solar system lights
Will humans ever leave the solar system?
How long did it take from blast off to touch down on the moon? They are talking about humans going to Mars, how long will the trip take, 6 months? Our earliest robotic exploration vehicles (launched in the mid-70’s) are now just crossing the outer reaches of the solar system. Our nearest neighboring star is 4.2 light years away. Obviously, we aren’t going anywhere with our current means of propulsion. So, what can we do and how soon will it take to do it?
leaving the known solar system technically isnt that much of a leap, at least for robots. the voyagers of the 70s have left the known solar system , entering the kuiper belt. humans though, would need a pretty darn good reason to spend the remainder of their lives on a spaceship. there are probably a great number of massive and interesting objects in the oort cloud that are just not bright enough to be detected with current technology. as far as reaching the nearest star, that really is a stretch, but think back only one lifetime ago. the wright brothers had just lifted off on the first airplane. look what has happened in the lifetime of the average human. the wright flyer to voyager, 73 years. think about it, incredible!!
as far as propulsion is concerned, a lot can happen between now and the day that we seriously consider interstellar travel. currently the favored technologies are high specific impulse combined with long duration thrust. what that means using low reaction mass and high energy. currently VASIMIR engines offer the higest known specific impulse but have extremely high energy requirements. the other option is an externally powered craft, such as a solar sail(good around the solar system), a magnetic sail(good around massive objects and solar wind), and the most promising, a ground based beam rider. such a craft would ride like a solar sail on the photons of a massive earth based energy beam. its pretty hard to imagine but did wilbur and orville, flying thier rickety contraption at 12 mph imagine voyager flying past jupiter,saturn, uranus and neptune at 35000mph? (all within a lifetime!!)
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