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>There was some recent speculation about a type of probe potentially capable of velocities up to 1/4c as I recall but I can't recall the details.

https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3

If there really are civilisations that have survived on the billion year time-scales of our universe, the fact that they're not clearly visible everywhere we look is a distinct choice they've made. Space is big but time is much bigger.

It would really suck if, half way through your 80,000 year trip, the humans you left behind developed a way to go 10,000 times as fast...

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A small stellar sized black hole would be on the order of at least 3 solar masses. It would mean that we were part of a binary system with a supernova or somehow the solar system captured a rogue black hole. I’m not an astrophysicist but I‘m not sure what the orbital dynamics of that scenario would entail. I’m assuming you’re actually referring to a primordial black hole, something formed during the Big Bang, which could theoretically have smaller masses?

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Then we should hurry up and start it...

If only we make a fusion breakthrough (even though it is unnecessary), we want to have a map of potential immediate destinations.

Dude I had no idea that radio waves etc would travel at the speed of light in a vacuum. Very cool.

A mere four light years, our nearest neighbour. So at least messages will only take 8 years round trip. There was some recent speculation about a type of probe potentially capable of velocities up to 1/4c as I recall but I can't recall the details.

It’s this companies first launch. Not sure why you were expected to know about them.

Japan is the 3rd largest economy in the world.

But the down side is its too big to steer or slow down/speed up effectively. You just got to hold on.

Excluding the fact that we can certainly make faster probes, the study of habitable exoplanets is not and never has been contingent on the ability of people to visit them. We can still gather data and that data is still useful.

P.S. The fastest body in our solar system goes 200,000mph, or about 0.03% the speed of light. At this speed, it will take about 13,400 years to reach the next sun, assuming it ever arcs in that direction (if I got the math right - I ignored relativistic effects since it's so slow).

What if instead of trying to put people on there we put a small device designed for extreme accelerations. It would simply need to be in the path of the moving body. After that, it can hitch a ride and leave the surface when it's ready to wonder space at high speed.

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Isn’t that like hundreds of thousands of years away from us at our current space travel rate?

Theorically yes, realistically (ressource spending wise) no. We're barely back at having a foot in orbit. Oh and the middle of a right wing vs left wing cold war again. Not to talk about east europe. Climate change's knocking home to roost too.

I disagree, it’s a great idea, we just need to wait for the right one… with a Tv, refrigerators and sh*t…

Yeah your right, their forgetting that you match speed, but not mass, millions of tons versus 10. Take everything you hope you need and build a cozy home. It might even be rotating a bit giving parts of it some gravity.

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According to my completely uninformed, pet theory that I pulled out of my nether regions - yes.