SvennoJ said:
Yeah, then it would only take us 7,500 years to get there, instead of 300,000 |
With a bussard ramjet and nuclear fusion reactors we can probably accelerate to something like 20% of the speed of light before the drag on the ship becomes too overwhelming. Solar sails are also predicted to have a maximum velocity of 10% the speed of light, so they are a (slower) alternative.
We'd have to be careful of collisions though. At 20% of the speed of light a 1Kg object would have a kinetic energy of approximately 3.7 Petajoules. That is about ten times the energy yield of Little Boy. Although it wouldn't likely impart all of that energy on the ship. Fortunately interstellar space is mostly empty, and the ship likely could avoid any objects as big or bigger than that.
It would take 400 years to get to the OP's system, a few years less from the perspective of the passengers.
If we can perfect shielding technology and further eliminate drag we can go even faster. At 80% of the speed of light , the kinetic energy of a 1 Kg object is 1.6 * 10^17 joules or 160 PetaJoules, which is on the same order of magnitude as the energy released by the Tsar Bomba. However, again, the object would probably not impart all of that energy when colliding with the ship, but that is plenty to pierce the ships hull, and damage things pretty badly.
But at 80% of the speed of light we'd reach there in fifty years.
There is more about this method of space travel here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_travel_using_constant_acceleration
I'd imagine we'd have technology that could achieve something like this a few hundred years from now (but maybe soooner or maybe later.)
