Space travel?

Question

What is the maximum speed a man-made object can achieve in outer space and what means of propulsion would be used to achieve that speed?

Answer 1

So far, it's 150,000 mph
The Helios. They used the sun to slingshot and gain speed.
mph.http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0109c.shtml

Answer 2

It depends on what you're thinking, if it's something we can see, then I think the fastest thing so far as the New Horizons space probe heading to Pluto.

If it's something we CAN'T "see with our eyes" then that would be the high energy particles produced and then accelerated to near the speed of light, at the Tevatron or Fermilab. The last I heard we had also found ways of "slowing" light down or slowing down particles from light-speed so that could also count.




New Horizons ---Its going to be there in just about 10 years, the Voyager spaceships took nearly twice that long to get there but have had similar gravity assists and might actually be going almost as fast or faster.

All were rocket propelled just like most other interplanetary or interstellar space-probes, we've sent out, but it's been sent in close orbit of Jupiter as well, using gravity assists which has sped the these spaceships up quite considerably increasing their speed in space almost 50%.


New Horizons Itinerary
===============================
# January 19, 2006 — Successful launch at 14:00 EST (19:00 UTC) after brief delay due to cloud cover.
# April 7, 2006 — the probe passed Mars' orbit.
# Early May, 2006 — the probe entered the asteroid belt.
# June 13, 2006 — the probe passed closest to an asteroid 2002 JF56 in the Belt at about 101,867 km at 04:05 UTC. Pictures were taken.
# Late October, 2006 — the probe left the asteroid belt.
# November 28, 2006 — first faint image of Pluto taken from a distance released.
# January 8, 2007 - start of Jupiter encounter.
# January 10, 2007 - Long distance observations of outer moon Callirrhoe as a navigation exercise.
# February 28, 2007 — Jupiter flyby. Closest approach occurred at 05:43:40 UTC at 2.305 million km, 21.219 km/s.
# March 5, 2007 - End of Jupiter encounter phase.
# June 9, 2008 — The probe will pass Saturn's orbit.
# March 5, 2011 — The probe will pass Uranus' orbit.
# August 1, 2014 — The probe will pass Neptune's orbit.
# July 14, 2015 — Flyby of Pluto around 11:59 UTC at 11096 km, 13.780 km/s
# July 14, 2015 — Flyby of Charon around 12:13 UTC at 26927 km, 13.875 km/s
# 2016-2020 — possible flyby of one or more Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs).

Answer 3

As Lee said, the theoretical maximum speed is the speed of light (about 186,000 miles per second), but we've never made anything that reached more than a tiny fraction of that speed. Lots of different propulsion systems have been thought up. The ones that could theoretically get near the speed of light are ones that use up very little or no fuel, like an ion engine that squirts high-energy particles out, matter/antimatter collisions, or nuclear fusion, but it would take many years to build up to that speed.

Answer 4

Well, I don't think that a "maximum" has been attained yet. Relative speeds of probes and space ships manufactured so far have been on the order of 25,000 to 35,000 MPH. Looping around other planets and moons has been used to gain speed and eliminate the need for carrying extensive fuel supplies on certain missions.

All kinds of theoretical propulsion designs have been brought forward, but none (aside from the current liquid fuel propellant rockets) have been placed into full production as yet to my knowledge. There was a lot of talk about using a "sail" to capture the light energy from the Sun - the bombardment of photons against the sail supposedly providing additional thrust. Several propositions for an "ion gun" propulsion system are out there, but I don't think that a working prototype has been manufactured and tested yet (I could be wrong). Any propulsion system for use in stellar space travel must be of some composition which carries its fuel source in a small package. it is not feasable to carry enough liquid propellant for extended space flight. In addition, one might expect future propulsion systems to provide small amounts of power over a long, long time to power the space craft instead of huge volumes of thrust for short periods of time as are required to accelerate a large system from the Earth's surface (velocity = 0) into space (escape velocity = 25,000 MPH).

Answer 5

Max speed is the speed of light, which technically we cant really reach. Means of propulsion? no idea, nothing we have ever built has come even close. I think our fastest speed is 14 (or 17 i cant remember) times the speed of sound, and thats with a shuttle in re-entry.

Answer 6

Fastest Orbital Speed
(also Fastest Manmade Object) Helios 2
in orbit around the Sun
150,000 mph
(241,350 km/h)
17th of April 1976