RE: Ion Propulsion Engines
6 years to proxima centauri with ion engines is quite a stretch, but lets do a calculation on what it would take to get to proxima centauri with an ion engine, let's suppose we have a spacecraft that all it is just an antenna a big tank and nuclear reactor and an ion engine. The dry mass of this space craft let's give it 3 tons. How much fuel do we need to get the Proxima Centauri. Let's take the specific impulse of a real life spacecraft that we have used from not so long ago. I'm gonna use Dawn 1 which has a specific impulse of 3100. Now let's start calculating, Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away to get there in 6 years. That means we need to travel 3.974e+13/6 kilometers a year. Turning this into km/s we get 210024.52 km/s which is roughly 60% of c. Plugging this into the rocket equation give's us 2.995345082×10^6 kilograms of just fuel for the spacecraft. Hell, I'd believe I was quite generous how much I gave it for dry mass, and this is only to get there and immediately exit not even slow by. At this point there is no reason for me to any more equations as the sheer task would be too big achieve.
Well than what about the antimatter engines ???
As we have seen in the movie avatar .
Yes it would be more possible to do that with antimatter engines, but concurrent technology only allows us to hold antimatter for very little time before it annihilates itself with the walls of containment unit. Very unpractical during these days and times.
Well that's true its not possible for now. As its extremely expensive. But its quite potent that a teaspoon of it would allow us to exit the earth gravity. And it also allows us to reach mars at a staggering rate of 2 weeks i think . Well i am not sure about the number of weeks.
And thanks for the info @nonationnoborder.
When people talk about arriving at such locations in such tiny timescales, people often don't realize that you need to slow down otherwise you'll just zip right past your destination. If your estimation is correct then, it'll take twice that to arrive there. As too much deceleration will turn everyone into a goop of flesh on the windshield of the spacecraft. If you have any questions about the possibilities of space travel or any hypothetical situations (what if the deathstar replaced the moon etc) I may make a post on it of what would happen with mathematics included on a separate PDF.
Thanks for the info !!