Aviator Space Ship

At the beginning of Avatar, one of the ship’s technicians tells the crew that they’ve been in cryogenic stasis for over five years — the time it takes to get from Earth to Pandora. Makes you wonder how they got there, doesn’t it? Today’s chemical thrusters wouldn’t fit the bill: Apollo 10, our fastest manned spacecraft ever, would take 120,000 years on a trip to Alpha Centauri, the closest known star system to our own.

New Scientist has a breakdown of the various technologies we could see ferrying us around space in the near future, such as ion propulsion, and stuff — ramjets, for instance — that’s still in the works. I’m glad to see some of my personal outlandish favorites are on there, such as solar sails and nuclear engines. There are also a few that will probably never ever see the glow of space, such as Miguel Alcubierre’s Alcubierre drive and wormholes, the latter of which New Scientist classifies as “almost certainly impossible” for travel.