Is it possible to create Orbital construction yards for Spaceships?

[Aftermarth]

can mankind do like the ISS and launch many sections of a orbital space-dock into the orbit and use these as a platform to build large ships required to transport people to other solar systems?

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, it certainly is... though I don't know about the traveling to other solar systems thing.

 

[Aftermarth]

why could we not travel to another solar system? my physics teacher last year seemed to say something about if you gave something a force in space (for example a blast from an engine for a few hours) it would retain most of its velocity for a long time, and as we could build larger and larger ships what would stop us?

 

[russ_watters]

We can send ships anywhere we want to, given enough time. But if it takes a thousand years to get there, there isn't all that much reason to go.

 

[Aftermarth]

so how does humanity avoid annihilation when the sun dies if there is no point going anywhere. or is that just ur personal view?

 

[russ_watters]

Since humanity has only been around for about 40,000 years and the sun has another 4,000,000,000 to go before burning out, it isn't a scenario to be seriously considering at this point.

 

[Aftermarth]

can we agree to disagree on this one?