ey _ edd Earth to the Moon 40 brs, &brs (240,000 mi} Earth to the Sun (? AU) 645.8 dys 9.2 days (93,000,000 mi) Earth to Mercury 3955 days 791 days (36,950. Earth to Venus WBOBdays 36.2 days (26,040,000 mi) Earth to Mars 335.8 days 612 days (48,360,000 mi) Earth to Jupiter 743 years: 149 years 690,600,000 mi) Earth to Saturn Ba years 68 years (704940000 mi) Earth to Uranus 32 years G42 years (1,687020,000 mi) Earth to Neptune S167 years 10.33 years 2.715,600,000 mi) Earth to Pluto 6B.02years 6 years (3574920,000 mi) 1.320 years 600 years {5.865.696,000,000 mi.) Sun to Alpha Centauri (44 ight years) TAPLE engine can achieve asp APL enginecan achieve 491,040 years 98,208 years d of 2, The greatest impediment to traveling between the stars is time: What would be the point of sending astronauts to Alpha Centauri for example, if, by the ey arrived, no one on Earth could remember why they'd gone in the first place? Time dilation—the slowing of the passage of time in relation to an obj close ta the speed of lightbecomes a factor, A few years might pass onboard the ship, while few hundred yearsmmighthave passed both at the ship's point of origin and its point of arrival REALISTIC TRAVEL TIMES Table 6-2: Realistic Travel Times provides various “realistic” interplanetary and interstellar travel times. These times assume that starships cannot achieve velocities anywhere near the speed of light, for reasons discussed under Interstellar Travel (see above), Using the table, a starship equipped with a PL 6 ion engine would take 67.2 days to travel from Earth to Mars, while the same ship equipped witha PL ? induction eny would take 16.8 days. The travel times listed in Table 6-2 are based on average dis tance. Planets move loser together and farther apart based on their relative orbits around the sun, and the travel time between worlds may increase or decrease accordingly. traveling at TIME DILATION When a ship approaches to within 90% of the speed of light, time slows down, Characters on board the ship would nat notice, but if they were tomake hourly reports back to their point of origin, those reports might arrive only once every hundred hours. This creates an interesting paradox, in that if a character man aged to travel at the speed of light to another star and back Pe sd eres hrs, 196 min, 92sec. 1.29 sec. 33 days Rehr. 593.min. 83min, Bdays —° TThes. 34 min Simin 9.04 days 35s. WS rrin, 23 in 16.8 days 6.6 hrs 30,7 min 43 min. Boédays D2 days 4ahes. 35min UAB days 4 cays ashes 632 min. Léyears 9S days Bhs. 2s2hes. 2.58 years 154 days, 2 days Admin. 3ayears 202 days Tédays 533 min 5580 years Sl years 7M years \year 2MSS2years 400 years 314 years 44 years 6 miles per second (1.1% of the speed of light). peed of 26,040 miles per second [14% of the speed af light) a newborn child he eft behind would now be older than him=if the child hade't died of old age some time ago. The actual amount of time dilation observed aboard a ship traveling near light speed increases in proportion to just how close itis to light speed. Technically, time dilation occurs at any speed, aly becomes noticeable at relativistic speeds. The dilation isa ratio that determines how much time passes aboard the ship: it isa multiplier when determining how much time passes outside the ship, example, ship moving at 70% the speed of light has atime dilation of 14, Ten hours of travel aboard the ship at this speed means that I hours (10 14) have passed outside the ship. However, if sen hours pass for those left behind, only 7.1 hours have passed aboard the ship (10 divided by 14), 184380 60 a3 18 167400 65 90% B 180,420 10 97% 39 182466 1 9am a] 185,98 1239 999% 0.2