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The Universe Within 12.5 Light Years

(www.atlasoftheuniverse.com)
266 points algorithmista | 1 comments | 05 Sep 25 22:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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stephc_int13 ◴[06 Sep 25 01:21 UTC] No.45145686[source]▶
When the Fermi Paradox was first posited, scientists and engineers seemed to believe that interstellar travel was soon to be technologically achievable, a few decades, maybe centuries for the less optimistic. Progress around space propulsion has kind of stalled since then and we should maybe question the possibility of interstellar travel as this would give an easy but unpleasant answer to the famous paradox.
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treyd ◴[06 Sep 25 02:24 UTC] No.45146055[source]▶
We do know how to build interstellar-capable propulsion. It'd still be a generational ship but we know how we could do it within the span of a few human lifetimes. Building them is a matter of organizing the resources to actually make it happen, and we haven't had the collective will for anything like that yet.
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1. bluGill ◴[06 Sep 25 07:41 UTC] No.45147382[source]▶
We do not know how to build one. We could build something of that size maybe, but we couldn't make it last long enough to get anywhere. Some astroroid will randomly hit it in the worst spot and break it.