Chapters 1 and 2

Something that I thought was interesting about the readings was the concept of the speed of light, but more specifically how it applies to space travel. We know, based on looking out into the universe, that the universe is about ~14 billion years old. Obviously this means, that if we were to travel at the speed of light it would take us 14 billion years to get to the edge of the universe (assuming the same size universe when we travel). The next star system, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 light years away. If we convert that to driving at around 60 mph, it would take 48 million years to do it. Because we are much much much slower than the speed of light, it makes me question our ability to be able to travel outside our solar system without the use of wormholes or some other scientific breakthrough that we would need to make.