Traveling to Alpha Centauri

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I recommend this site automatically for all basic space propulsion info:
http://www.islandone.org/APC/
look under interstellar missions for feasible propulsion technologies based of conventional physics, without some form of propulsions that used exotic physics of some from getting to alpha centaury in under 40 years will be very hard

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You have to give the dinosaurs some credit....."Where there is no intelligence, there is no stupidity"......That's why the dinosaurs lasted so long......Not so in our case. Right????.....Right!!!!


A piece of cake....

Norm

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

deep space

if we were to say get past earths gravitational pull and past that of the sun then we would eventually be pulled toward the next big field of gravity. wouldn't that make our speed potential a lot greater with or without new technology. then if we get out in the middle of nowhere our rockets are blasting at a speed that is not relative to anything and if our speed is not relative to anything it would just keep accelerating maybe we would just disapear into the blankness.

 

I disagree. The space program is advancing, but not at the rate you speak of. A continued Cold War momentum would surely have brought us to--or close to--Mars by now. But NASA faces a bit of a drag right now compared to it's earlier advancement rates. I've heard the projected Mars date--the day when humans walk on the red planet--to be anyway from 2015 to 2060; those estimations leave out the skeptics. And I think that the interstellar leap is far, far larger than the interplanetary leap (yes, I realize we are talking about unmanned spacecraft for the first Alpha Centauri expedition). (The seemingly irrelevant reference to the manned Mars mission was used just to scope out NASA's advancement rate). Anyway, tons and tons of hurdles--some we know of; others we don't--need to be overcome before we send a craft to Alpha Centauri. I pray that such a mission becomes a reality, but saying that it will occur this century is just like when early 20th century futurists predicted that computers will be able to predict the weather within the next century. Such thoughts are nice and seem to agree with the general advancement of technology, but never are things so linear; our minds think of space exploration advancement as

earth orbit-->moon-->interplanetary exploration-->interstellar exploration

when the true technological advancement rate sees otherwise:

earth orbit-->moon---->interplanetary exploration------------------------------------------------------------------------------->interstellar exploration.

I guess my hyphens represent time/effort required?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Let us say we went to Alpha C but what would happen if we got there and there wasn't any habitable planet to live on? First we should send ROBOTIC craft to investigate where we would like to visit to understand what it is like before we send humans. With advancements in robots and artifical intelligence we could learn allot with little investment and without the worry of loss of life.

This would be a better way to explore the universe for the near future for we are just learning a little bit about what is beyond our solar system.Let us take the time we need to understand what the hell is out there before sending humans to an unknown risk taking exploration.Getting there is one thing but then you must return. The closest galaxy is over 10 light years away. That would take at least 50 years to get there travelling at close to the speed of light. What would happen to the craft if it hit something going at that speed? Think about it, you'd never see the object coming at you at that rate of speed if it were small in size. Your craft would explode into nothingness if this catastrophy were to happen , and it really could.

 

That's kind of implied. Humans aren't that stupid; we would never send a manned spacecraft first, then when they got there think: "oh wait, they have to come back too... hmm, we're in quite a quandary."

So, it's pretty safe to say that unmanned craft will be the first to visit Alpha Centauri

The closest galaxy--andomeda--is 2.2 million light years away. The closest star--stars, actually(AC is a triple star system)--are 4.35 (i think) light years away.

 

I use 50 years because nothing but light as we know now can travel that fast. Taking that into consideration I hope that you see why I put 50 years as a guesstimate as to travelling to Alpha C. . Today our fastest probes can only go about 45,000 MPH top. If you use a solarsail as someone suggested you would lose the power of the sun at about Mars, so solarsailing would be a great waste of time and money for intersolar system travel. Until we find a faster way to travel it will be many decades before humans will explore our solar system with ease. It will be centuries before humans explore distant parts of our galaxy. That is if no faster way of travel is found. Faster like half the speed of light.

 

It's pretty obvious that we're going to be locked into our own solar system for a long time before we have the means for interstellar travel........Maybe in 3 or 4 centuries if we're lucky, we'll get to Alpha Centauri.....But don't count on it because there are too many big asteroids and comets out there floating around and one of them has Earth's name on it.....If the Yellowstone Supervolcano doesn't take us out first.....

Atta Boy

 

The nearest star is 4.3 light years away. How could we get there in 2 months?

 

I think Tau Ceti is the best bet. It's the closest single star reasonably similar to Sol.

Time dilation.
Let's say a spacecraft went to Alpha Centauri at 0.999c.
When the ship arrives, it immediately beams back a signal to let us know how long it took to get there.

We'd get the signal 8.6 years after the ship left, but the ship says that it only took 3 days! Of course, allowing a reasonable time to accelerate and decelerate would add on a couple of months

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

We'll probably not spend to much time trying to setup colonies on Mercury or Venus, unless we enjoy lots of real hot weather........Mars???....Maybe in fifty or a hundred years if we're lucky.....Beyond Mars??? I think robots are going to be the best way to tour the solar system and beyond........No real reason to send humans when robots can do the job too. Just make sure and send along a few more battery packs to last them for a while. Even if we found another planetary system out there with life on it (dinosaurs or otherwise), what are you going to do about? Drop by after a two or three hundred years in travelling there with an armful full of flowers and a message from the president saying hello from the people of the planet Earth, we come in peace??? That's a joke!!!

Atta Boy