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Aggravating_Teach_27 t1_j5p0l9h wrote

Reply to comment by SonicHedgePig in How many years do you think we have until space travel? Something like cowboy bebop by Aware_Ad2047

Ion engines don't help you at all in interstellar distances. Not even for moving people around the solar system as they take forever to gain speed. They are nice to send unmanned probes to far away places in the solar system in multi-year missions and that's about it.

I'm not disparaging ion engines tech, it's wonderful. But falls terribly short of the sci Fi stuff the OP mentioned.

The sad reality is the only likely development left with the physics we know is nuclear engines, and those would still allow for slow but bearable transportation inside the solar system.

Nothing we have or can build with our current tech and understanding of physics allows interstellar travel, at all. Never mind quick and easy interstellar travel like in sci Fi.

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SonicHedgePig t1_j5p0yrm wrote

I was thinking more along the lines of local travel or even a generational colony ship in that time frame. I think we are very long way from interstellar travel.

Like I've said earlier in another comment I'm just a dreamer who wants to see the start of it before I die.

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