After literally a week of trouble shooting, tinkering, and basically learning JavaScript, I've finally managed to convert my Cosmic Trip Program to a functioning JavaScript page. All the calculations work, it looks just fine, and it's still as depressing as ever. The idea is neither complicated, nor novel. It is basically just a calculator that take a distance (entered in light years) converts it to miles, and tells you how long it would take to get there traveling at a speed given by the user. The result is incredibly depressing for people who dream of cosmic travel. For example: 1 lightyear is 5,878,499,810,000 miles. The closest anything to Earth outside our own solar system is a star called Proxima Centauri a mere 4.2 lightyears away. Even traveling at the high speed of 25,000 miles an hour, which is what is required to get outside of the Earth's gravitational pull, it would take you, or your unmanned robotic craft 112,663 years and some change to get there. That's considerably longer than the whole of human existence on this planet. It really puts things in perspective don't it?
So anyway, see for yourself. Check out the Java Trip Program. Be sure to see how long it would take you to reach various celestial bodies in, say, your family Mini-Van.
P.S. The image is obviously not from my program, but from Galaga.
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