Distance to Milky Way's Neighbor Galaxy Revealed: Great Idea for Sci-Fi!

Well there is still a margin of error but 2% is pretty good I think.

The achievement could help scientists calibrate other cosmic distances, which are essential for understanding how quickly the universe is expanding and solving the mystery of dark energy. Dark energy is the name given to whatever is tugging the universe apart and causing its expansion to accelerate.

According to the new measurement, the nearby dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud lies 163,000 light-years away. 

That seems fairly close compared to lots of other things in the universe. I have an idea for a sci-fi novel. Set it in a massive ship with like 100,000 people on board that is traveling to the Large Magellanic Cloud. They have technology that allows them near light speed travel but it still takes untold generations to complete the journey.

They would even have genetic diversifiers on the ship to combat the effects of inbreeding. It would be cool to have statements like "I am the product of 25 generations of diagnostic engineers! And I say that this drive cannot stand the stesses you are putting on it!"

It would just be very interesting to see how humans survive on a Star Ark (hey that is the title for the novel) that has been traveling through space for almost the entire recorded history of mankind. There would be ship spanning wars, disasters that kill 1000s, changes in government onboard the ship etc. They of course would have to have a holodeck like in Star Trek so that they could escape the ship in their minds but claustrophobia would be eventually be nonexistant.

Then you can shake things up by having humans on Earth develop faster than light travel and have already traveled to the Large Magellanic Cloud on survey missions and have mapped much of the Milky Way. Maybe you can have them travel psychically or something. Make it so their physical bodies stay on earth while they Astrally travel to distant worlds or something. Then the far advanced humans are debating whether they should contact the Star Ark or leave them in isolation. Should they inform them that technology has made their generation spanning mission obsolete?