Current Events > Will humans ever travel to another star system?

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Will humans ever travel to another star system?
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Proxima Centauri really isn't that far away. With modern technology, we can get there in around 30 to 40 years.
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Coffeebeanz posted...

Proxima Centauri really isn't that far away. With modern technology, we can get there in around 30 to 40 years.

What modern technology?

Even the most theoretical projects put it easily over a century. You're not getting any humans there in 30-40 years.
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Considering that within about 100 years, we went from being unable to fly to having a satellite exist the solar system, Im sure well get there eventually. Just a matter of how long itll take to create the technology capable of making it.
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We technically could send a human to Proxima Centauri right now and have them be there in a few decades just to say we did, but there's little point other than that.

Seems more up China's alley given their position on human rights and the value of the individual

LockeMonster posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

Proxima Centauri really isn't that far away. With modern technology, we can get there in around 30 to 40 years.

What modern technology?

Even the most theoretical projects put it easily over a century. You're not getting any humans there in 30-40 years.

There's a PBS Spacetime video about it. Controlled thermonuclear bomb propulsion can realistically accelerate up to around 1/10th the speed of light.

At 4 light years away, that's a 40 year trip.
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With the current progression of technology, unlikely. Excluding cryogenics and thousands of years of space travel, we'd have to figure out worm holes or FTL travel.

Coffeebeanz posted...

There's a PBS Spacetime video about it. Controlled thermonuclear bomb propulsion can realistically accelerate up to around 1/10th the speed of light.

At 4 light years away, that's a 40 year trip.

Project Onion and related ones are still very much theoretical and impossibly expensive. Like millions of times the energy required for anything today. Like several months of the energy consumed by the entire plant, localized onboard to accelerate a 747 sized ship to that speed.
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We're going to kill ourselves pretty soon.
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If we can get off of earth and create a self sustaining colony somewhere else in our own solar system we've doubled our odds of survival and will have greatly improved our chances of interstellar travel.

I don't think we're that far from making interplanetary existence happen if technology continues at the current pace but nothing is guaranteed.
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Humans will go extinct due to climate change long before we are capable of traveling the stars
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Way too far. It's not possible.

Besides, as far as we know, there's nothing of interest in the closest star systems that are already a few light years away. You'd have to go even further.

I don't think people understand the distances.
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That would be interesting. A 40 year trip. I'm guessing they would use some kind of freezing technology. So that way when you wake up it would appear that you've only been under for a day. Other wise that is a long ass trip. That is a little longer than I've been alive. And I couldn't even imagine a trip that long.
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KILBOTz posted...

We're going to kill ourselves pretty soon.

wouldn't say that exactly. more of what other country's would do if a war started. that's the biggest threat.

peace would be better alternative (nobody has to die) except for murdering bastards.
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