The sci-fi propulsion system that will get us to TRAPPIST-1 fastest
800,000 years: That's how long (buzzkill) astronaut Scott Kelly said it'll take us to get to the TRAPPIST-1 star system and its seven newly-discovered, potentially life-supporting, Earth-sized worlds.
That timeline, Kelly also notes, is using our current propulsion systems. Which max out at a robust, but not interstellar-ready 29,000 mph.
But what if we could traverse those 235 trillion miles (40 light years) with some other technology—like something from the world of science fiction?
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Leaving aside Doctor Who’s TARDIS and all other specifically time-travel based vehicles, we'll focus on propulsion-based systems. Each one of them, Star Wars, Star Trek, Interstellar, Alien, Battlestar Galactica, even the recent Passengers, have their own space travel trope. Most manage light-speed jumps in a matter of minutes. The more realistic ones put their astronauts in suspended animation, but instead of sleeping for hundreds of years, they’re usually on ice for decades.
We’ve looked at some of these classic science fiction films and franchises, their hero spaceships and the various guesses at just how fast any of them can travel and applied it all to our planned trip to TRAPPIST-1. Each one gets a TRAPPIST-1 Travel score on a scale of 1-to-5 (5 being the best). At the end, we’ll select the winner and start packing our bags.
Star Wars: Millennium Falcon
While it’s obvious that the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, the Millennium Falcon, travels faster that the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), no one seems to know exactly how fast. There’s a hyperdrive scale, but it’s all relative to an unknown base speed.
Since the Falcon can visit multiple star systems in the span of one two-hour film that covers a few weeks at most, we can safely assume that the Falcon travels many times the speed of light when it jumps to hyperspace. With that in mind, we’re guessing the 40-light-year trip might take the Falcon a few minutes.
TRAPPIST-1 Travel Score: 5
Star Trek: Enterprise
Much more's known about the fictional Warp drives in the Star Trek franchise. Series creator Gene Roddenberry defined warp speed as something just below the speed of light (.73 of a light year per hour).
If our calculations are correct, the Enterprise travels at a maximum speed of approximately 670,616,629 mph. At that rate, Captain Kirk arrives at the seven-planet cluster circling TRAPPIST-1 in roughly 350 hours, which is roughly 14 days.
TRAPPIST-1 Travel Score: 4
Alien: Nostromo
The Alien franchise has faster-than-light travel, but nothing's instantaneous. Ripley enters suspended animation in the time between Alien and its sequel, Aliens. This means traveling a light year might take a year. If you accept that guess (really, what choice do you have?) the trip to the TRAPPIST-1 system takes 40 years, just enough time for Ripely to grab another suspended animation nap.
TRAPPIST-1 Travel Score: 3
Interstellar: Endurance
As the name suggests, much of the space travel in this Matthew McConaughey movie is between planetary systems. Normally, that kind of travel would require some much faster than speed of light propulsion system, but Interstellar cheats with a surprise wormhole that appears in our own solar system. A wormhole bends or folds time so that you can take incredible shortcuts.
But: Without the benefit of another wormhole that leads directly to TRAPPIST-1, we can't exactly assume McConaughey and Anne Hathaway could ever make it to the newly discovered system.
TRAPPIST-1 Travel Score: 1
Passengers: Avalon
Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence should’ve demanded an upgraded before boarding their spaceship/cruise-liner in the film Passengers. It only travels at half the speed of light. If they wanted to settle on, say, TRAPPIST-1d (our favorite), it would take them at least 80 years (assuming no one wakes them early again).
TRAPPIST-1 Travel Score: 2
Battlestar Galactica
Like Star Wars and Star Trek before it, the Battlestar Galactica series enjoyed the benefit of a hyper drive, in this instance known as an FTL Drive. However, unlike those franchises, Battlestar Galactica’s ships actual distort space to instantly jump from one location to another. This isn’t exactly wormhole travel, but it does make it near impossible to know exactly how fast a human or Cylon ship can travel.
On the other hand, if the Battlestar Galactica can not only travel with wormhole-like efficiency but choose exactly where it’s going, it may be the fastest TRAPPIST-1 option of all.
TRAPPIST-1 Travel Score: 5
The winner? It should be a tossup between the Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon and The Battlestar Galactica, but we prefer the Falcon. After all, your pilot is Han Solo. At the very least, you know the trip would be nothing if not entertaining.
Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
