Hello all. I hope for the best taht it is allwed for any user to ask a question in this area, and not reserved only for those daily announcement posts we see every day.
Thing is this:
I know that when you build a rocket, you have to consider how much fuel you need for it to "escape" earth and go on travelling into space, while at the same time account for how much the fuel weights and how that will affect the actual performance of the propelling device, also not forgetting fuel will get consumed along the way, weighing less and less as the rocket goes on... So my question is this: say you want to travel to the closest observable star, which I believe is 4 light years away... is it feasable at all to also accomodate enough "fuel" to actually get the space ship to travel all the way there?
(I have more questions like this, I know very little about astrophisics, but I love being amazed by the explanations and answers to these kind of questions).
Thank you all who would take a minute to consider my post and have a thought to share.

Cheers!
Malvinas.

Islas Malvinas, siempre Argentinas!

... Islas Malvinas, siempre Argentinas.

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Re: Question about space travel
By: Malvinas to All on Tue Jan 21 2025 20:14:37

So my question is this: say you want to travel to the closest observable star, which I believe is 4 light years away... is it feasable at all to also accomodate enough "fuel" to actually get the space ship to travel all the way there?

Using current chemical rocket fuels? No. Insterstellar travel is going to require something with a bit more kick to it.
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Malvinas wrote to All <=-

less as the rocket goes on... So my question is this: say you want to travel to the closest observable star, which I believe is 4 light years away... is it feasable at all to also accomodate enough "fuel" to
actually get the space ship to travel all the way there?

Space isn't like the movies - you don't come to a stop when the rockets
cut out. You keep going until an opposing force is applied, like retro
rockets, to slow your velocity.

So, if you could escape earth's gravity, you'll get to Proxima
Centauri, *eventually*.

Some of the challenges include:

1. The people inside. People can only tolerate certain G forces, so
you'd need to accellerate gradually, and decellerate just as
gradually. Essentially, you'd be accellerating or decellerating the
entire trip.

2. Relativistic speeds. the closer you get to the speed of light, the
faster time appears to pass for the observers. Spend 4 years near the
speed of light traveling to Proxima and hundreds of years may have
passed on earth. You might arrive to find Proxima colonized by your
children!

Science fiction gets around those issues by "Folding Space", creating a
static warp bubble that changes the shape of space to allow it to
travel, or jumping from one place to another somehow. Or, traveling
along a parallel universe made of magic mushrooms.

As for the amount of fuel needed, I suppose having enough to slow down
once you get there would determine how fast you could go and how long
the trip would take - until we find an alternative.


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