Will interstellar travel ever be reality?

[lsbd]

Come on eddie, everyone here knows that you and Jim have not-so-secret crushes on each other. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[qso1]

djtt:<br />it seems a good idea but has quite few hooks and angles still...<br /><br />Me:<br />Thats true. All concepts includint the hollowed asteroid one, have their share of hooks and angles. The key is eliminating those with insurmountable hooks and angles. Were still at such an early stage in human space flight technology. Some as yet unimagined concept is likely to be our way to the stars. Just as Jules Verne envisioned a cannon shooting people to the moon before rockets were actually proposed and developed for that task.<br /><br />In fact, the most popular concept I have seen on SDC is Orion nuclear pulse. It may work, but its hooks and angles are cost and the time it would take to develop the 300,000 bombs necessary to propel it. It took the U.S. and Soviet Union to develop around 50,000 bombs over a nearly five decade period (1945-90) during the arms race. Imagine what its going to take to build just the bombs on a regular basis in a non race scenario. Bombs that would have to meet extremely high specifications which entails equally high cost.<br /><br />But having said that, a fusion powered craft may someday be built bearing the Orion name. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>