Is it true that...?

Question

If you were able to construct a spacecraft capable of traveling 99.99% the speed fo light and travel to the Triangulum Galaxy (which is 2.5 million light years away) and back, by the time you returned earth wouldhave aged 5 million years, and everything you knew is long gone to dust, but yet you would only have aged about 60 years?
There would be no point in coming back!

You might as well spare 30 years and try to find somewhere there to live!

Answer 1

No, this is false. At 99.99% the speed of light, the subjective time on board the ship for the round trip would still be almost 70716 (about seventy thousand) years. In order to experience a subjective time of only 60 years for the round trip, you would have to travel at approximately 99.9999999928% of the speed of light. But in other words, yes, it IS in fact possible to dilate the subjective time down to 60 years while the Earth would still experience 5000000 years. You just have to travel the right distance at the right speed.

EDIT: Oh, and for the record, johnandeileen2000 is wrong. While you WOULD appear to be squished front to back by someone on Earth, you would perceive no change on board the ship and all your organs would go on functioning properly.

Answer 2

your thoughts are correct. The example you're speaking of deals with Einstein's theory of special relativity. And the example itself is called the "twin paradox."
Example: If you were to travel at 86.6% the speed of light to a star that was 4.45 light years away. It would take 10.28 years, from earth's perspective to complete the journey, but when he returned he would have only aged 5.14 years. It's kinda complicated to explain, but that's the gist of it!!

Answer 3

In theory you are correct, however a human could not survive such a speed. At that speed everything shortens in the direction of motion, you would be as thin as a sheet of tissue, your organs would not function.

Answer 4

Hi. Your math is off, so no.