Carrying fifty people, the ship can attain velocities near the speed of light as it travels to a new star system. More important, the ship uses a principle of special relativity, which says that time slows down inside the starship the faster it moves. Hence, a trip to the nearby stars that takes decades, as viewed from Earth, appears to last only a few years to the astronauts. To an observer on Earth watching the astronauts by telescope, it would appear as if they were frozen in time, so that they are in a kind of suspended animation. But to the astronauts on board, time progresses normally.
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