Skip to main content
6 of 8
added 7 characters in body
MoonKnight
  • 1.9k
  • 12
  • 18

If you are not interested in relativistic effects, the answer to your question is easy to workout. According to Wikipedia, Alpha Centauri is 4.24 ly away (4.0114x$10^{16}\mathrm{m}$). So to get there in 60 years ($1892160000\mathrm{s}$).

So your non-relativistic answer is

$v = \frac{d}{t} = \frac{4.0114 \times 10^{16}}{1892160000} = 21200000 \mathrm{m}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$.

This is 21200 $\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{−1}$. The fastest recored space flight was 24,791Mph which is around 11$\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{−1}$ which is 0.05% of 21200$\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{−1}$. This means we have to be able to get spaceships to travel 2,000 times faster than the fastest current spaceship.

Note, I believe satellites in geostationary orbits do $\approx 17\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{−1}$.

MoonKnight
  • 1.9k
  • 12
  • 18