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If we design a probe that travels at speed of light it would reach there in 48 years and it would send back what it's seen after another 48 years. It would take
by quaintdev 4mo ago
If we design a probe that travels at speed of light it would reach there in 48 years and it would send back what it's seen after another 48 years. It would take multiple generations of scientists to work on this project. The longest we have worked on, are Voyager projects. Can we expect that level of commitments from our governments or corporations? Voyager became successful because people could see distant futures. We can barely plan few years ahead.
- functionmouse 4mo agoWe cannot design a probe that travels at the speed of light.
- dhosek 4mo agoThis is where English’s defective subjunctive makes life harder: The point wasn’t about the practicality of the probe from a scientific position, but rather pointing out that even in a best-case scientific scenario, the political-economic-cultural forces are against us.
- slfnflctd 4mo ago> Can we expect that level of commitments from our governments or corporations? Clearly, right now we cannot. This is one of the worst obstacles to progress in these areas that I see, and I don't see any obvious way to fix it. The situation we're currently in would've been utterly unfathomable to me 30 years ago. I have lost a great deal of the hope and optimism I held in the past. Interstellar exploration is but one of many fields where we are suffering due to short term thinking.
- SoftTalker 4mo agoFind a way to sell ads on it.
- JMKH42 4mo agoShort term thinking isn't why we are suffering. We are suffering because there are no promising avenues to pursue. If you think of one, bring it up.
- ryandrake 4mo agoIf you could solve propulsion enough to accelerate and decelerate a spaceship at just 1G, you could forget the probe and just send people there. While it would take ~50 years of earth time, it would only take ~7.5 years for the astronauts. They could reach the planet with most of their lives free to go to work studying or even colonizing it.
- myrmidon 4mo agoThis is indeed an interesting perspective, but "constant 1g rocket acceleration" is not even an engineering pipedream, it's strictly fantasy territory.
- JMKH42 4mo agoI had this realization in high school. At the time I did not appreciate how impossible it is to accelerate at 1G for that long. Absent some entirely new physics becoming available. All signs point to it not being possible, so not even likely new physics could exist.