How Fast Can We Travel In Space
Once at a steady cruising speed of about 16 150mph 26 000kph in orbit astronauts no more feel their speed than do passengers on a commercial airplane.
How fast can we travel in space. Relativistic space travel in the previous example where we traveled to andromeda galaxy the maximum velocity was almost 3000 times greater than the speed of light c 299 792 458 m s or about c 3 10 m s using scientific notation. Alcubierre s design called for an american football shaped spacecraft with a flat ring attached to the ship. If we were to shoot this laser at the spacecraft for about 10 minutes in order to reach one tenth the speed of light the spacecraft can weigh no more than a gram.
On this scale the distance to alpha centauri a would be 276 kilometers 171 miles. The fastest object ever launched into space is the voyager 1 probe and it would. Can humans travel at the speed of light.
To get to lower orbit astronauts have to get to 17 500 miles per hour and to do that they have to change. At this rate a journey to proxima centauri would take 80 000 years. If g forces aren t a problem for orion s longer duration missions small space rocks micrometeoroids might be.
The fastest outward bound spacecraft yet sent voyager 1 has covered 1 600 of a light year in 30 years and is currently moving at 1 18 000 the speed of light. That s the mass of a paper clip. When you go to space you have to get enough speed to get out of earth s gravity field.
I think a hundred years ago we probably wouldn t have imagined a human could travel in space at almost 40 000 kilometres per hour says jim bray of the aerospace firm lockheed martin.