Can We Reach Another Star?

In a prior post, I wrote about communication with another civilization in a remote solar system. In the very best of scenarios, our neighbors could be 4 to 10 light years away. Will any spacecraft be able to travel this far? The answer is yes, but not with humans aboard. In fact, two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, were launched  by NASA in 1977 and are still operational. As of the date of this post they have traveled 13.8 and 11.5 billion miles from Earth, respectively. That sounds far and it is by Earth terms. Voyager 1 has travel over 148 AU (1 AU is the distance from the Sun to Earth). By interstellar standards it hasn't traveled very far. To travel one light year, they have to go over 63,000 AU.  Here is their status at the time of this post:

For an updated status, click Mission Status.

You can also see they are traveling quite fast - each over 34,000 miles/hour (54,400 km/hour). So how long until their next destination? Voyager 1 will take 40,000 years until it reaches within 1.6 light years of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. 

(Images: NASA JPL)