If you don't care about time passing on Earth, and you can get close to the speed of light, then you don't need a generational ship because you can reach anywhere in the galaxy within a human lifetime.
Sure, if you are measuring time on Earth, then going 100 light years distance is going to take at least 100 years. But if you are measuring time on the ship, aging happens much slower relative to Earth, so it appears, to the people on the ship, that they are going much faster than the speed of light ((another way to look at it is that the distance contracts, so, mathematically, you are still going the speed of light, but the distances are much shorter).
t_newt1 t1_j22og0h wrote
Reply to I have a question about generational ships. by bigmikemcbeth756
If you don't care about time passing on Earth, and you can get close to the speed of light, then you don't need a generational ship because you can reach anywhere in the galaxy within a human lifetime.
Sure, if you are measuring time on Earth, then going 100 light years distance is going to take at least 100 years. But if you are measuring time on the ship, aging happens much slower relative to Earth, so it appears, to the people on the ship, that they are going much faster than the speed of light ((another way to look at it is that the distance contracts, so, mathematically, you are still going the speed of light, but the distances are much shorter).