alt Hacker NewsAnd what happens when they encounter a GRB?
Interstellar travel is not a propulsion problem. It's a space travel problem. The medium itself, is the vast majority of the problem.
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Space is, and I must emphasize this in the strongest possible terms, really FUCKING BIG and dangerous GRBs tend to be tightly focused given the inverse square law.
It's highly unlikely that a ship gets hit by a GRB.
On the other hand, general radiation gets worse the faster you go, so you need shielding either way. All you have to do is line the walls of your ship with a shit ton of water, which can be mined in space.
Destructive GRBs are actually so rare that I'd seriously bet on our spaceship getting attacked by a belligerent alien vessel before thinking the mission gets taken out by a GRB.
The solution to this problem is straightforward, isn't it? Just add mass. Propulsion is the technological bottleneck.
Just die.
That's not actually a problem, because dangerous GRBs are simply not that common. Earth gets hit by one every day, but, that includes GRBs from very distant galaxies that are so weak when they hit us that they would not be any danger even to a completely unshielded person in orbit. GRBs of sufficient power to be an actual threat to people in a tin can is one/millions of years, at which point it's a propulsion problem again.
Yes, there are lots of things that could kill the ship on route. No, none of those are actually a significant problem compared to the basic "how to get there before everything breaks down from internal issues".