The next generation and the next generation and the next...

摘要

Exploration used to be a fairly straightforward affair. The intrepid picked a destination, lined up a few sponsors, got crew and gear together and off they went. Maybe they made it, maybe they didn't. Space exploration is a little different. With current rocket systems, it would take us more than 100 000 years to get to Alpha Centauri, one of the nearest stars, and much longer to reach a habitable planet. While new technologies may shave a few years off the timetable, it is still going to take thousands of generations of galactic explorers to reach new solar systems-in other words, we are going to need to reproduce in microgravity.