4 ms·

I’ve imagined a scene playing out, in sci-fi or for real in the distant future, where astronauts test out a new propulsion system by flying out towards Voyager

I’ve imagined a scene playing out, in sci-fi or for real in the distant future, where astronauts test out a new propulsion system by flying out towards Voyager 1 and catch up to it with ease. As they approach, they see the ancient probe grow larger and larger in their window until…

randomtoast 2y ago
If my math is correct, we would already need to build a spaceship that can travel at 1/10th the speed of light to reach Voyager 1 within one week. It will be quite an engineering challenge for the future.
- Aachen 2y ago
  https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ says the furthest is 24.4 million km from earth. Pulling out the trusty qalculator: $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week / c to %' (((24.4 * (10^6)) kilometers) / (1 week)) / SpeedOfLight = approx. 0.0134572816% So this is using the "millions of kilometers per week" as a speed unit (like km/h but bigger), then dividing by the speed of light (c) to get the fraction of c this is, and finally asks it to format it as a percentage Edit: found a potentially easier (more intuitive to understand) query, giving the same result, as well as how to ask it nearly for the how manyth part of c this is. I'm still learning all the tricks of this tool :) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to c%' [...] approx. 0.0134572816(%c) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to 1/c' [...] approx. 7430.92125 c^-1
  - divbzero 2y ago
    That’s pretty cool. Wolfram Alpha also yields approx. 0.134 c for 1 week of travel time: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+1+week https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... --- Perhaps targeting 100 weeks of travel time would be more plausible: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+100+weeks https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... 0.00134 c is approx. two times the top speed of 0.00064 c for the fastest space probe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe If only we could harness gravity assist at will…

randomtoast 2y ago

If my math is correct, we would already need to build a spaceship that can travel at 1/10th the speed of light to reach Voyager 1 within one week. It will be quite an engineering challenge for the future.

Aachen 2y ago
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ says the furthest is 24.4 million km from earth. Pulling out the trusty qalculator: $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week / c to %' (((24.4 * (10^6)) kilometers) / (1 week)) / SpeedOfLight = approx. 0.0134572816% So this is using the "millions of kilometers per week" as a speed unit (like km/h but bigger), then dividing by the speed of light (c) to get the fraction of c this is, and finally asks it to format it as a percentage Edit: found a potentially easier (more intuitive to understand) query, giving the same result, as well as how to ask it nearly for the how manyth part of c this is. I'm still learning all the tricks of this tool :) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to c%' [...] approx. 0.0134572816(%c) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to 1/c' [...] approx. 7430.92125 c^-1
- divbzero 2y ago
  That’s pretty cool. Wolfram Alpha also yields approx. 0.134 c for 1 week of travel time: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+1+week https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... --- Perhaps targeting 100 weeks of travel time would be more plausible: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+100+weeks https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... 0.00134 c is approx. two times the top speed of 0.00064 c for the fastest space probe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe If only we could harness gravity assist at will…