Quote of the Day
Humanity could be sending probes toward the nearest star system with a flight time of just 40 years—seven years shorter than Voyager’s mission today. It’s not exactly the 37-hour trip that the USS Enterprise can pull off at warp eight, but it’s a start.
Darren Orf
January 18, 2025
Scientists Have a Radical Plan to Travel to the Nearest Star System Within a Human Lifetime
It could be 40 years before we get working warp drive ships. I also doubt the first warp drives will be capable of warp eight. Sending probes out ahead, even slow (relative to warp drive enabled) probes, would be useful.
I like living in the future. Just thinking about the possibilities from an engineering standpoint rather than completely imaginary propulsion schemes is a huge step forward.
“filled with yet-to-be-discovered materials and concepts” So, a version of “Gee, if only we could…”
The author bio says ” has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi”. The cat and the article are both fluff.
To me, it’s wonderful. Were natural explorers.
But it isn’t isn’t just the warp speed needed to get there.. It’s identifying and dodging rocks at warp speed while trying to get there, also.
I mean we just watched a classic example of Uncle Murphy over the Potomac the other night.
And if you’re going to spend 40 years getting there. And you spent 20 years or better growing up and training. ETA, 65 years old?
Let’s hope the gravity is less, cause we can’t all be fit like RFK jr..
And we haven’t even started on food.
I ain’t going forty years without a freshly grilled ribeye and a loaded baked tater. Side of sauteed asparagus.
I’m sure you can find dedicated folks that will live on bug-protein, hydroponic lettuce, and 40 year old peanut butter. But damn, they’re going to have to be real dedicated.
Just me, but we got a lot of civilization and problems to work on right here on planet earth. First. Otherwise, were just exporting our problems.
Cause the way we are? Were just “boldly going” someplace no one really wants to, given the chance to truly think it through. Hell.
Read carefully. No one has proposed sending humans on a 40 year journey across space. Just unmanned probes. The Voyager probes were launched nearly 50 years ago in September 1977. They are still sending data back home. It is a large set of engineering problems, but it does seem plausible we could send a probe to the nearest star systems and get data back within a human lifetime.
Human expeditions to other star systems will require the equivalent of warp drive and shields with round trip journeys measured in months. Slower propulsion systems could work if the “spacecraft” is a something like a large hollow asteroid with a population of hundreds or thousands and a power supply capable of growing crops for human and animal feed.
So, we use a beam of whatever to propel a craft to superduper speed and it reaches its target in forty years. Then a quick flyby ‘cuzza no brakes? We’ll end up being contacted by the Galactic Space Patrol and given a ticket for littering. Sorry, I just can’t take the article seriously.
Sorry, I just took the header and ran.
But on a related topic, Carl Denninger over at “the market ticker” just had an article on that probe that was sent to crash-land on an asteroid rock. (Bennu?) Take samples and report back.
It had some DNA type aminos and other interesting findings.
Supposed to be 4 billion years old.
MTH: IIRC, 17 of 20 amino acids critical for life-as-we-know-it. Like we know anything about life (insert eyeroll emoji).
And the Russkies claim they found micro-organisms on the outside of ISS that withstood the vacuum and UV around our little orbital habitat. Or Boris scratched his nose while securing the samples. (color me cynical; I watched a coworker contaminate a sterile field with her unsecured tresses. Oops! On with the test!)
Regardless of the findings, we live in interesting times.
How are we supposed to have beer.
Warp drive is 99.9% fantasy and .1% theoretical possibility. And that’s not factoring the issue of how to power such a theoretical device. The energy required to travel at such speeds is akin to the total output of a star during it’s entire lifespan. In reality unless science stumbles across some breakthrough that we at this time are TOTALLY unaware of then FTL travel is likely to remain in the purview of science fiction. It would be nice if we could find a way to travel to distant stars in a reasonable time frame. Because eventually humanity MUST leave Earth or go extinct. But at this point in time and scientific knowledge it’s just not a reality.