What percent of light speed will rockets be able to go in the near future ? With mirrors and a solar sail ?

Rockets? Not really that fast. In order to (even theoretically) get a decent fraction of the speed of light, you'll need something different than a rocket. Solar sail may be one possibility.

As to how fast these may go in the future, nobody knows. It's the future, you see. If we keep on going the way we're currently going, chances are that nothing much more in terms of space travel will be achieved.

So slow that it is not worth trying to measure velocity in percent of light speed. Voyager 2 is the fastest spacecraft we ever built. After almost 40 years of flight, it is only 15.3 light-hours out. Using current technology, we'll never ever get to 0.001% light speed.

Light sails are great if you don't have to get where your going any time soon. Theoretically, a sufficiently large sail could with sufficiently powerful lasers driving it get to 10% light speed...after several decades of acceleration. And that requires someone back home to keep the lasers running for all that time. Using sun light alone, a light sail will never go even as fast as Voyager 2.

The only drive system we could build now capable of getting up to even 1% of C is Orion or Medusa style nuclear pulse propulsion. Either a nuclear pogo stick or sailboat.

mirrors and a solar sail ??

This is unproven technology - that doubtless does not work.

So it will not result in any increase in speed.

Note :--

Rockets implies a rocket engine provides the power.

If a solar sail worked, the craft would not need a rocket motor.

0.000000001% or less

The pressure of light or high power laser beams is very, very small. The idea is that it can be applied for a long, long time resulting in high speed for zero fuel expenditure from the space craft. Don't forget about the inverse square law applying to sunlight, and even a laser fired at the moon spreads out to 7km in only 384,000 km so all acceleration has to be done while the space craft is close to earth. Uness we can build tighter laser beams this idea is impractical

Since we are made of matter, we need energy to move more faster. And if we want to travel to the speed of light, we would need a nearly-infinite quantity of energy to do that. So much energy that the whole energy of the universe wouldn't be enough.

What you could do is to go to a speed "near" to the speed of light, but even that is dangerous. At more speed you absorb more radiation and the particles of Hydrogen that are located on the vacuum of the space will "hit" your spacecraft and will kill you.

With enough smoke and mirrors, it might be possible to convince people of anything. Even rockets travelling near the speed of light. Perhaps they will be powered by the EM drive and cold fusion.

Cheers!

By requesting a percentage you're actually looking for a definitive answer, but unfortunately there isn't one. A project like that would have to be tested thoroughly and there will be many obstacles to overcome.

It's like asking for the top speed of motor vehicles before the first design or prototype is ever completed.

NEAR futre? less than .01%

The thing with mirros and solar aisl is that they CAN reach the speed of light, but it takes a LONG time to get there (their Acceleration Rate is VERY tiny).

100.0000000001%

BUT...

since we know that it's impossible for matters to go faster than the speed of light, the chances is 0%

|How will a mirror work?

No solar sails have been made.

There is (as yet) no such technology.