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ArtistAs of 2022, five uncrewed spacecraft, all launched and operated by the United States, have achieved the escape velocity required to leave the Solar System as part of missions to explore parts of the outer system. They will therefore continue to travel through interstellar space indefinitely. However, they will not approach another star for hundreds of thousands of years, long after they have ceased to operate (though in theory the Voyager Golden Record would be playable in the highly unlikely event that the spacecraft is retrieved by an extraterrestrial civilization). The speeds required for interstellar travel in a human lifetime far exceed what current methods of space travel can provide. Even with a hypothetically perfectly efficient propulsion system, the kinetic energy corresponding to those speeds is enormous by today's standards of energy development. Moreover, collisions by spacecraft with cosmic dust and gas at such speeds would be very dangerous for both passengers and the spacecraft itself.