| ▲ | andy_ppp 2 hours ago |
| Probably more likely that we work out how to fold spacetime than we get there in anything like a high enough percentage of the speed of light - the fastest object we ever made travelled at something like ~0.064% * C so we are looking at ~750 years with current technology and presumably we'd need to switch on the probe in 3/4 of a millennium and figure out how to slow it down and get it into some sort of orbit around the planet. 750 years is hard for me to get excited about even as a vampire. |
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| ▲ | fellowmartian an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| It’s highly unlikely we’re ever getting FTL. We should become comfortable with that and let go our fantasies. Let theoretical physicists chug away at this, we should get underway with projects that are possible with known science. |
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| ▲ | dempedempe 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | [delayed] | |
| ▲ | isodev 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | It would help if our science wasn’t distracted by things like global warming and nazi governments though. There are definitely ways we can help the process * right now * |
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| ▲ | wongarsu an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| With variations on nuclear propulsion we could plausibly get to up to around 12% the speed of light. At least that's the number quoted for Project Daedalus [1], which is using nuclear fusion for the first stage and nuclear-powered ion engines for the second stage. With the cruder but more realistically achievable right now Project Orion design (riding the shockwaves of nuclear bombs) you could still get to ~3% the speed of light But even at 0.12c, we are looking at 400 years to get there. And we'd be zooming by at 12% the speed of light. If we want to slow down a bit that'd add hundreds of billions to the cost. It might be worth waiting another century to see if we can come up with a faster design in that time. Not like closer targets like Alpha Centauri, where the thing stopping us is mostly just the absurd cost |
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| ▲ | exitb 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > But even at 0.12c, we are looking at 400 years to get there. And we'd be zooming by at 12% the speed of light. If we want to slow down a bit that'd add hundreds of billions to the cost. That’s the really hard part. If it’s almost science fiction to accelerate to 0.12c, it’s certainly much more difficult to slow down. At that speed we’d travel and pass this small system in mere minutes. | |
| ▲ | ghm2199 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think the only way political will can fund nasa to realize these 1960 design ideas is an infinite capacity arch rival that threatens/render irrelavent either the dollar's supremacy or american power (and just those two, because apparently these days there is no "threat"/need to defend a higher cause, like the neo-liberal rules based system or democratic or human right values). Also that arch-rival that is probably/likely not china(practically speaking) |
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| ▲ | myrmidon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Adding to this: Those 190km/s of the Parker solar probe were, crucially, periapsis speed. This is a bit like bouncing a rubber ball from a building, measuring its speed at ground level and then going: "Given our fastest achieved speed, we expect to hit the cloud level in <10s". ~200km/s sustained speed is already insanely optimistic for anything we could realistically build in the next half century, so your position is even more ironclad than it looks at first glance. |
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| ▲ | Archelaos 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| We are looking at 75,000 years. You forgot the %. |
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| ▲ | buildbot 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Honestly a near millennia long expedition would be very cool, and doesn’t seem too long on the scale of space stuff. |
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| ▲ | detritus 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff. | | |
| ▲ | oceanplexian 23 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Perhaps, but it is horrifically long in terms of human stuff. Not really, unless you're obsessed with the idea that great works need to happen within your lifetime. Europe is chock full of cathedrals that took 400-600 years to build, worked on by countless generations who would never live to see them completed. | |
| ▲ | andrewflnr an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yep. We haven't really figured out how to do a good government that lasts more than 200 years. Maybe unless you think monarchy is good, in which case I still don't want to share a spaceship with you. | | |
| ▲ | 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | detritus an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I have no doubt that even the most republican of cultures launched from Earth would end up thoroughly monarchistic by the time the generation ships arrived at their destination. At best monarchistic - who knows what savage new forms of society could evolve in that sort of context? | | |
| ▲ | oceanplexian 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | There is a lot of precedent for this. Even on Earth, in 2026, international maritime law states that there is no such thing as a vessel with "democracy" and that a captain always has supreme command. Ships, airplanes, etc are all in a category that operate as strict autocracies. |
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| ▲ | dingaling an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Tynwald, the Isle of Man's parliament, has operated continuously for over 1000 years | | |
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