Scientists sent one beam around the tube and then sent a beam in the opposite direction — each going one at a time. Each beam made one circle around the accelerator. And they hit 99.999998% of the speed of light.
Mankind’s acceleration technology has gone from accelerating masses a few miles an hour to 99.999998% the speed of light in a couple hundred years.
65 MPH is 30 m/s (meters per second). The speed of light is 300,000 m/s. That’s a factor of 10,000. Of course, we can only do it with naked protons in a vacuum at the moment, with the largest, most expensive piece of machinery every built.
But the journey to interstellar travel begins with the first footstep.
From MPH to 99.999998% the speed of light