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Interstellar travel

A Bussard ramjet, one of many possible methods that could serve as propulsion for a starship. Space colonization Core concepts Planetary habitability Space and survival Space habitat Terraforming Interplanetary travel Interstellar travel Intergalactic travel Colonization targets Colonization of the Moon Colonization of Mars Colonization of Venus Colonization of Mercury Colonization of the asteroids Colonization of Ceres Colonization of the outer Solar System Colonization of Jupiter Colonization of Europa Colonization of Titan Colonization of trans-Neptunian objects Terraforming targets Terraforming of the Moon Terraforming of Mars Terraforming of Venus Terraforming of Europa Organizations Mars Society National Space Society The Planetary Society This box: view talk edit Interstellar travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight; the distances between the planets in the Solar System are less than 30 astronomical units (AU)—whereas the distances between stars are typically hundreds of thousands of AU, and usually expressed in light-years. Because of the vastness of those distances, interstellar travel would require either great speed, a high percentage of the speed of light, or huge travel time, lasting from decades to millennia or longer.The speeds required for interstellar travel in a human lifetime far exceed what current methods of spacecraft propulsion can provide. Even with a hypothetically perfectly efficient propulsion system, the kinetic energy corresponding to those speeds is enormous by today's standards of energy production. Moreover, collisions by the spacecraft with cosmic dust and gas can produce very dangerous effects both to passengers and the spacecraft itself.A number of strategies have been proposed to deal with these problems, ranging from giant arks that would carry entire societies and ecosystems, to microscopic space probes. Many different spacecraft propulsion systems have been proposed to give spacecraft the required speeds, including nuclear propulsion, beam-powered propulsion, and methods based on speculative physics.For both manned and unmanned interstellar travel, considerable technological and economic challenges need to be met. Even the most optimistic views about interstellar travel see it as only being feasible decades from now—the more common view is that it is a century or more away. However, in spite of the challenges, if interstellar travel should ever be realized, then a wide range of scientific benefits can be expected. ^ Crawford, I. A. (2009). "The Astronomical, Astrobiological and Planetary Science Case for Interstellar Spaceflight". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 62: 415–421. arXiv:1008.4893.
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