When do you think we will achieve interstellar travel?

Answer 1

Baring a major technological advancement I don't think we will travel to other stars in the next 500 years or more. The distances are just too vast. To travel to the nearest star in a human lifetime would require speeds hundreds to even thousands of times faster than our fastest rockets today. Then would be the issue of supporting life for decades far away from the warmth and free energy of the sun.

It would be about as huge of a leap for us to travel to the closest star as it was for a caveman to walk on the moon.

Answer 2

It is very unlikely that interstellar travel will ever be feasible. We think in those terms because of all the history and romance surrounding the conquest and colonization of this planet by Europeans in the second millineum CE.

Interstellar space is different. At the highest speed we can imagine achieving with known or forseeable technology, it would take 70,000 years to reach the nearest star, for which there is no point in going there.

Go out for a walk. Play with some puppies. Listen to your girlfriend's stomach gurgle. Stand out under the stars and be held in awe by the vastness of it all. But forget going there. It won't happen.

Answer 3

Probably never, and I recognize that that is a strong statement and I am definitely going out on a limb. But the distances are stupendous, and unless we can devise a way of propelling a spacecraft without using Newton's third law, we are dead in the water: what you need is momentum, which is mass times velocity, but what you have to pay to get it is energy, which is mass times the square of velocity. Applying this to a rocket propelled by a thermonuclear fusion reactor (which we have not the slightest idea how to build, but at least it is conceivable), we can calculate that such a rocket is good for interplanetary travel but hopelessly inadequate for interstellar work -- and that is using the most powerful propulsion technique possible.

Answer 4

If you believe some 'String Theorists' and Quantum Mechanics buffs, we've already accomplished that feat. We already left before we got there. On our way out, we will meet ourselves already on the way back. this all occured shortly after we learned to walk through walls, dispelling the idea that two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

But seriously, the stars are moving away so fast, that by the time we come up with something, all the stars will be long gone.

Just another theory.

Have fun ! Always keep an open mind.

Addendum: Way to go, AVIO.

Answer 5

I think if we keep watching TV we will get ideas as how we can leave this solar system. Once we have an idea, and present it to our world's leaders, they will have to make the decision.It cost money to make war, so they will have to decide whether they want to go half way around the world and make war with a mad man, or seed another world. We can do it in 50 years. I will be 99 when it happens. Live long and prosper.

Answer 6

I put the estimate on when we will achieve interstellar travel at 500 years for unmanned probes and 1,000 to 1,500 years for manned missions. I put that so far off because I believe it will take that long for us to learn how to warp space time to suit us, instead of having to move through what nature has put in our way.

Answer 7

Exactly two weeks from next Thursday at precisely 5:08:17 pm PDT. Trust me..!

Answer 8

When they move the stars closer together.

Answer 9

just before we "achieve" intergalactic travel, then interuniversal travel, LOL