How Fast Can We Travel in Space Right Now?

Are you a fan of sci-fi movies or TV shows? Are you interested in complex physics and love the idea of traveling to distant planets and galaxies? Are you excited about the prospect of interstellar travel? Many of us dream of a future in which humans can travel anywhere in the universe. But how fast can we actually travel in space right now?The answer depends on whether you're referring to manned or unmanned rockets and spaceships. Surprisingly, the record for the fastest manned missions still belongs to Apollo 10, which took place in May 1969. This mission achieved a top speed of 24,791 mph (39,897 km/h).However, with engines powered by antimatter, spaceships could accelerate over periods of months or years to reach very high percentages of the speed of light, keeping Gs at a tolerable level for occupants. Billionaires such as Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are also trying to build better, cheaper and faster rockets. At several hundred million kilometers per hour, every speck in space, from lost hydrogen gas atoms to micrometeoroids, in effect becomes a high-powered bullet that hits the hull of a ship.

Therefore, to achieve significantly faster travel speeds for humans heading to Mars and beyond, scientists recognize that new approaches will be needed. Marc Millis, a propulsion physicist and former director of NASA's Innovative Propulsion Physics Program, warns that this possible speed limit for human travel remains a distant concern. The best argument for powering fast spaceships is antimatter, which has twice the energy of normal matter. Speculative dangers could also arise if humans manage to travel faster than light, either by taking advantage of gaps in known physics or through paradigm-breaking discoveries. The Orion spacecraft is designed to take astronauts to a low Earth orbit and is a good bet for the vehicle that will break the 46-year record of being the fastest we have traveled in history.

Jeannie Eschenbrenner
Jeannie Eschenbrenner

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