To boldly go where no one has gone before. Science fiction is wonderful. It provides fantastic views of our future in space. Some stories are truly unrealistic and some may be plausible.
As some-one already said, space travel is part of the evolution of our species. We need to do it because by nature we are explorers. The need to explore is built in us. However if we are to travel to the stars someday we need to develop space craft that can go faster than or even near light speed.

I have made some realistic calculations to show that we have a long way to go.

Alpha Centauri our nearest star is 4.22 light years way. This translates to 41,5 trillion kilometers. Light travels at exactly 299 792,458 kilometers per second.
The unmanned space craft Helios 2 had an estimated average speed of 254 276 km/h (70,63 km per second). This is the fastest we have ever made anything go.
At this incredible speed it would take 163 208 482 hours to get to Alpha Centauri.
This translates to 6 800 353 days which in turn equals to 18631 years.
18631 years is about 286 human lifetimes considering the average human lifespan of 65 years.
This is all useless information I know, but it certainly puts things into perspective.
I hope I am still around to witness us sending a manned expedition to Mars or even Jupiter.
Happy travels!

Learn more about this author, Clinton Warricker.
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