How will we ever go to the stars?

This is a subject that I really love. It's an idea that many people want to happen because it would go a long way in helping preserve the human race and also locate other intelligent beings.
It would be a long journey even to get to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. It's 4.37 light years, but keep in mind that a light year is 6 trillion miles and light from Alpha Centauri takes 4.37 years to get here.

So, how might we get there and beyond to other star systems? There are three basic methods: one is to use nuclear fusion powered ion-drive engines to slowly accelerate to near the speed of light. This would require at least 50-100 years or more to make the journey. Warp drive could get us there in much less time, but we still don't have workable warp engine technology. We could discover a way to open a wormhole, but this is still a long way in the future.

The most feasible method is the first: nuclear fusion powered ion-drive. An ion-thruster type propulsion system requires generating electrical charges. This would require using something other than batteries. There are several ion-thruster engine concepts already in existence. As a matter of fact, NASA is already using some of them.

The MPDT thruster has the best possibility to achieve interstellar flight. MPDT stands for Magnetoplasmadynamic Thruster. This idea works by feeding an ionized gas (hydrogen) into a chamber where Lorentz force (using current flow and magnetic field) causes acceleration. This method doesn't use combustion and the specific impulse and thrust increase with power input. Exhaust velocity can go beyond 110,000 meters per second and could achieve thrusts of 200 Newtons. These values are way beyond chemical rockets and current ion-thruster designs. The Japanese Space program has already tested this idea.

NASA is experimenting with warp drive technology, and there have been reports that they have tested a prototype device. However, there is little information about this report. This warp drive is based on theories proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994. If this could be achieved, speeds of up to 10 times the speed of light could be achieved. This concept is probably decades away because it requires production of exotic matter like antimatter. It would require enormous amounts of energy to achieve. The warp drive concept doesn't violate Einstein's relativity laws. As a matter of fact, it relies on them to cause a warped space bubble in which a spacecraft can ride like a surfer on a gravity wave. Remember that space is like a fabric that can be compressed and expanded.
Obviously, this would be the way to go because it has the possibility of traveling to other stars systems in reasonable times.

The wormhole idea would be much more difficult to employ. A possible type of wormhole that would allow this is called a Morris-Thorne (named for the physicists that worked it out) traversable wormhole. Such a wormhole would have to be maintained (held stable) by a spherical shell of exotic matter, something that hasn't yet been produced. Some have theorized that the exotic matter would have to be negative mass cosmic strings. I don't know where we're going to find that.

As I see it, traveling out into interstellar space isn't going to happen anytime soon. We haven't sent people to Mars yet. I believe that it would take a concerted effort by many nations to explore distant star systems. There would have to be solid evidence that life exists on a planet orbiting a distant star before anyone would want to spend the outrageous amounts of money to pull it off. The only encouraging thing that would suggest it could happen is the amount of money they've spent to build the Hadron Collider for just doing pure science.

Going to a habitable planet orbiting a distant star would make sense not only for pure science but also to explore the possibility of transporting humans to live there. This might be a good idea if we are going to preserve the human race. I believe that we have to get off this planet to guarantee that humans will survive in the distant future.

I can only imagine what it would be like to travel the immense distances to another habitable planet. It certainly would be exciting stepping onto another Earth-like planet.

Thanks for reading.