When you consider the scale of space it becomes pretty understandable why the Milky Way isn't teeming with civilizations sending large amounts of mass all over the galaxy. A realization one comes to despite the facts that it has taken humans a blink of an eye (on a galactic timescale) to go from tools to rockets and the Milky way is billions of years older than the entire history of the Earth.
Sentient life in hospitable environments is as unavoidable in the Star Wars universe as it is absent in ours.
On a scale of probable -> less probable, you have:
Self-organizing chemicals -> replication -> evolution -> multi-cellular life -> creatures that move around -> intelligent life -> use of tools -> basic technology like wheels, steam engine -> advanced tech -> automation -> space faring -> capable of interstellar travel -> capable of intergalactic travel. Powered by energy sources of increasing complexity/sophistication & scale.
This whole evolution requires a stable environment. Dinosaur-killing asteroid & it's back to square 1. Also (for example) how would intelligent life on a waterworld (which basically excludes electronics as we know it) become space-faring?
So it's not unlogical to expect that microbial life could be 'everywhere', tool-using intelligent creatures are rare, and interstellar-capable civilizations are so few & far between that (on average) they're just too distant in space or time.
Doesn't matter who visits who if neither party can cross the ocean in between.
I can’t prescribe this theoretical technology to the problem. But I also think it’s unreasonable to set the limit using known technology and then discount the idea altogether. We have no idea what will be possible in 300 years.
Einstein's field equations link geometry to matter and energy:
G_μν = 8πG/c⁴ · T_μν
Left side describes how spacetime curves (the metric tensor). Right side represents what's causing the curvature (the stress-energy tensor): mass, energy, momentum. The usual approach is: you specify T_μν (what matter is where) and solve for the resulting curvature. Metric engineering takes the backward approach. You pick the geometry you want first: e.g a bubble that carries its contents faster than light relative to the outside universe. Then you work out what T_μν would have to be to produce that geometry: what distribution of energy and stress the equations demand.
The classic example of spacetime metric engineering is the Alcubierre drive.
The limitation with this is that the required T_μν has negative energy density in some regions (the bubble walls) which violate some assumptions about how "reasonable" matter behaves. But Quantum Field theory allows such local regions of negative densities and we have created such regions in labs experimentally already (Casimir effect). We "just" don't know how to sustain the effect at bigger (atomic) distances.
You can, but you need a couple of solar sails. You beam the laser at the sails to accelerate, then at the halfway point one of the sails detaches and becomes a reflector, which lights up the now flipped probe and remaining sail to decelerate them.
What kinds of scientific breakthroughs would be required? Could those breakthroughs be achieved in the next 2 or 3 centuries?
With all due respect, this has been extensively debated online and is extremely easy to look up.
> Could those breakthroughs be achieved in the next 2 or 3 centuries?
Any predictions on future scientific breakthroughs are wishful thinking. Even directions that seem promising at some point can end up being dead ends and we simply don't know what we will or will not achieve.
With current technologies, even hypothetical ones we can't get there in a time period that is under a few centuries at best and over a millennium at worse. Even for the centuries figure we'd require technologies we haven't been able to crack yet.
After 44 days of acceleration. On a multi-millennia mission we’re talking a velocity likely 300x what the Parker Solar Probe achieved (while falling into the Sun).
That is a pretty big missing part. Not as big as the galaxy, but still huge.
So let's be optimistic and assume we can reach 10% of c (unlikely), that is 10 years for one light year, meaning that it takes about five centuries. Practically speaking 10% of c is unlikely, it takes about a month to accelerate to those speeds you'd need an insane amount of mass in the form of bombs to explode to just get up to speed. Which is why 3% is more "realistic". Oh, did I mention that there is no realistic way to slow down either? In theory it is just detonating the same amount of bombs in front of the craft, but in order to take that mass on your journey you'd need a lot more mass to get up to speed and the numbers get silly rather quickly.
So "realistically" at 3% of c we are talking about roughly 1500 years to just speed past our target.
Also, the original remark was about sending probes, not humans. But at 3% or 10% of c time dilation isn't much of a factor either so you'd need a generational craft if you want to send people.
Again, space is big, really big.
Yeah to reach it with current tech. No shifting goal posts, thank you very much.
> In hundreds of years from now our rulers will definitely have that kind of tech, whatever tech it is.
Also, I should point out that technological progress isn't linear and guaranteed. Also, "our rulers" what ...?
The speed of light is 1079 252 848 km/h, the fastest space craft ever made was the Parker Solar probe (using a sling shot) clocking in at 692 000 km/h. So at that speed it would take, 1559 years to travel one light year.
This planet sits at a distance of 48 light years, so it would 74 832 years to get there. Just for good measure, when it gets there it would also take 48 years for us to know that since radio travels at the speed of light.
Note, that the speed of the spacecraft I mentioned was the peak speed. Space is big, really big.