[The Iceman Cometh]

Good question...I’ll let you all know how long it takes if Hillary gets elected cause that’s where I’m headed.

[VanDeKoik]

“With this revolutionary technology, a variation of which has since been used by the Dawn spacecraft to reach Vesta, the SMART-1 mission took one year, one month and two weeks to reach the Moon. “

What? Huh? Maybe I’m missing something.

[samtheman]

Far too long to be contemplated. And it will remain that way for a long, long time.

[MortMan]

Eight and a half minutes at the speed of light, unless they don’t really mean the “nearest” star.

[mountainlion]

Speed is not the question but some sort of collision avoidance system. The faster you go the smaller the piece of matter required to destroy you. You need some radar to detect stuff and avoid it.

[cripplecreek]

Depends a lot on how much you want to spend.

[dp0622]

Great article Ben. Not done with it, keeping it open.

most fascinating one i’ve read in a while.

[central_va]

Traveling at the speed of light is a physics no no.

[Izzy Dunne]

Trust me - you don’t WANT to go to the nearest star.

Stars are hot.

[soycd]

After we harness the power of fusion, it won’t take more than a lifetime. Moving on to controlling atomic particles, you might just get there before you leave.

[Clay Moore]

The Voyager spacecraft were launched in the 70’s. If they had been launched on an intercept to Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, it would take close to 100 thousand years.

[Pilgrim's Progress]

Depends. I you live in Hollywood it shouldn’t take that long . . . maybe a couple of blocks.

[Political Junkie Too]

It depends. Do you want to slow down when you get there, or keep flying by?

-PJ

[Purdue77]

It was a trick question. The nearest star is our sun. Shouldn’t take to long in universal time units and don’t have to travel at the speed of light. If we do go, I’d suggest going at night. ;)

[InterceptPoint]

It depends.

If you are sitting here on earth watching the ship leave and waiting for it to come back it will be a very, very long wait. You are unlikely to live long enough.

If you are one of the lucky ones on that star ship then you just might make it in some large fraction of a lifetime. Certainly in a lot less time that those left on Earth.

Yes, this seems insane. But it is what Einstein and boys are telling us.

[Dilbert San Diego]

But on Star Trek there are numerous Class M planets. And many of them have attractive female humanoid inhabitants. And all of the aliens encountered speak English.

[IronJack]

1) It's "its," not "it's."
2) Why would anyone want to go to a star? A solar system, maybe, but there's nothing to say Proxima Centauri has any habitable planets anyway. And it's a long haul just for the scenery.
3) Speculating, and using the technology available today, I would guess we could accelerate a vessel to what, 100K mph? That's assuming a small vessel with a lot of fuel. We could also use gravitational "slingshots" as we fly by the planets to propel the craft even faster, let's say to double that: 200K mph.

Considering Proxima Centauri is more than 4 light years away, that's about 24 trillion miles. At our fantastic 200K mph velocity, (and assuming a straight-line distance), the journey would take about 13,700 years.

If we had left when the pyramids were being built, we'd be less than a third of the way there by now.

[Daniel Ramsey]

Stargates

[Safetgiver]

I believe a star is a sun. Don’t think you could make it there.

[GingisK]

The nearest star is our sun. It is easier to get there than to Mars.