If/when humans send a mission to Alpha Centauri, will the subjective time experienced by the craft be more than 20 years?
9
210Ṁ1262200
63%
chance
1H
6H
1D
1W
1M
ALL
Alpha Centauri is about 4 light years away. Time dilation means that if the craft accellerates fast enough, the time it experiences can be arbitrarily low; possibly even less than 4 years.
See here for various theoretical methods and how long they would take.
Close date updated to 2200-01-01 12:00 am
This question is managed and resolved by Manifold.
Get 
1,000 to start trading!
1,000Sort by:
For reference, 9.81m/s^2 * 1 year = 305900km/s (102% of the speed of light). The time the mission experiences can only be arbitrarily low if the acceleration is arbitrarily high. But generally there is a tradeoff between acceleration rate and specific impulse. To reach high speeds you need a very high specific impulse which probably entails low acceleration. All current ion drives have a thrust to weight ratio of less than 0.8m/s^2
People are also trading
Related questions
Will an interstellar mission to Alpha Centauri be launched by 2100?
63% chance
Will an interstellar mission to alpha centauri be launched before 2040?
6% chance
Will human civilization send a space probe to the Alpha Centauri system before 2100?
63% chance
Will we send a spacecraft/probe or Jose Luis ricon to the proxima centauri/alpha centauri system by 2065?
29% chance
Will human civilization send a space probe to the Alpha Centauri system before 2075?
34% chance
When will the first human colony be established in Alpha Centauri
How long will alien civilisations broadcast their existence into space?
By EOY 2100, will humanity have sent a probe to another star system and received meaningful info?
31% chance
Will any human spacecraft reach another star system by the end of the 21st century?
36% chance
Will there be a manned interstellar mission before 2250?
75% chance