A Distant Journey at Light Speed
What do recent academic papers tell us about the possibility of traveling at the speed of light to a distant exoplanet?
Energy and Method of Light Speed Travel
Science fiction plays up the prospect of zipping around the galaxy and raises interesting questions about what a future where the speed of light travel exists would look like. Conventional rockets face a number of different challenges however, that may well still reflect on the prospect of the speed of light travel in the future. A method of travel close to the speed of light that involved the use of an antimatter fuel, for example, may pose problems that entail it cannot be easily applied for an interstellar journey.
Oleg G. Semyonov, in a recent article published in Act Astronautic, points out that one potential challenge for a future interstellar journey that involved traveling at the speed of light is fuel. Methods of high energy travel that use antimatter in solid or liquid state may well produce the thrust needed to propel a craft close to the speed of light. However, having to carry such material would “increase the rockets dry mass thus limiting the achievable speed” (Semyonov, 2018).
