You are an astronaut who has been sent on a secret mission by the President. [Details inside]?

You are looking for unattached lurve mysteriously floating about in space somewhere. Will you find it? Only the Jellies know for sure!

Turns out Obama is really an alien and was just using you to go pick up his great grandma and his lucky spaceball glove. When you return you reveal this great secret to the world and Obama just says: “Whatever, I got anchor babies yo!”

Well, I die because I won’t live long enough to go to the nearest star.

A mission to Mars would be hard enough, a mission to another galaxy, gee, quite a few problems should pop up.

How are we going to solve the light speed barrier problem? I don’t like the idea of sitting in a small seat for 5 billion years while I make my way to the Andromeda galaxy.

I imagine I would need to be in suspended animation, even at 100’s times the speed of light it would still take millions of years to make the trip.

Hmmm, lets see what I can do with this…

I leave earth on the 1st of Jan 2014, my rocket takes off at 11am and at 1pm I dock with the main ship that is in orbit of our planet where it was built. After some security checks and final preparations I am given the all clear to leave the docking station. at exactly 3:30pm I boot up the docking engines, and perform a 45 minute procedue to un-dock with the station.

At 4:15pm I am finally clear of the docking staton and fire up the standard thruster engine, and slowly accelerate to 40,500 kph as I fly towards the sun. Two months in to my trip and half way to the sun I fire up the shields to protect me and the ship. Over the next two months I keep accelerating all the way to the sun, up to 80,000kph, ready to sling shot round the sun as I accelerate to 160,000 kph, ready for my trip out of the solar system.

The next decade or so is very boring, as I make my way to the edge of the solar system. However a dozen years or so after leaving earth things get interesting. We clear the solar system and are now ready to fire up the nuclear pulse engine. A 100MT nuke is ejected from the ship, and explodes a few seconds after, creating a blast that pushes and accelerates the ship, just in time for another nuke ejection and detonation. Over the next few days I slowly accelerate to 320,000,000 kph or so, about a third the speed of light, by blasting nuke after nuke.

The next week is all about calculations and preparations, as I get ready to fire up the main motors for the main part of my journey. Once the ship is lined up and the course layed in, I enter my special stasis time chamber, and iniciate the flight sequence.

As the clock counts down the main engines start to kick in, and we accelerate to 1,000,000,000 kph, (almost the speed of light). Then at the most critical point, just as the ship is about to reach its limits, the warp engines fire, and space and time begins to be sucked in at the front of the ship and pushed out the back.

While staying at a steady 1,000,000,000 kph from our point of view, we vanish in a blink of an eye according to everone elses view, as we shoot off in to space at a perceved 1,000,000,000,000 kph, traveling at 1000 times the speed of light.

The next 2000 years I travel in stasis 1000 times faster than the laws of physics would allow, until I turn round and spend the next 200 years decelerating as I reach the edges of andromeda. I am now reaching andromeda, but still have to remain in stasis for the next 1000 years or so, as I navigate my way in to the galaxy towards my target star.

As I reach my taget solar system, I slow down to about 30.000 kilometers a second, entering in at cometary speeds, as I slow down gadually to about 10.000 kph, placing my self in orbit of a planet just over from my target planet.

Once there, I begin my scans.

Hope you enjoyed that… I’m off to watch Star Trek.

Before I leave I just want to know if there’s a bonus for early completion, who do I report back to once I get there, will my earnings be taxed while I’m gone, and can you take care of my wife so that in case I meet some space floozies along the way (or at the destination billions of years from now) I can take care of them.

Mission, schmission. I gotta look out for me first.

@poisonedantidote – Actually, due to time dilation, it won’t take all that long (from your point of view) to travel that distance. The problem arises because during the time you travel to another star in a few years (your time), millions of years will have passed back on Earth.

You can never go home again :-(

I like how I don’t anything, other than what I learned in middle school,about space. I’m going to have to research this…
@poisonedantidote, that’s an amazing answer!!! :D
@YoKoolAid, Hahahahahaha. That made my day. :)
@HungryGuy, that’s really sad.

I arrive safely upon a previously unknown planet, Seoclaid. I’m surrounded by alien clones of my favorite actors and actresses, who perform never ending plays for me while Dave Navarro rocks out in the background, naked, and a planetary “cabana boy” hand feeds me chocolate all day.

The president has received plans for space travel without time dilation via delivery of plans for an Alcubierre Drive. The source of the communication is never described to me, above my pay grade.

Takes me about a week. I find a planet of lonely women, who have been reproducing by artificial insemination. I tell them earth men are mostly violent and kinda boring.

I set the ship to return to a location near earth, radio a taped distress call, and explode.

I’m usually not a fan of space travel due to the time quandary. So it’s pretty safe to assume that I’m only accepting this mission based on the fact that we’ve reached the technological singularity and I’m just as much man as machine by now, and therefore unaging. This way I would have the attention and presence of mind to drift for light-years occupying myself with whatever there is to be seen. I probably would have received this mission based on my willingness to go to great distances, which is pretty handy since the PIQ (Planet In Question) is several galaxies away. Nevertheless, if there is suspicion of life and the ability to get there, I’m sold.

Upon arrival, I would discover dual-ecosystem world; cavernous jungles baking underground, below a crust layer of desolate desert. The people of this planet that I discover are tall and limber. Their knees bend backwards under ocher skin, and fractal-patterned teal irises are covered by vertical eyelids. They are talented psionics: not powerful enough to rival my advanced technology individually, but in mass they become quite potent. At first, culture shock is simply too great for them to accept me, and senseless aggression takes many lives. However, these conflicts are overcome, and I come to know these people, the R’abio as they call themselves, more intimately.

After careful examination, by studies bring to light an interesting fact: the R’abio are not native to this world. Further investigation of their creation myths reveals what is likely an exploratory vessel turned origin legend, probably the cause of there being here. What more, the abundant psionic abilities are derived from the alien sun under which the R’abio reside. I make this known to the R’abio, who have come to trust me to the point of adopting me into their clan-oriented social structure, and a great debate is begun: whether or not to return.

Negotiations eventually end in drawing of two factions. The first is set on returning to their home-world, their curiosity greater than their desire to remain capable psionics. The other faction has become to tied to their psionic heritage, and wish to remain in their new home. With my help, the prior faction is safely returned to their home-world in a neighboring galaxy, and I become forever embedded in the history of two worlds as, “The Solemn Divider”

@AshLeigh I do enjoy a good writing prompt. Keep up the good work!

@Foolaholic, and I do enjoy all the well formed, unique responses. :) Fluther never lets me down!