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/sci/ - Science & Math

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1665959 No.1665959 [Reply] [Original]

Well, it appears /sci/ has gone to shit today.
Anyways, with modern day technology, how long would it take for a space probe to reach a star 10 light years away? Keep in mind modern-day technology, not what we have made. If there weren't budget problems, we could have a super-advanced plasma rocket, but there currently isn't one in use. Use whatever you like: solar sails, ion engines, chemical rockets (if you're a faggot), it doesn't matter.
pic unrelated

>> No.1665963

Rather unrelated, but i read an article yesterday that they'll supposedly be able to stop aging by 2029.

>> No.1665969

Time as measured by whom?

>> No.1665970

>>1665969
Relative to the person travelling. Sorry, forgot to mention that.

>> No.1665971

>>1665963
That's interesting. I read in 1981 that we'd send people to Jupiter in 2001.

>> No.1665979

>>1665971
Cool. Back in 1950, they said we'd have found other life by now.

>> No.1665984

>solar sails
The japs are the only ones to have put a working prototype of a solar sail in orbit, hardly relevant modern day technology.

Ion engines of some sort would get you there as fast as possible, though it would probably be worth to sling the craft around the solar system in various gravity assist/slingshit trajectories for a decade or so until you finally set it away towards the star. It would however still take over a millenia for it to reach its destination, i think the calculation for the voyager probe, the currently fastest man made probe in space is that it will take 25000 years for it to travel a distance equivalent to the distance to the nearest star.

>> No.1665997

>>1665970
Well, as a point of reference, if we can find a way to accelerate half way at a constant 1g, and then turn around and decelerate at a constant 1g, then the person traveling could make a 10 light year trip in 4.85 years.

This is the calculation:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.94+arccosh+%2810%2F1.94+%2B+1%29

This is the basis of the calculation:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/PhysFAQ/Relativity/SR/rocket.html

That is independent of considerations of method of propulsion, which is engineering, and therefore gay.

>> No.1666003

>>1665997
please explain.

>> No.1666009

>>1666003
Because of time dilation and length contraction of space, it takes the traveler 4.85 years to cross 10 light years if accelerating at 1g for half the trip and then decelerating at 1g for the second half. The calculation is in the link.