Slowboatting to Alpha Centuari

[Arawak]

You are super genius.

Get ten astronauts to Alpha Centuari on NASA's budget.

[Vilageidiotx]

Subscribe to Amazon Prime.

Change Address to "Alpha Centuari"

Privately sell ten astronauts to that account.

Select "Free 2-day shipping."

Have functioning interstellar colony by Wednesday.

[Arawak]

Makes sense to me.

Always can mail them as Popsicles.

[Antarctic Termite]

Cremate them, stick them on any old rust bucket of a rocket, point it in the general direction and wait.

Time and survival wasn't specified.

[ClocktowerEchos]

Fuck rockets man, just put them on an actual steamboat and send them off to space.

Mark Twain would be proud. o7

[Keyguyperson]

Fuck rockets man, just put them on an actual steamboat and send them off to space.

Mark Twain would be proud. o7

@ClocktowerEchos

Now that's some steampunk shit.

[Halo]

Officially name my house "Alpha Centauri".

Invite ten astronauts to a tea party.

Kidnap them when they refuse.

Sorted.

[gorgenmast]

Here's a sort-of-realistic answer:

In theory, the technology to accomplish a brief flyby of Alpha Centauri likely exists now.

A small spacecraft, capable of carrying 10 astronauts and enough provisions and equipment to last the crew for a month or two and nothing more. This craft would be launched from Earth opposite the direction of the Earth's orbit around the Sun - plunging the craft into an orbit just above the Sun. From there, the craft will jettison a nuclear device that will explode just behind it - propelling the spacecraft into escape velocity from the Solar System. The low altitude maneuver above the Sun is meant to milk their their high orbital velocity for all it's worth and take advantage of the Oberth Effect.

Several more of these nuclear propellers will be dropped on the trip out of the Solar System. Enough to bring the ship to a comfortable cruising speed so that it can safely negotiate the Oort Cloud. Once clear of the Oort debris, more of those nuclear propellers can be dropped, allowing the the craft to build up relativistic speed - averaging about 25% to 30% of the speed of light. At that speed, our craft travels the 4.4 light years to Alpha Centauri in 14-18 years. In order to maximize speed, mass must be minimized. Any waste (trash, dehydrated fecal matter, etc) must be immediately jettisoned to cut down on the weight.

Meanwhile, the crew is sound asleep in some form of cryostasis to keep the crew from aging or consuming precious food rations, possibly using a protein found in icefish blood to keep their cells from bursting during freezing. Onboard computers handle everything during the trip, except when one of the crew is awakened to inspect the vessel and ensure the mission is continuing as intended.

Upon arrival in the Alpha Centauri System, the computers awaken the crew 10-12 days prior to their closest pass above the star. The crew spends every waking minute conducting as much scientific observation and experimentation before they reach the closest point to Alpha Centauri. If there are any planets - they might try to spare some propellant to fly past one if possible. All decisions will have to be made onboard without consultation from because it will take almost nine years to get any response back from Earth. Because of this, any decision to modify the flight plan - or any aspect of the mission for that matter - will need to be taken with extreme caution.

As the craft slingshots over the 'surface' of Alpha Centauri, the craft drops another nuke as was done above the Sun - building up even more speed for the return trip back to Earth. The return trip averages a speed of 30%-35% of the speed of light. The astronauts go back into stasis as the craft hurdles back to the Sun for the next 13 years.

Once the craft returns through the Oort Cloud into the Solar System, the crew must decelerate before it reaches Earth, otherwise they face a collision with Earth that would destroy entire countries. This might be done with a series of flyby maneuvers using the gravity of Jupiter or Saturn to bleed off excess velocity, followed by very gentle aerobraking maneuvers through the upper atmosphere of the gas giants. This process could take years depending upon the position of the planets around the Sun.

Eventually, the spacecraft would slow down enough for the craft to safely return to Earth. After 40 years of space travel( plus an additional 1-2 years due to the effects of time dilation at relativistic speeds) the astronauts return home with little more than observational reports and some cool film footage/photographs.

The end.

[Vilageidiotx]

Here's a sort-of-realistic answer:

@gorgenmast

[Dinh AaronMk]

Or we could find The Monolith and fly through the stargate, wake up in a 5-star luxury hotel suite without doors, and waste the rest of our days in a trippy time-bubble.

Then wake up as Blue Giygas.

[gorgenmast]

Or we could find The Monolith and fly through the stargate, wake up in a 5-star luxury hotel suite without doors, and waste the rest of our days in a trippy time-bubble.

Then wake up as Blue Giygas.

@Dinh AaronMk

You mean, them? Because I'm having no part of that mission

[Dinh AaronMk]

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

You mean, them? Because I'm having no part of that mission

@gorgenmast

We're going there.

We're all going there

[Halo]

Here's a sort-of-realistic answer:

-snip-

@gorgenmast

Uh... nah.

I like the thinking here - it's creative - but to imply it's even vaguely realistic or feasible with our technology is somewhat misleading... at least the way you were talking about it. What you're describing is an Orion Rocket and was originally conceived in the late '50s. Upper estimates for the speeds attainable using this type of method (nuclear pulse propulsion) range from 5% the speed of light (if retaining fuel for deceleration at the destination) to 10% (if not.) Reaching 35% the speed of light using this method just flat out isn't possible - especially with a manned spacecraft due to the limitations introduced by the human body's capacity for enduring rapid acceleration. Sure things like the Oberth effect might help a wee bit - but consider that the current record speed for a spacecraft is 0.000234 times the speed of light (set by Helios 2) and you'll realise that it just isn't going to have any sort of actual impact when we're on the interstellar scale.

Now - I don't disagree that were one to have a fully built Orion Rocket in space that it could work extremely well for the purposes of interstellar travel... but one must consider how you actually construct the rocket and get it to space in the first place:
1. Dyson calculated that it would require a nuclear detonation every three seconds during acceleration to attain the cruising speed. This would require 300000 nukes to be aboard. Dumping waste and fecal matter ain't gonna change shit about the metrics of this thing dude. It'd be scary huge. *
2. Using chemical rockets (current method) to get the rocket to space is inefficient as fuck - and we can't use the rocket itself to get out of orbit because of the International Test Ban Treaty of '63.
3. The cost. Oh jesus the cost of construction. The size and weight of this thing would be colossal and even obtaining enough materials would be challenging (where do you expect to find enough nuclear material to make 300000 nukes?)

* Side-note: that's actually one of the benefits of the Orion design. You can just make the ship fuck-off massive and have a crew of like 200 because it has to be so big anyway. You don't have to be totally anal about losing every tiny bit of weight like they do now with chemically propelled rockets.

Anyway I've ranted enough. It's a super cool idea and could definitely be feasible in future - but right now it simply isn't. Personally my favourite theory for interstellar travel is either the usage of a solar sail or - of course - using matter-antimatter explosions instead of nuclear ones. This is a really really good article discussing potential methods of interstellar travel. Check it out. :D

[gorgenmast]

Oh damn. I was under the impression it would take in the hundreds of nuclear propellers to get up to those speeds...

Back to the drawing board.

[ClocktowerEchos]

Again, just chuck a steamboat into space and you'll be all set. No messy physics or science needed! :D

[Dinh AaronMk]

Back to Kerbal Space Program.

@gorgenmast

ftfy

[gorgenmast]

Back to Kerbal Space Program.

@gorgenmast

Pretty much

[Keyguyperson]

Again, just chuck a steamboat into space and you'll be all set. No messy physics or science needed! :D

@ClocktowerEchos

I still like this idea.