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Comment by hoodoof | Hacker News Reader

I would love it if this was anything but science fiction but it's not. I have friends who liken traveling to the stars to the journeys of people like Columbus, but people just have no idea of the mind boggling, mind bending, if-you-think-you-grasp-then-you-really-don't distances involved in travelling even to the edge of our own solar system let alone to the nearest star.

It might happen but will never succeed.

Complete no.

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Don't be so pessimistic.

But they're not sending big, fat, needs-life-support Columbus. They're proposing gram sized probes propelled by a super "laser". (Dr. Evil scare quotes.)

On Earth, the distances are similarly huge but still manageable.

For example, from me to Latin America 7000 times of what I walk every day from and to work. So in my daily walks that's 20 years worth of walking! Or 40 years for both-ways trip! And yet I've been there.

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. [Douglas Adams]

Don't be ridiculous. There's no way that you could have been there. It's simply too far away. Latin America will always be out of our reach.

May as well just throw the towel in now, eh? Why waste money on space when it could be used to feed the starving here on earth?

rolls eyes

Nobody ever achieved anything by not trying, and saying "it's just too far, too hard".

Nothing is impossible, some things are just very, very difficult.

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