Journey to Proxima Centauri

It is possible to reach Andromeda, or to the limits of the Galaxy or beyond, normally when these interstellar trips are considered they are seriously considered, there are scientists who propose how to do it and there are projects to be able to send probes to the next Centauri, which is the closest star, it is within the framework of our galaxy.

The ideal would be to travel faster than light, but at the moment we don't know that, we have no idea how to do it, build a ship that travels faster than light, there are theoretical approaches, but how to build it, that's another story. According to current physics, based on Einstein's special relativity, faster-than-light travel is impossible for any object with mass, such as ships or humans, nothing with mass can reach or exceed the speed of light, which is 300,000 km per second.

And it is not because light is special, it is because light has no mass, photons simply do not have mass and that is why they can reach that speed, because if something with mass tried to reach that point of the speed of light, it would imply an infinite energy level, in other words, we would have to transform ourselves into pure energy, into photons and it would also cause paradoxes. If we tried to overcome that, we could even think, we transform ourselves into energy and transmit ourselves like a telegram, to a receiving point where we are put back together and made alive again.

That's what John Carter's movie is based on, the trip between Earth and Mars, he transformed into energy and created a clone of himself on Mars, the way he traveled was curious, we could do that, but we would still be limited if one day we managed to develop a technology that could do that, even so we would be limited to the speed of light, so traveling to the next Centauri would take 164 years, that is, to travel to this world we would be converted into energy for 164 years and We would need there to be a receptor there that would transform us back into a human being, which would have to have traveled before creating the machinery that would capture us and transform us into normal human beings.

But developing technologies that even surpass that is indeed above current science and physics, currently what is being studied is propulsion, for example, laser propulsion with solar sails, you would achieve a speed of 20% of the speed of light, but the problem with solar sails is that there is not yet that technology to create such powerful lasers, but it would be within the possible and in fact it is what is being studied to send probes to the next Centauri. The trip would be non-stop, the probe would arrive next to Centauri after more than 160, but it couldn't stop, it couldn't brake, so you would have to, if you were hooked to that solar sail, you would have to unhook and activate some motors to brake in some way.

It must also be said that building sails to be able to carry a human in your spaceship, just one human in your spaceship, would mean building colossal sails measuring tens of square kilometers.

Another more affordable option in terms of time to travel are antimatter engines, you would have extremely dense energy, speeds that can theoretically reach up to 40% to 50% of the speed of light, and the engines that serve to accelerate allow you to brake and maneuver like a normal ship engine, only powered by antimatter. The problem is that getting antimatter is very difficult and extremely expensive.

Currently, 1 milligram of antimatter currently has an estimated cost of approximately 62.5 billion dollars. If you found a gram of antimatter in the ground, you would not become millionaires, you would be unearthed; It is 1 mg of antimatter, keep in mind that the antimatter in contact with any molecule of matter, that of the air, that of the palm of your hand, when you try to pick it up or anything of matter is transformed into energy both in the atoms of antimatter and the atoms of matter that is touched, it is transformed into pure energy, that is why it is extremely dense energy.

For a ship like the Starship manned with an antimatter engine and having enough antimatter to accelerate and brake to reach Proxima Centauri, you would need about 19,000 tons of antimatter, that for the outward journey, going and braking to be able to land on a planet in Proxima Centauri, by the way, in Proxima Centauri there is a planet, at least there is one, there will surely be more. The problem is that there are 19,000 tons of antimatter and another 19,000 tons of antimatter to return.

This is currently totally impossible, there is no way to produce that amount with our current technology, if it were not for money, it would be impossible and it would also take millions of years to simply gather a ton of antimatter.

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