✨ Interstellar Travel Simulator
Compare propulsion methods to reach the stars — experience time dilation, plan voyages to Proxima Centauri, and push the limits of physics
🤔 What Is Interstellar Travel?
Interstellar travel means journeying between star systems. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.24 light-years away — roughly 40 trillion kilometers. At the speed of the Voyager 1 probe (17 km/s, or 0.006% of light speed), it would take about 75,000 years to get there. But advanced propulsion concepts could dramatically shorten the trip: nuclear pulse engines might manage a few percent of light speed, fusion drives could push to 5–10%, and theoretical antimatter rockets could approach 50% or more. At such velocities, Einstein's special relativity kicks in — time aboard the ship slows relative to Earth, a phenomenon called time dilation. A crew traveling at 90% of light speed would experience only 2.1 years for what Earth clocks measure as 4.7 years.
Why does this matter? Reaching another star is the ultimate test of physics, engineering, and human ambition. Each propulsion method represents a different tradeoff between technology readiness, fuel mass, travel time, and relativistic effects. This simulator lets you compare them side by side — adjusting speed, mass, and destination to see how ship time diverges from Earth time, how fuel requirements explode at higher velocities, and why the Lorentz factor is the gatekeeper of the cosmos. Whether it's a generation ship crawling at 1% c or a laser sail sprinting at 20% c, every choice has profound consequences for the crew and for humanity's future among the stars.