The Long-Term Future of Space Travel

Abstract

The fact that we apparently live in an accelerating universe places limitations on where humans might visit. If the current energy density of the universe is dominated by a cosmological constant, a rocket could reach a galaxy observed today at a redshift of 1.7 on a one-way journey or merely 0.65 on a round trip. Unfortunately these maximal trips are impractical as they require an infinite proper time to traverse. However, calculating the rocket trajectory in detail shows that a rocketeer could nearly reach such galaxies within a lifetime (a long lifetime admittedly -- about 100 years). For less negative values of $w$ the maximal redshift increases becoming infinite for $w\ge -1/3$.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures, minor changes to reflect version accepted to PRD

References in corpus (6)

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• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
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Cited by in corpus (8)

• The Return of a Static Universe and the End of Cosmology
• Twin Paradox in de Sitter Spacetime
• Type III Societies (Apparently) Do Not Exist
• Riding Gravity Away from Doomsday
• One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog
• Uniformly accelerated traveler in an FLRW universe
• Galactic Traversability: A New Concept for Extragalactic SETI
• The optimisation of low-acceleration interstellar relativistic rocket trajectories using genetic algorithms