alt Hacker News> Space is so ridiculously big that I don't think it will ever happen
You are underestimating acceleration. To travel and come to a stop at 4.2 light years, a spaceship with 1g acceleration barely needs 3.5 years in relativistic ship time (~6 years earth time).
The technology to sustain 1g acceleration through 3.5 years is a different story, but very much within our understanding of physics (and not warp drives, etc). 20-50 years of engineering can get us there.
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I think you are way too optimistic. Even with an antimatter drive and 100% conversion efficiency, such rocket would have a fuel to payload ratio of >1000.
Whatever speed advancements we make on earth, they pale in comparison to sling shotting off of a planet. to make an engine that can go significantly faster, we would need the energy of a planet.
> 20-50 years of engineering can get us there.
What energy source do you think is merely 20-50 years of engineering effort away from being able to power that kind of journey?
Is there enough reaction mass on earth to construct a rocket capable of accelerating at 1g for 3.5 years?
You got the shielding problem how to protect the ship from disintegrating when it hits the first pebble at massive speed
> 20-50 years of engineering can get us there.
I want to believe, but I think it'll be a lot more than that. The rocket equation is a stone cold bitch in this case.
Sustaining the thrust that accelerates a probe at 1g is very different to sustaining the thrust to move the probe and all the fuel. And it's much worse if you want to stop and not just fly past into deep space.