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A comment on Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System. Parent comment

Re:Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System by darklajid on Monday December 03, 2012 @05:06PM (#4868166)
Catch up and surpass something we launched decades ago, travelling (according to Wikipedia, entry was last edited .. today) 3.595 AU per year [1].

The question you're asking is hard to answer: When do you want to catch up? If we send a new object to space today, which travels 5% faster, is that good enough? It won't pass Voyager 1 for a looooong time, but will eventually.

Is that what you're aiming for? Why? Or are you asking for a magical way to cross that distance (35 years of traveling) 'instantly'?

1: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.595+AU+per+year&d...

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Re:Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System by Jach on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @02:53AM (#4869970)
Considering c is 63,198 AU/yr, and Voyager 1's only about 123 AU away, there's still a lot of room left for future engineers in increasing the speed of our devices to very quickly surpass it. Will we achieve even a hundredth of c within the next 100 years? Depends.
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Re:Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System by _b8r0 on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @03:30AM (#4870036)
Just wondering, is there any technology we've seen actually used today that could produce a hundredth of c within the next 100 years? Would this be something we could see with ion propulsion for example?
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Re:Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System by madaxe on Tuesday December 04, 2012 @05:37AM (#4870275)
Not used, but planned. Nuclear propulsion. No real limit on speed, apart from C, although as you go farther/faster you need REALLY big ships to carry enough fuel. c.f. project Orion.
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