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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: 0.208s | 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. greenbit ◴[06 Sep 25 13:06 UTC] No.45148957[source]▶
It'd have to be pretty darned big, to sustain a population large enough to remain viable for a couple of centuries. You'd then have to figure out how to get enough delta-v on it to escape the solar system, but then you'd also need a way to get yet more delta-v at the other end, to slow enough to get captured in a useful orbit, or else fly right on out the other side. Assuming there's a planet you're aiming for, you'd want to establish an orbit of that. So this has to be a small asteroid scale ship, with propulsion that works, after centuries of micro meteorites and radiation, and possibly substandard maintenance.