Only 880,000 years at our current average speed. Mind blowing, that.

goalieca 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That’s still a few times older than our species.

	▲	Retric 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Species is a rather arbitrary line here. Humans split from Neanderthal ~500k-800k years ago but could still interbreed 40k years ago. We’re likely more closely related to our common ancestors at that point of divergence than Neanderthal suggesting given the opportunity modern humans could interbreed with our ancestors ~500k-1m years ago. Of course that’s just genetic compatibility, there’s plenty of other ways to define species.

▲

trhway 14 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

NASA and Starlink have already been using ion drives with 10x ISP of chemical rocket engines. Using such drives a 3 stage with existing nuclear reactors as energy source can get to 150-200 km/s.

While it haven't been built yet, nothing seems to prevent ion drive even with 100x ISP of chemical rocket. That means we can get 1000-2000 km/s (acceleration with existing reactors would take about 100 years) and get to the closest star in 1000 years.