WHAT (and how long), WOULD IT TAKE TO MAKE ALPHA CENTAURI

[Niri Te]

 There is a 21 minute film that is long on the Science, and short on the fiction, at:

Voyage to Pandora: First Interstellar Space Flight

Give it a look, I think that you would enjoy it, even if you know most of the material presented.
Niri Te

[Tsanten Eywa 'eveng]

I saw that a very long time ago
And it was very interesting to watch

I wonder if there are something in Alpha Centauri
it has in a long time been theorized if there can exist a gas giant or a terrestrial planet in the Alpha Centauri system

[Niri Te]

 Now THAT would be something!! You and I would both be in the ground by the time a probe made it there and back, but perhaps your Grand kids could be part of the team that runs the mission.
Niri Te

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I need to watch that video when I can find time (finding 20 minutes to watch something is very hard to do nowadays). However, great strides have been made in coming up with practical starship designs that could tranaport people to Alpha Centuari in a reasonably short period of time. Interestingly, the ISV Venture Star (the starship at the beginning of the movie) embodies many of these ideas, including out-in-front engines. Unlike most sci-fi movies that utilize starships, the Venture Star is a 'buildable' design.

[Tsanten Eywa 'eveng]

I have heard that in 2018, or little after that, is a new space telescope trying to seek in the Alpha Centauri system to see if it exist planets there
the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST was originally planned to launch in 2014, but they have had trouble with the economy, so it were pushed to 2018


The JWST's primary scientific mission has four main components: to search for light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the Universe after the Big Bang, to study the formation and evolution of galaxies, to understand the formation of stars and planetary systems and to study planetary systems and the origins of life.

This telescope is going to replace the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope
it is going to be launched out with a Ariane rocket, and out to 1.5 million km, that's 4 lunar distances



and Pandora can be detected next decade


"If Pandora existed, we potentially could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade,"
said Lisa Kalteneggar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5I57gOFYLg