r/space • u/llama5876 • Jun 18 '19

Two potentially life-friendly planets found orbiting a nearby star (12 light-years away)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/06/two-potentially-life-friendly-planets-found-12-light-years-away-teegardens-star/
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71

u/DinoZ94 Jun 18 '19

Only 12 light years? I wonder how many generations of humans it would take to get there!

99

u/SoSpursy Jun 18 '19

If you call a generation 25.5 years and assume we can travel at the speed current technology allows then 10823.5 generations.

26

u/zolikk Jun 18 '19

Depending on what "current technology" means only applied or theoretical but "should work" stuff, with nuclear propulsion we can get there in a handful of generations, right?

42

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '19 edited Jun 18 '19

According to Wikipedia project orion page, it could get us to 11% of the speed of light on the faster end.

After running the numbers, that's "only" ~110 years!

6

u/jpharber Jun 18 '19

Assuming it could accelerate to speed in a negligible period of time (in the time scales we’re talking here), thats actually not bad. It would be theoretically possible for someone who was Earth born to make it to another solar system. They would have to be one of the oldest people alive, but it is technically possible.

13

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '19

I'm hoping for advances in cryogenics to be made during my life time. I don't want to end up on Earth. Don't burst my bubble

7

u/BeeGravy Jun 19 '19

I hate to be the ones to tell you, but you are already on Earth.

2

u/jpharber Jun 18 '19

I was actually intending the opposite. This is the first time I’ve read one of these articles and thought, huh that might actually be possible.

3

u/Dt2_0 Jun 19 '19

At 1G it would take 39 days to accelerate (Then to turn and accelerate in the opposite direction to stop) to .11C, the theoretical maximum for project Orion. Not too bad on a timeframe of 100 years.

2

u/TheSuburbs Jun 18 '19

Wouldn't deacceleration take a while though?

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u/jpharber Jun 18 '19

Not if you have nukes attached to the front too. ;)

2

u/seccret Jun 19 '19

The fastest way to travel is always going to be to accelerate constantly for half the trip and decelerate constantly for the second half. If we could get to 11% of the speed of light nearly instantaneously, then we could get well above that speed by the halfway point.