The next nearest star to Earth, not counting our sun, is a star named Alpha Centauri and it takes light from that star four years to get to our eyes.

We must accept the fact that until our technological expertise gets to the point we can accelerate a living being at the speed of light, travel to the distant stars remains a moot point.

For the sake of conversation say we wanted to embark on a space venture to Alpha Centauri and our spacecraft had the capability of traveling at a speed of 40,000 miles per hour. Youll have to admit that is pretty fast but even at that speed, the trip is going to take 150,000 years to cover the distance.

Some might suggest we should place a space crew in some kind of suspended animation for the trip. If we cannot do that, our only solution would be to have a least one female on the crew.

No less than 6,240 generations of offspring will be born, live and die on the spacecraft before they reach their destination. And that, again, is just to our nearest star and only one way.

At a NASA meeting several months ago, the subject of births in space came up and the question was asked: Can you get pregnant in space?

Based on a study that was made last fall, it was predicted that cosmic radiation would bombard the body at such a high rate during a long space trip or even an extended stay on Mars that sperm count would decrease and the fetuses wouldnt be able to properly develop in a space environment.

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A trip to Earths nearest star is mind-boggling - The Daily Nonpareil