It takes 70,000 years to travel to closest star with our current technology...

sign me up

Only takes me a week and a half, and no you can't ride along...

It takes 70,000 years to travel to closest star with our current admitted technology..

fixed it for ya. ;-`)

The crazy thing about that to me is that our technology is advancing at a rate where if you were to take off on this long journey, we will have invented a faster way to travel through space and pass you up within 10 years.

Back when I was a stoner it took me about half an hour...

And it is impossible for us to reach any other galaxy outside the milkyway. No matter how fast we move, the universe is expanding at the speed of light. even if we were to move at the speed of light we would only keep up with the other galaxies.
We will need to either find a way to move faster then the speed of light, or develop a warp drive. In which we bend space. There is no limt at the speed in which you may bend space. However, we require negative energy to do such things. Which we aren't 100% sure it exists.

nice

[link to www.boeing.com]


Ion engines using a New gas called Xenon travels much faster.

[link to lovingenergies.spruz.com]

How would you and your crew make it safely past the Van Allen radiation belt?

Voyager 1 is NOT current technology.

We have ion drive now, and the ability to scoop matter from interstellar space.

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Using an Ion drive coupled with a fusion reactor, means one can see at least 30 years of continued acceleration.

Even if you have an acceleration of only 0.05 meters per second, over 15 years (473040000 seconds) your final velocity is 23,652,000 meter/second.

The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s

You are traveling at about 8% the speed of light.

Granted that isn't very fast, but in order to travel 4 light years it would only take 50 to 100 years.

It is feasible to construct a ship that can accelerate at 0.3 gee (3.33 m/s) using current ion engine technologies coupled with tapping the thermal differential of natural space.

Boosting constantly for only 2 years (63072000 seconds)

Means you would achieve a velocity of 210,029,760 m/s

That is 70.0583% the speed of light.

Assuming for the moment that relativity does not play a roll in the matter, it would take rough a decade (10 years) of accelerations, coasting at top speed and deceleration to reach the nearest star.

NASA and JPL and the rest make it much harder than it needs to be.

Even Einstein made a minor mistake that every one else follows through.

Einstein tells us that near light speed is not possible because mass (of the craft) becomes greater due to speed. however E=mc^2 (Energy = mass times the speed of light squared) gives us more energy from a mass of matter traveling at greater velocities - why? because the fuel attains a higher mass as well as the craft.

Relative to each other, the mass of the craft to the fuel remains the same. Relative to the rest of the universe the mass of the craft and the fuel increases. The fuel gives out more energy relative to the universe due to its greater velocity.

We cannot accept that mass increases as we travel at relativistic velocities without accepting that the energy strips from that more massive matter also increases due to more mass.

Give me 1.3 billion dollars and a work force and I can build an unmanned vessel that can reach any of the stars found on this map: [link to www.atlasoftheuniverse.com] within 12.5 light years in 25 years from the start of the journey.

Give me 13 billion and it can be a manned mission.

I can get a man to any of those stellar systems and back with in his lifetime tapping into relativity.

BTW I laid out thermodynamic energy available in the solar system along with how to scoop up hydrogen as a fuel for your ion drive here: Thread: Nuclear Space Rockets and the Most Fascinating NASA Man You’ve Never Heard Of

Last Edited by Dr. House on 08/22/2011 11:40 AM

If that were true, we'd have sent something farther than the Voyagers, which were launched almost 35 years ago. But we haven't, and nothing we've launched since then is ever going to catch them.

Not true. If it were expanding at the speed of light, then we wouldn't see any of it because it would be heading away from us too fast. The actual figure is based on the distance, about 72 kilometers/second per kiloparsec. But that only applies to distant objects. The closest major galaxy, Andromeda, is actually heading our way.

Ok this is total BS.

We can go to the closest star at our current speed in 1/3 of a year...We can go all the way around and back again in 1 year. The Sun is not that far away.

And now I am proven to be a certified idiot. Thank you for curing me.
How could I not have thought of that. Especially the fact that we are on a collision course with andromeda.

LOL, well played.

If you're just jumping through hyperspace to get there, and more importantly back, then you aren't going into space.

So put away your silly notions about ion engines and that garbage.

There would be no benefits or gains by going into space if people wouldn't be able to come back for 1,000/100/10 years. There would be no return on the investment.

Doesn't work that way. The mass doesn't increase in any way that would allow one to extract additional energy from it. See discussion at [link to www.physicsforums.com] .

The Hubble recession velocity eventually does get up to the speed of light at very great distances - meaning that portion of the universe is forever closed off to us - but we're talking many billions of light years away.

Are you listening, Mark Zuckerberg?

Give this man his money.

4 light years is a LONG way huh?

bump

with the hidden alien technology, probably 1/2 a day.

Better get started!

it is impossible for MAN on earth to leave this solar system at this point. It has a fence around it. electromagnetic type fence labeled the heliosphere by scientists.

advanced peoples and those in "Heaven" have vehicles which move well faster than light, and they can and do journey to the known edges of the creation, and there are vehicles owned by "HEAVEN" that travel well beyond the current construction thru the dark bodies that separate the different levels and parts.

The answer is Generation-Ship.

don't need technology to travel to the stars..

Hahaha planet xxxxxxxxx! Haha

the private sector is involved now. If there is a buck to be be made, they will make it happen. We are at the begining of another race-for-space. Exciting times!

I agree. Very exciting.

Why would we want to do that anyway?