you can look, but you can’t touch.
Humans as carbon based beings probably not. Advanced immortal AI silicon based lifeforms it’s only 5000 years at 2% of C to reach 100 light years distance.
Plasma magnetic sails that are dropped by chemical rockets deep into the Suns gravity well and then inflate a few hundred megawatt plasma sail bubble hits 2% of C on a nearly straight line out of the solar system the acceleration time is as short as 3 months then it’s screaming outbound.
Added plus is the same plasma magnetic sail bubble brakes your ship at equally fast deceleration dragging against the target star solar wind.
Advanced machines could easily last for 5000 years especially if powered down in a deep sleep mode. The limit is the decay rate of your nuclear power fuel. Pu239 has a 24,110 years...so half your fuel has decayed by then. U235 is significantly longer at 703.8 million years.
So how far can a 2% of C ship go in 24,110 ship years?
At 2% of the speed of light (0.02c), approximately 24,114.82 years will have passed on Earth when the ship clocks reach 24,110 years, and the ship will have traveled a distance of 482.30 light-years (LY)
Again immortal AI sentient machines are coming it’s when not if any more and those machines will easily survive 24K years in deep sleep being silicon based lifeforms.
It won’t be biological humans it will be our spawn of intelligent machines who for the stars with intelligence.
Right. It’s exciting stuff, but the distances…..
Humans could construct laser powered light sails that use plasma magnetic braking at their arrival. Such pushed sail ships can reach 20% of C in theory.
After 24,110 ship years traveling at (0.20c), approximately 24,607.17 years will have passed on Earth, and the ship will have traveled a distance of 4,921.43 light-years.
A sun sized stars at the target would enable a magnetic braking from the Heliopause inwards it would take 18-20 years to slow down and enter the inner system orbits.
So humans have the ability with intelligence machines to seed a 4000 light year wide bubble once the AI can fend for itself. Frozen embryos in artificial wombs could conceivably be used to not only gestate animals but humans too , given AI intelligence to raise them along the way in a ark type ship during it’s 18-20 year braking time they will arive as prime age adults. The supplies for 20 years is the real issue it makes for a huge ship vs just a small ship with silicon based lifeforms that don’t eat or need air they need electrons which can be from solar or nukes.
Then again why send a inferior lifeform to the stars that needs very specific environmental conditions. AI super intelligence will exceed humans it’s only when. Nanotech will be self replicating at some point too.