The innermost Earth-like planet in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system might be capable of supporting a thick atmosphere after all, according to new research.
unless we’re wrong about the whole speed of light thing
Technically, if we could reach relativistic speeds close to the speed of light, the trip could be very short for the crew. Just don’t expect to ever be able to see anyone you knew back home ever again. We can do just fine on sub-FTL tech if the crew accepts the consequences. We can use very high ISP continuous propulsion methods like the Orion nuclear bomblet and pusher plate concept, or beefed up ion engines, or lasers pushing a solar sail, etc.
Those are the ideas I was referencing as taking decades tbh. Technically a few, especially the laser sail, can potentially get to high enough fractions of lightspeed to get that noticable time dilation effect, but given that makes something that already costs a huge amount of energy, much more expensive than it already is, I’m not sure if you’d actually want to go to those speeds very often.
Technically, if we could reach relativistic speeds close to the speed of light, the trip could be very short for the crew. Just don’t expect to ever be able to see anyone you knew back home ever again. We can do just fine on sub-FTL tech if the crew accepts the consequences. We can use very high ISP continuous propulsion methods like the Orion nuclear bomblet and pusher plate concept, or beefed up ion engines, or lasers pushing a solar sail, etc.
You then just have to figure out how to stop, preferably without killing any life that may have already evolved there.
Those are the ideas I was referencing as taking decades tbh. Technically a few, especially the laser sail, can potentially get to high enough fractions of lightspeed to get that noticable time dilation effect, but given that makes something that already costs a huge amount of energy, much more expensive than it already is, I’m not sure if you’d actually want to go to those speeds very often.