Today in my physics class this question was raised. I was just curious what all you other brains out there thought about this question...
I know if you look in the news today and other discussions on possible future propulsion systems, people talk about nuclear, antimatter/matter, ion, etc. I know the potential for antimatter is great, but what got me was, lets say antimatter is abundant and easy to manufacture for space travel, what speeds are we talking then? I have heard quotes of Voyager and possibly other satellites travel around 45K MPH. Could we get to 500K? Maybe 2 million?. I mean 164 million mile per hour is only 25% speed of light. And it seems almost impossible to get that fast even with antimatter. And let?s just say for argument sakes that we could travel speed of light, the nearest star would still take 4 years to get there. Some stars would take a life time. So unless we find other ways of traveling other than linear vectors we won't be "startrekin? anytime soon.
Any thoughts?...
I know if you look in the news today and other discussions on possible future propulsion systems, people talk about nuclear, antimatter/matter, ion, etc. I know the potential for antimatter is great, but what got me was, lets say antimatter is abundant and easy to manufacture for space travel, what speeds are we talking then? I have heard quotes of Voyager and possibly other satellites travel around 45K MPH. Could we get to 500K? Maybe 2 million?. I mean 164 million mile per hour is only 25% speed of light. And it seems almost impossible to get that fast even with antimatter. And let?s just say for argument sakes that we could travel speed of light, the nearest star would still take 4 years to get there. Some stars would take a life time. So unless we find other ways of traveling other than linear vectors we won't be "startrekin? anytime soon.
Any thoughts?...