[quote=The_Radiation_Specialist]from what I know (and I may be wrong) Its impossible to travel near light speed and not make your spacecraft exit the milky way, yet alone fall into orbit of a star... with such speeds.
The real issue here is money. As has been posted before, The Enzmann starship is a valid design from the 70's for a trip to Alpha Centauri in ~ 20 years. It was published in either Sky&Tel or Astronomy magazine...circa..1977? It requires a steel spherical containment ball of liquid hydrogen..~80 m in radius. It requires a nuclear powered ion propulsion drive, and ~ a 300 m long supply, living quarters tube. Physically it looked like a baseball with a long thin pencil sticking out. The distance between the crew quarters, and the supplies assisted in reactor shielding.
The hazards of radiation elucidated in the latest issue of Scientific American were probably underestimated. All of this had to be trucked to orbit, assembled, and prepped to go with a crew willing to give up most of their useful lives.The craft was designed to accelerate at 1 g for ~ one year to close to light speed, travel at that speed, and then decelerate for ~ one year at 1 g. It was estimated then(1977?), that it would take the gross national product of the entire world to accomplish it. Doable? Yes
Likely? No.
