Project Longshot: 100 Year probe mission to Alpha Centauri
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
It's the dramatic title that does it for me.
Of course that could be slightly harsh. The land speed record has been broken again and again in that time period. That brings up an interesting point. Only one of those attempts set out to break the speed of sound, all the rest set out to beat the last guy.
We need targets to aim for and any project which aims to pass the incumbent leader in 10 years will be a lot more politically valuable than a project which will reach Alpha Centauri in 50 years. Even if they are the same project.
Having said that this discussion is entirely academic. The proposal was made in 1988 and not followed up. Today, we're just aiming for the Moon.
p.s. Good luck solving whatever population problem there may be via space. I wouldn't like to try shipping a billion people 100 miles. Moving them to another world would need more than improvements to the space program. It would need the space program to be made irrelevant.
a) We now have dozens of different forms of propulsion(gas, ethanol, biofuel, CNG, electricity, hydrogen etc) b) We now have FWD, AWD, RWD c) We now have cars that have 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 cylinders d) We now have cars that come naturally aspirated, turboed, supercharged, twin turboed, twin supercharged ,quad turboed. e) We now have cars that can take a hit at 100 mph, and you'll survive f) We now have cars that can do a 0 to 100 in just a couple of seconds. g) We have cars that will adjust the suspension based on a hairline crack in the road. h) We now have cars, that can go up a 89 degree slope, in the snow(Audi/Subaru AWD systems) i) And of course our cars now come better equipped than CEO offices from when they first came out.
But yes space program needs to make space a commodity. Where you can walk to your roof, get in your personal space ship and go pickup your buddy on Sirius 3 to go that hot new restaurant on Mars.
And it could probably be done, just 100 years ago cars were a thing for the richest of the rich. Now everyone has one.
Cars still travel more or less the same speed for the purpose of personal transport, etc. Getting to Alpha Centauri is going to take a fundamental change in space travel technology.
Also, a) we had diesel/electric/gas motors a century ago, b) would you believe that we had FWD/AWD a century ago? We did! c) we've always had engines with insane number of cylinders d) i'll admit turbos are newer -- 1930's planes first used them e) i still don't want to be in them and they're not foolproof as we as having different engineering goals than a normal car. g) no comment. :) h) so could the original jeep (GP) i) have you seen the inside of a chevy recently?
Our current space travel tech needs a couple of orders of magnitude in improvement before we can just travel to distant stars at will. Your examples are incremental improvements to practical problems. In the mean time, I say we send a probe! :)
Also, worry about population won't help too much. Hopefully if the rest of the world gets industrialized the population will level off. Or we'll start eating each other. Either way...