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ozspook t1_j4zdloy wrote

If humanity really put their mind to it, went all out and built an Orion type spacecraft, we could probably get it there within 3000 years or so.

It's very helpful that the intended destination is to plunge into a black hole, this means we don't need to flip and slow down halfway, so we put more fuel mass fraction into the initial acceleration and we can just smack into it at relativistic velocities.

Transmitting back could be done by a much smaller relay satellite shot backwards some distance from the target, unfurling a massive mylar solar sail with a clever 'shutter' system, using the black hole's accretion disk or a close star as the light source, like a morse light on a ship.. We will work it out.. Of course nothing passes the event horizon but we might get some neat close up images and data for a short while.

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jrob323 t1_j4zjml5 wrote

> If humanity really put their mind to it, went all out and built an Orion type spacecraft, we could probably get it there within 3000 years or so.

What are the chances that this spacecraft could travel at relativistic speed through space for 3000 years without encountering a speck of dust and detonating with the energy of a hydrogen bomb?

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Wyg6q17Dd5sNq59h t1_j4zyd33 wrote

An Orion-class vehicle can carry with it lots of mass to protect it from relativistic dust collisions.

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