight fusion drives, we could build light hugger space ships that accelerate to a decent fraction of the speed of light. At 1g acceleration it takes about one year to get to 0.9c, which would make the Proxima system accessible with a travel time of about 6 years. Or 8 years at 0.5g…
IIRC, the limit with humans on-board is like .3c due to the red/blue shifting of the background radiation of the universe. At about .3c, it turns into microwaves/radar/x-rays and such, becoming quite bad for humans. There’s so much background radiation, there may be no way to adequately shield from it and/or travel may be limited only in the direction of less background radiation. Maybe someone has a link to more inf…
Sweet let's crank up the generation ships. Of course picking a suitably inspiring name should be the first priority. Unity? Terra Nova? Gaia? On a more serious note is this a good candidate for JWST, would it be able to infer chemical composition from the planet's spectrum or something? Awesome though we went from (in my lifetime) learning at school that other planets have never been observed, to finding them sprinkl…
It’ll be Spacey McSpaceface if we put it to a vote.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it enjoyable to think about the technologies that might just be in the cards further into the future. If we ever figure out light-weight fusion drives, we could build light hugger space ships that accelerate to a decent fraction of the speed of light. At 1g acceleration it takes about one year to get to 0.9c, which would make the Proxima system accessible with a travel time of about 6 years. Or 8 years at 0.5g…
Is the 6 years measured in the time-frame of a passenger on the spacecraft, or as observed from Earth?
"Earth-like planet"? It orbits the star every 5 days; it's a quarter of the earth's mass. It's also a tenth the distance from its star that Mercury is from the Sun. It's earth-like only in that its temperature is consistent with there being liquid water.