The last frontier

[Tremus]

I have often wondered what is really out there. We all know about comets and ice, dust, gas and the occasional dwarf planet, but there is a real mystery out in those outer reaches of our solar system that we have to consider. It may be that this will be the furthest that we as a spicies may ever reach. I dream of the stars but they are beyond us.

[DanishDynamite]

The stars may be beyond us in our lifetimes but if we take care of our spaceship, Earth, there is no reason (physics-wise) that our descendants won't reach the stars, or the entire Milky Way for that matter. Still, in my own lifetime I would like to learn everything I can, including the mysteries that the Kuiper Belt objects will reveal.

[Cosmologist]

Aren't Kuiper belt objects mostly ice comets? Sounds like a good pitstop for picking up volatiles to make rocket fuel. Very convenient for starships. All we need is a long term suspended animation system.

[Shigeru]

The stars may be beyond us in our lifetimes but if we take care of our spaceship, Earth, there is no reason (physics-wise) that our descendants won't reach the stars, or the entire Milky Way for that matter. Still, in my own lifetime I would like to learn everything I can, including the mysteries that the Kuiper Belt objects will reveal.

Absolutely agree! That are exactly my thoughts, as also Sagan says, let's hope what humanity can advance to the next step.

[neilzero]

If we travel away from the sun at the rate of 1000 million miles per year, = we are in the Oort cloud or outermost Kuiper belt in one century, but we need to slow to about 50 million miles per year and turn right to soft land on a rather slow orbiting Oort cloud ice ball. That is a large amount of delta v to loose to collect some resources. We may not have enough energy to resume our out bound trip even at 100 million miles per year. Our century old neuclear power plant is likely making watts instead of megawatts. Solar panels died long ago plus negligible sunlight. Our super conducting ring has one or more opens somewhere on it's 200 mile circumfrence. Our solar sail is in taters and the solar wind is much weaker than closer to the Sun. We distroyed our Orion type pusher plate matching speed with the ice ball, and have only a few half strength H bombs left. What energy source might be practical to produce significant delta v? Our craft likely has more mass than the ISS = international space station, so we have ejection mass, but almost no energy.
With incredible good luck a comet that was near the sun about a century ago may come along side at about the same speed and direction (so we don't need to slow down), but one chance in a million is extremely optimistic, as we have not yet found the first comet on a hyperbolic trajetory, so one closely matching our hyperbolic tragetory is very improbable. Neil

[ASTRO BOY]

The stars may be beyond us in our lifetimes but if we take care of our spaceship, Earth, there is no reason (physics-wise) that our descendants won't reach the stars, or the entire Milky Way for that matter. Still, in my own lifetime I would like to learn everything I can, including the mysteries that the Kuiper Belt objects will reveal.

My thoughts and feelings exactly!!!!
Maybe even beyond given time.....