When I was very young I was interested in the moon landing programs. I quickly homed in on the problem of propulsion in space. I also quickly became discouraged. I felt as though physics may never give us the present of the possibility of interstellar travel. This was the late 60’s and society and technology seemed to crawl at a snails pace.
But now its 2008 and in the intervening time our pace of technology has increased substantially. After additional study of physics and review of what type of research work is being done I am confident we will in the next 50 years send a probe to Rigel Kentaurus. Rigel Kentaurus is the nearest star group to us at about 4.3 lightyears.
aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p139/speed/Alpha-Centauri.html – more detailed information on the system including a comparative with our solar system
How much time is required to accelerate to near the speed of light at 1g acceleration?
in days … thus some days will require higher accelerations.
This can be achieved with a near massless drive powered by nuclear means. The data link back might be a bit slow.
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