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To: DannyTN
Ok, but how fast can we reasonably travel? How long would it take us to go 90 lightyears?

With current technology -- warp drives need not apply -- we could build a giant rocket that is propelled by hydrogen bomb detonations behind a pusher plate. This concept was actually researched by the government in the 1950s and 60s and showed promised for interstellar flight (though it couldn't be operated within a million miles of Earth, and we've yet to travel a million miles from Earth, so it still isn't practical . . . but it is possible).

Anyhow, maximum speed for nuclear pulse was three percent light speed. Thus it would take three thousand years to travel ninety light years.

A multi-generational city-sized space ark would be appropriate.

166 posted on 07/03/2003 5:33:58 PM PDT by JoeSchem (Okay, now it works: Knight's Quest, at http://www.geocities.com/engineerzero)
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To: JoeSchem
A multi-generational city-sized space ark would be appropriate.

That's going to take significant time to build even before the expedition sets out. We better start today.

167 posted on 07/03/2003 5:39:10 PM PDT by RightWhale (gazing at shadows)
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