when will we (humans)travel out of our solar system?

Answer 1

The Nearest solar system to our is Alpha Centauri, and that is over a Light Year away. - Which is to say that it would take about a year to get there if we travelled at the speed of light...

As of yet, we have no way to travel remotely close to the speed of light, so a journey to another solar system would take a very very long time (hundreds of years) at the speeds we can travel today.

That means we need to find some method of over coming the time needed for that long journey.

Presuming that we fail to acheive some sort of Fringe, science-fiction type "Warp Drive"...

We would need to develop a type of hybernation for our passengers and crew... Cryogenics has offered some hopes here, but until we can freeze a human body without exploding all of the cells, and killing it... We're still limited... Certain creatures can survive being frozen, and they have diferetent protien chains that act as a form of anti-freeze in thier cells -But now we're talking about genetically engineering humans to make the trip... Science fiction?

The other option would be a generational space craft. It would have to be huge and include educational and hordicultural areas. This concept would have the great great grand children of the original Crew arriving at thier destination... Hardly Earthlings at that point since they wouldn't have ever actually even known a relative who had seen earth. -But still human... This idea would be best suited for a colonization ship. It would have to be self suffient in the first place, so adding extra hordicultural sections to allow a form of "Noah's ark" to be part of the mission would be best advised. They'd be one- way trips anyhow...

So to answer you question... Not for a very very long time unless we're flinging seeds of humanity into space in a desperate attempt to salvage mankind from extinction...

Maybe never if there's not some great secret to the universe that we are not aware of in science...

But it all makes great fiction.

Answer 2

I sincerely hope that it's within my lifetime ! I'm 44 now so sometime within the next 20 to 30 years would be fine, as long as I can go along as well !

You could possibly argue that we have almost travelled out of the solar system already, although not in person. The two Voyager probes are now way out past the orbit of Pluto and well on their way to inter-stellar space. Voyager 1 is 9 billion miles out and Voyager 2 is 7 billion miles out. Both craft are travelling at around 17 km a second, but even at that speed will take another 10 years to leave the solar system and will not reach the nearest star for another 40,000 !

Answer 3

The milky way is estimated to have a diameter of 100,000 light years.

Say the earth was in the centre then from the earth to the edge of our solar system is 50,000 light years.

So if we sent out a space shuttle travelling at the speed of light, it would take the space shuttle 50,000 years to reach the edge.

The earth is not at the centre of our galaxy but the change in the light years is nothing compared to the size of it.

A space shuttle however will not travel at the speed of light. When matter gets closer and closer to the speed of light, its mass increases dramatically. The energy needed for a space shuttle to get anyway near to c is extremely high at at c will need a infinite source of energy. A space shuttle will probably only reach speeds of about 15000m per second which is approximately 10000th of c.

So the time take for a space shuttle to reach the edge would be near 500 million years to travel out of our galaxy.

Fortunately travelling out our solar systems isn't as bad

If you would like to wait that long, then be my guess. However, people who do not can think about other idea:

Hyperspace travel, seen in many TV shows and films, is a possible theory.

At the moment there are 3D in space. Theories soon may include electromagnetic and other dimensions increasing the total dimensions from 3 to a possible 8.

With this is may be possible for hyperspace travel considerable lowering the time taking to travel distances.

Wormholes and other theories are being divised as we are talking right now. Stargate SG1 with thier stargate could be a reality. No need for any freezing, when your matter is disintergrated and reintergrated in a matter of a seconds whilst being transported millions of miles.

The problem will be creating a wormhole at the other end which may require a space shuttle in the first place travelling to that place.

When will we travel out of our solar system? Sooner than you think but still a very long time.

Answer 4

I believe it's unlikely. Only now have we built unmanned probes to go past Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. The population growth rate of humans and the carrying capacity of earth is very lobsided. The earth cannot sustain for the amount of time needed for humans to develop the technology to travel out of our solar stystem. Moreover, our lifespan (of about 75 to 80 earth years) is not long enough for us to survive a trip outside our solar system. Everything is simply too far away. Look for space probes that have the capability to travel to distant solar systems first. Even that's on edge of science fiction and science fact. Teetering...

Answer 5

There would be no point to travelling out of our solar system. Once you get past the outer planets and outer astoroid belts, there is absolute nothingness beyond the VERY occational comet. You are in absolute space. What is the point of visiting there?

The fastest propulsion meathod currently available could theoretically propel a spaceship at about 30,000 miles per hour.

It is 5.9 trillion miles to Pluto, but the solar system hardly ends there. In our fastest possible spaceship, it would take 22 years just to get to Pluto. We just don't have the technology to keep someone alive in space that long, and won't for a long long time.

It is then 4.26 light years to the next closest star, Proxima Centari (to the guy that said Alpha Centari is the closest at one light year, you are mistaken on both counts. It is the second closest to Proxima Centari and is 4.39 light years away). That is 39,900,000,000,000 km away. It would take a little over 150,000 years to get there, which we obviously just can't do, and that is just to get to the closest one!! Even if we COULD travel at the FASTEST SPEED POSSIBLE, the speed of light, it would take us 4.26 years to get there. How are we going to keep someone alive in space for 4.26 years? Let alone the fact that your body would be instantly torn to shreds and obliterated into a vapor of evaporated nothingness at a fraction of that speed!!

You may say, "well in the future we will just go faster." The problem with that is that first a human body wouldn't be able to take the G-forces it would take to accellerate to that speed, much less faster. Your blood would boil and your veins woudl explode out of your body.

Also, the faster you do, the more potential energy your ship (with you in it) is carrying along with it. That means that if you come into contact with even a speck of space dust, it will likely tear through your spaceship and cause a ton of damage, which I'm sure you wouldn't be able to actively repair while travelling at such a high speed!!!

It is quite OK, but we (and probably any other life forms throughout the universe), are stuck on our planet or at least in our solar system pretty permanently!!

Answer 6

You will not. Humans are not going to be willing to make the necessary commitment needed to establish viable breeding populations off planet. Even if you could establish the support colonies necessary to build interstellar craft, it is unlikely that you would be allowed to as long as you insist on taking you god concepts with you. Over the centuries, your planet was a curious place to visit once or twice and was not considered very interesting . Sure, your wars showed us how undeveloped you are as a species. Your infantile,(in cosmic terms) dependence on god concepts does not bode well for you and neither does your penchant to breed beyond your planet's ability to sustain you. We are now showing an interest in you because it is not often that we get to observe a species commit suicide. You are so close to maturing as a sentient species and it will be a shame to see you kill yourselves. There are just not enough of you becoming rational enough to force the issue. You let the least among you determine your fate, so be it.

Answer 7

I doubt we have enough time to create such technology to do so. There's only the worm-hole theory that could get us there.
Or some aliens might of allready done it, and they will glady take us to their solar system with their advanced technology.

Answer 8

I believe this will happen one day but we are talking hundreds of years yet. I think its going to be a case of developing bases on The Moon & Mars and then going forth. Based on how we are now I can see us only doing it when we have to.

Answer 9

scientists believe that we have a few more years because of the rock layer surrounding our solar system

Answer 10

i don't think that will happen ever.. because even if we built a craft to do so, there's nothing out there within our time limit. it would have to be some sort of generational ship... space and the universe is sooo huge the distances involved are mind boggling