I found the movie Interstellar to be unwatchable. A worm hole is two black holes, one at either end, that are connected. Black holes have a mass that exceeds 3 solar masses. If you placed a 3+ solar mass object right next to the planet Saturn (as in the movie) you would disrupt the entire solar system. Yet they completely ignore the gravitational effects of the worm hole in the movie.
The problem with depicting realistic interstellar travel in movies is that it takes years. Most movies that I've seen either skip or compress interstellar travel. Such as the movie Avatar. They show the main character waking up after an unknown amount of time traveling to this exo-moon, but they do not show the actual travel or even describe how interstellar travel was made possible. Another device used by movies for interstellar travel is warp drive. While warp drive is mathematically possible, the amount of energy required is literally astronomical. Considering the amount of energy required to create a warp "bubble," that mode of transportation would not fall into the category of "realistic" interstellar travel.
Assuming we had a spacecraft engine that could produce 1 g (9.8 m/s
2) of continuous thrust, it would take 3 years, 6 months, 15 days, 11 hours, and 36 minutes from the perspective of those on board the spacecraft to reach the nearest star Proxima Centauri 4.24 light years away. With 1 g constant acceleration to the halfway point, and 1 g constant deceleration afterwards, the spacecraft would achieve 94.95% the speed of light at the halfway point before slowing down. From Earth's perspective, the same trip to Proxima Centauri would take 5 years, 10 months, 13 days, 8 hours, and 11 minutes.
While the method of interstellar travel described above is "realistic," it falls seriously short in one category - fuel. Even if the engines were 100% efficient, we could not bring along enough fuel to make the journey at that speed. Even using antimatter as a fuel source. So some method for collecting or manufacturing fuel along the way must be devised in order to be "realistic."
The three most realistic methods for interstellar travel that I have read about is:
- A hydrogen fusion ramjet engine. By the time the spacecraft left the solar system it would be traveling at such a speed that even the extremely rarefied hydrogen in interstellar space would be a viable source of fuel.
- A Casimir drive. A drive that uses the Casimir Effect to generate thrust, and therefore would not require any fuel.
- An electromagnetic drive. The EmDrive uses microwaves as a means of thrust. Such a drive could be nuclear powered, and therefore provide long periods of continuous thrust.
