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Showing results for tags 'interstellar space travel'.
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So, when we think of going to some place like Alpha Centauri, we think "4 light years away". Implementations such as the Valkyrie from Avatar where the ship spends half the trip accelerating to near light speed and the other half decelerating start to sound feasible. But wouldn't we be facing the same problem we face with interplanetary travel? If we want to go to Mars, we can't just wait for it to come by for a close pass and then hop over to it. We *must* use a transfer orbit. There's no way around it. A transfer orbit is still going to be about half a full orbit around the sun. We *may* be able to shorten that up by intercepting at some point along the transfer orbit than the aphelion, but that's going to require a monster burn for orbital insertion. no free lunch. Well, aren't both sol and Alpha Centauri orbiting the center of the galaxy? Doesn't that mean you have to get there using a transfer orbit? Doesn't that mean that you're going to have to complete a large portion of an orbit around the center of the galaxy to get there? If you use the short orbit method, then you have to do a really monster burn for orbital insertion. I don't know what the numbers are, but I imagine the dV simply is not feasible. (I'm guessing you would have to use about the same amount of energy as would be provided by the potential energy of a proper transfer orbit. Math dudes, what say you?) And here's the real middle finger from the universe: the speed at which you travel along that transfer orbit is not limited to the speed of light. It is limited to the speeds dictated by the mechanics of the orbit itself, which are going to be much much slower than the speed of light. The orbital period of the sun is 225x10(6) years. This does not bode well for interstellar travel. Is there a way around this?
