The distances between the stars are enormous, and our best spacecraft are running hopelessly slow. The fastest artificial space body – Parker Solar Probe – has a theoretical top speed of about 192 km/s will be achieved by 2025 at its closest approach to the Sun. This number of kilometers per second seems extraordinary in our daily lives; however, it is only 0.064% of the speed of light.
Image credit: PBS Space Time via YouTube (still image from video)
When traveling as fast as the Parker Solar Probe at its maximum velocity, reaching the nearest star would take about 6,635 years. Even if we managed to achieve ten times greater velocities, a trip lasting several hundred years would be an extremely difficult thing for any human crew. And even if we did decide to send the robot out there, technical reliability would still be the main limiting factor, let alone the fact that no one could predict what disaster might befall the ship between stars during such a trip.
Does this mean that humanity cannot reach the stars? And it might be the same reason why we did not see any extraterrestrial civilization visiting our planet? Watch the following video for an interesting scientific perspective:
