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  6 0 In this article I read, the fastest thing we have now is the Helios 2 space probe, which travels 250,000 km/hr, which means about 87,000 years to go 20 light years. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/868428--the-new-earth-why-you-will-never-live-there Gloria answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  4 1 "From A Distance" by Bette Midler, traveled 20 light years since its release in 1991. So the the answer is; 20 years. Kip Waddle answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report 2 comments by Max Blair and Kip Waddle… 0 0 I particularly like that answer. In spite of the fact that the signal degradation has been such that it would be unintelligible to an observer 20 light years away. Even less intelligible than it is to an observer here today, I mean. Max Blair commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 There is something amusing about our new friends on Gliese-581g listening to bad 80's music. Kip Waddle commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  3 0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) is, sadly, probably the best way of getting a significant mass up to speed with current technology. And even the better designs of that would take 600 years. There's a lot of variables there, though. The mass of the payload is a huge one- the lighter the payload, the less propulsion it needs. As noted in a prior response, a laser beam takes 20 years to travel 20 light years in a vacuum. So if all you're trying to ship is information, that's a pretty good bet. If you want to throw a ball bearing that far, a "rail gun" system might work, although you'd need a big one to get enough speed. If you want to get a human that far, well, it's not really feasible on modern technology. supergp answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by Lilting Missive… 0 0 OP should mushroom this. Orion is the only method we have right now for getting a spacecraft to a sizable fraction of c. Solar sails sound nice but are totally unproven in any sizable deployment. Until we have fusion, tyllium (sic?), antimatter reactors, or transdimensional hyperparticles we can trap in a containment field, this will likely remain the case. Bringing up the Space Shuttle or Saturn V here is serious nerd fail. Lilting Missive commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  2 0 With existing technology, it would take quite a bit. There are researchers actively working on a laser sail or laser propulsion in general. When I used to read and care about this stuff, there were whacky estimates about sending a 1000kg probe into space with a large laser and mirrors. It would go only 0.3c and cost tens of trillions of dollars based on the energy requirements. I am not optimistic but I think current research is focusing on nanotech for a far smaller payload (maybe less than 1kg?) and more efficient sail material. It seems way off barring the rare breakthrough in scale, energy efficiency, material science. However, such breakthroughs do happen sometimes. dirac answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by "Cagey"… 0 0 Has anyone read "Dina and the Space-Jammers"? Classic sci-fi from the pages of Boys Life magazine from 1960s Boy Scouts of America. Who wrote this classic? He predicted this solar sail stuff. "Cagey" commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  1 0 Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second, so one light year is about 5,865,696,000,000 miles and 20 light years is 117,313,920,000,000 miles. The space shuttle reaches speeds of 175,000 mph. If I did my math right going 20 light years at that speed would take roughly 76,525 years. I doubt the space shuttle would hold together that long. I'm going with "it's not possible". CleverScreenName answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report 3 comments by elenchos, Christopher Comte, and CleverScreenName… 0 0 You misplaced a decimal on the speed of the space shuttle -- 17,500 mph, not 175,000. elenchos commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 Sorry dude, but your math vis-a-vis STS is a little off-the-mark - by about a factor of ten. Earth orbital velocity is between 17,000 & 18,000 mph. The OMS engines on the shuttle aren't powerful enough, nor does it have the fuel capacity to achieve Trans Lunar Injection velocity, which is about 25,000 mph. Christopher Comte commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 Oops--elenchos caught it. OK, the trip is a bit slower than I expected. I'm still going with "no". CleverScreenName commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 A man-made laser beam would travel 20 light years in about 20 years. carnivorous chicken answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report 2 comments by Zander and carnivorous chicken… 0 0 Which laser is this? How would you aim it from a moving object to a moving object to 20 years in the future? Zander commented about 1 year ago | Report 0 0 It's a super-secret weapon I like to called D.O.R.K. Movement doesn't matter, aim doesn't matter, if you could get a strong enough laser so that it's beam wouldn't degrade over 20 years, it would travel 20 light years. They had this technology back in 1966 with the Starship Enterprise. carnivorous chicken commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 1,368,925.3935 years. Glies 581 at 20 light years is 120 trillion miles away. The Ion Drive tested on DS1 goes 10,000 MPH. Parking might add some time though. Zander answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report 1 comment by Zander… 0 0 Ion drives are capable of faster speeds but the 10,000 MPH is the "existing" limit. Zander commented about 1 year ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 766,418.768 years. 20 light years equals 1.17569996 × 10^14 miles. (Source: Google Calculator.) The space shuttle travels 17,500 miles per hour. (Source: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/pao/faq/faqanswers.htm) So, this information gives us the following math (1.17569996 × 10^14) / 17500 = approx. 6,718,283,428.57 hours = approx. 766418.768 years. thaumatropia answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 0 If you mean off the shelf technology, the fastest thing we've ever built, a Saturn V Rocket, rocketed about 16 tons the 250,000 miles to the moon in 3 days. That's 0.00000042 of 1 light year. So, that's about 8 million years/light year or over 160 million years, by which time your payload would have been pounded to dust by space debris. If the best human technology available today were to make the concerted effort, we could vastly improve upon that. Especially if we weren't picky about delivering a living payload. Saturn V was designed to send 16 tons to the moon. The majority of that energy was devoted to just getting it out of the planet's gravity well. We are presently capable of building a ship in stages and shooting it into orbit for final assembly and launch. If you're not worried about life support, your only real limitation is how many rockets you can string together. Still, using the best chemical rockets we're currently capable of building, we'd still be talking a travel time in the millions of years, by which time, your payload would be pounded to dust by space debris. Max Blair answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  0 2 Depends on how fast it was going. Giffy answered in Science & Technology about 1 year ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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