My lifetime Interstellar travel

 

 

So how can one travel interstellar, without discovering new things like wormholes or significant breaks in warp drive? That it can be so in my life is to live to 2090 or more given no further progress in the next 80 years, the minimum expected healthspan growth by current technology, as this letter https://aaqg-arunarya.blogspot.com/2023/01/spanish-living-to-2090.html shows, based on this essay https://aaqg-arunarya.blogspot.com/2023/01/latest-link-on-recommended-anti-aging.html.

 

I write only engineering fiction, different from sci-fi, based only on existing science, and can hence lay down time estimates based on the challenges to top-quality engineers. I estimate between 100-year anniversary of the sputnik launch in 2061 and the centenary celebration of the moon landing in 2069. 14–20-year mission to the nearest star including the light return of data of 4 years. I will be there.

https://aaqg-arunarya.blogspot.com/2022/04/exponential-technologies-i-have-already.html

 

Why is chemical propulsion, despite muskian reuse, bad?

Rocket equation,  https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-56852104cc5542d450eb04e290160a7f.

 derived from energy and momentum preservation. It shows that the increase in velocity is proportional to the log of the mass of the rocket 

ejected! Any rocket, including fusion, will fail to even get substantial light speed! So I use to think a problem will be solved after the next million years - the rocket equation applies to every technology to kill it except perhaps anti-matter! How can you get energy from outside a rocket? Amazingly can be done!

Briefly, the idea is this.  Gliders flying between two streams at different velocities can switch back and forth between them and go much faster than either stream! Birds can fly in loops and get substantial boosts.  The albatross can go 5000km per week doing it, is a documented repeated fact! Near sea level is calm, and the wind blows frequently at 300 feet! Sun blows solar wind is faster at the top and slowerat the equator. The idea is to store in own kinetic energy after extraction from two velocity difference streams, one can increase speed to reach the edge of the solar system in 2 years of 1 year of slip-energy boost and 1 year of travel then at 1% velocity of light. Another boost, using solar and intergalactic wind streams, for 1 year to 50% of the speed of light at the heliopause, as voyagers told us at last breath!  Then 8 years of travel at 50% lightspeed and 2 years of deceleration. The destination will have two streams from its star and heliopause! Like albatross, you can gain but also lose speed using the drag speed generates by reversing the loop!

Now for the science. Kinetic energy is 0.5 *m  * square(v). Using the Rocket equation,  one can show that a chemical rocket needs the mass of the rest of the universe to go to the nearest star. But what if most of the energy is from an astronomical event of a two-speed stream, that is independent of mass and is not carried by a rocket! In fact, part of the rocket has some mass to be ejected at very high speeds! Now energy is boosted further,  at very high speeds only for a faster boost! One can get to 1% of light speed relatively quick by the solar wind. Boost to 50% of light speed happens in heliopause and one has a lot of fast loss mass then to make the rest of the gap in 1-2 years. Lots of mass to speed up 50  times with the rocket equation again.

 

At those speeds, even collision with molecule-level dirt will be fatal. However, magnetic barriers can defend us from these kinds of troubles. Indeed, there is a vast level of engineering and money needed. But the science is there! Not required for a claim of solar and interstellar travel break-thru.

Another thought is to spray some dirt in the forward direction, destroy any oncoming small junk and reclaim the spray by a screen deployed at the forwardmost point for reuse by respray!

 

What new things can come with bio-immortality and this break-thru?

The nearest star is Proxima century, having a slightly bigger planet than the earth planet in the gold-i-lock zone, and is under intense observation from the JWST web telescope, which says the best target for it is tidily locked to the star, like the moon is to earth, with no relative spin. So the same side faces the sun.

The part facing the sun is very hot and the other side is in perpetual darkness and very cold. Even such places can have new life close to the divider and JWST can look for artificial lights - very badly - but seems to have found them(James Webb Telescope Detected Artificial Lights On Proxima B https://www.blog.sindibad.tn/james-webb-telescope-detected-artificial-lights-on-proxima-b , also ALMA detects artificial light on Proxima B https://seriesstories.com/james-webb-telescope-detects-artificial-light-on-proxima-b/)! Ultimately we await the successor telescope in 2035 and a robot camera's journey to the planet. 

Above is not the only way, there is a laser-moon-propelled few-gram starship and reaction drive using anti-matter of about 1 kg. Laser energy is also external and robotic crafts survive 10,000 to 1,00,000g, meaning that laser illumination of a day boosts to 20% light speed! The next 70 years will be very exciting! Crowdfunding is there even more than the US government share!

Neptune in 1.5 years, anyone? Bus service between earth and mars!

Anyone who predicts I will be bored for the next 1000 years is nuts! long-lived trees equal life and uploaded life means 10000 years.  Optical unbored quick travel is million years. It is a big universe out there. Optical travel could be billion or trillion years. That is enough time to think about the next quadrillion years. Stars would begin to die without replacement then.