Thread: Deep-Space travelling, is it even possible?

I allways had this idea of spaceships just steering around freely in open space, but I guess that only works in the movies.

For example in Startrek/Starwars spaceships actually navigate like submarines. They can steer in any direction, or fly in a straight line. Is that even possible in space, with all those gravitation forces at work? Or is the only way to move by swinging around planets and suns, like space-probes do? In that case it would be impossible to make any move that wasn't planned in advance. Would make a pretty lame sci-fi movie :wink:

Well Star Trek did several things.

They somehow overcame inertia with technology. That allowed them to turn rapidly. Second they had navigation shields to deflect or move small objects away from the ship while traveling at above light speeds.

With enough power gravity becomes a non issue. I'm not sure you could escape a black hole, but perhaps.

Star Wars was a very poor example of space in all regards. They didn't have time to touch on how they overcame all the problems such as rapid turns. Also the weapons they used were very much Hollywood. Star Trek was not too much better.

First we need to achieve much much higher speeds then we have today.

Star Trek showed on a few episodes that without all the technology they couldn't travel very fast at all without killing the crew due to G force. Considering we don't even understand gravity it may be a while before we can counteract it.

I think the first deep space travelers will be people we don't see again for hundreds of years. I'm also sure lots of them will run into small objects in space at high speed causing lots of lost lives. I'm all for perfecting AI and letting our offspring explore space.

I want a space ship. The Enterprise would be awesome for a joyride!

i believe space travel will be possible one day..... but will that day ever come? with global warming, global dimming, fossil fuels as the main source of energy, disease, temperature and climate change, possible jet stream readjustment, an oncoming new ice age?

Surely, humanity will have a higher risk in extinction than deep space travel......

If the human race does survive maybe space travel can take at least a few more hundreds of years.....

Originally Posted by shizuku

i believe space travel will be possible one day..... but will that day ever come? with global warming, global dimming, fossil fuels as the main source of energy, disease, temperature and climate change, possible jet stream readjustment, an oncoming new ice age?

On the other hand such problems could very well be the push that humanity needs to get really going with deep space travel. After all to ensure survival it's a good idea to spread out.

Originally Posted by shizuku

i believe space travel will be possible one day..... but will that day ever come? with global warming, global dimming, fossil fuels as the main source of energy, disease, temperature and climate change, possible jet stream readjustment, an oncoming new ice age?

Surely, humanity will have a higher risk in extinction than deep space travel......

If the human race does survive maybe space travel can take at least a few more hundreds of years.....

Welcome to the forum,

I think humans will be around for some time, unlike all the other forms of life on the planet that have been here for thousands of years or more man has the ability to solve problems. Large percentages of the population may die off, but it would be hard to wipe out all of humanity. Unlike so many other creatures, we won't just roll over and die.

I think if anything man alone has the best chance of destroying all of mankind, rather then nature. Basically if we can keep from kill each other or releasing some supper killer virus we should be around for a long time. I know I won't be, so it's all kind of pointless from my prospective.

i agree. Humanity will survive. But for those believing in God, could the problems across the globe recently be a sign for the oncoming of judgement day? I have to say, most things that kill people are man made.

We can all agree that deep space travel will still be a long time from now in the future. However, i don't really think space travel will be how it is seen on the TV.

Another thing about deep space travel is that it will bound to damage the human body. Due to no gravity, the internal functions are greatly affected and puits the body under a lot of pressure. As probably seen on tv, astronauts have to cary out particular exercises.

There is also a limit on how many hours that a person can stay out in space before they have to return to earth before leading to permanent damage to the body

Are there really machines to generate gravity?

If it does happen, I don't think it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure travel to Mars or the moons of Saturns and Jupiter will be quite boring, long, hectic, and long.

Originally Posted by poly_nightmare

I'm sure travel to Mars or the moons of Saturns and Jupiter will be quite boring, long, hectic, and long.

But once there things will be great. Just like when you go on holidays. Almost a day in a cramped 747 but once there you're in paradise

Originally Posted by Pendragon

I allways had this idea of spaceships just steering around freely in open space, but I guess that only works in the movies.

For example in Startrek/Starwars spaceships actually navigate like submarines. They can steer in any direction, or fly in a straight line. Is that even possible in space, with all those gravitation forces at work? Or is the only way to move by swinging around planets and suns, like space-probes do? In that case it would be impossible to make any move that wasn't planned in advance. Would make a pretty lame sci-fi movie :wink:

Well it all depends on what kind of propulsion you have and the velocity and mass of the spaceship and so on. It takes a lot of fuel to change course in space, which is why our space probes and space crafts are doing it so slowly or by slinging by a planet or moon. But yes, deep space travel is possible and will become more commonplace in a not too distant future. We will return to the moon, then Mars and then other worlds in this solar system. Then of course awaits the stars.

Originally Posted by poly_nightmare

If it does happen, I don't think it will happen in my lifetime. I'm sure travel to Mars or the moons of Saturns and Jupiter will be quite boring, long, hectic, and long.

With current technology it would be possible to reach Mars in 4 months at the fastest, which is quite acceptable in my view. With other methods it's not impossible to imagine journeys to Mars in a few weeks, but that's a bit into the future. Personally I would jump on the chance to go even further, say the moons of the outer planets, especially Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, Titan and Triton.

Well, why not? It would eventually be possible.

But what would be the economic advantages in doing so? It's a very expensive and high-risk investment for no foreseeable return in the investor's grandkids' lifetime. It'd be several generations before we even knew whether we got anything useful or not.

I think colonizing planets are a bit beyond us.

but exploring planets will benefit us. I mean, we might find some new minerals or chemicals that will help us in some ways. Never know what you'll find.

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Well it all depends on what kind of propulsion you have and the velocity and mass of the spaceship and so on. It takes a lot of fuel to change course in space, which is why our space probes and space crafts are doing it so slowly or by slinging by a planet or moon.

So with a bigger engine you could steer freely? That would be awesome :wink:

Originally Posted by Zero

But what would be the economic advantages in doing so? It's a very expensive and high-risk investment for no foreseeable return in the investor's grandkids' lifetime.

Maybe we should compare it with travelling to Antarctica in the past century: it was expensive, allmost impossible and all you would find was a deserted icy continent. People did it anyway. Only now, a century later, we re startind to find valuable minerals on Antarctica. So I agree with Flying Kiwi, that even though it seems we can only waste money to go to an empty rock, economic benifits may follow years later. And as you say, investors dont like that deal. Thats why government agencies are leading the way.

Yeah, and astronomers were staring in the sky and trying to find planets and junk long before they even realized what this could lead to. So I say, go, fly, launch stuff, be happi, an dun die. lol. something like that. Maybe we'll find something even more valuable then minerals, maybe we'll discover life. :wink: who knows.

First we know we don't have the knowledge to do it today. The best we have been able to manage is a worn out space probe slowly limping out of the solar system. For the present we need knowledge, abilities, and applications that are yet to be developed.

Knowledge is like an onion. The more you peer and poke at the skin, the more you vaguely see there is something else behind it. This poking at the skin lead to the basics of fire, metalworking, and everything you are used to in your daily lives. Should the original caveman appear he would think you a great god or magician to see the things you commonly use. Certainly that is advancement on the path.

Abilities such as the working of metals into yet unknown compounds that will be needed to do the traveling that would be necessary. A grain of sand hitting a solid object at near the speed of light would be a disaster under present knowledge. The best we have been able to come up with is a sort of layered shield. Over time and distance this isn't of the class of such protection we need; not by several generations of development.

Applications in which we have no knowledge of, such as "energy sheilds" nor the ability to generate the power it would require on the scale we need. No need to discuss we haven't even come close to the development of an engine that would power us at sublight speed over distance much less light speed.

The ion engine is the best we have at present as far as a continous firing engine goes. Woefully short of the power that would be needed for the vast distances to be covered.

Even more important is the need to bring down the level of cost for pounds to orbit. At present only governments and large corporations can consider such but with programs such as the x prize program there is hope that the cost per pound will drop. However we are in a race against time. The race is one of resources against race livelyhood. The longer we delay in getting to the resources we need the great the probability is that we won't make it. To many unknowns. Anything from a repeat extinction event to the loss of technical abitility through resource competition could easily stop this process. As always the survival of the person will come before the lofty ideas of space travel.

To date as much as anything this is the reason we are sending space probes and not people. We aren't ready yet to be able to send people. It is the hope of the current administration that such can be done but it is far from the planning to the doing.

It is my hope that mankind will someday realise his dream of going to the stars. With the ability of knowledge to multiply in amount and the decreasing time span of such happening the computer has been a godsend to us. However the computers we know today aren't enough to do the job. We have a long way to go on all fronts and the things we are doing in space are but bumbling baby steps in the attempt to learn. I hope we make it.

It is the hope of the current administration that such can be done but it is far from the planning to the doing.

You mean Bush's pie-in-the-sky plan for going to Mars? Phooey. I didn't believe it when his Dad said the same thing, and I don't believe it now.

But lets get down to a practical plan. First of all, we have to go back to the moon. What me must not do is send a three man ship. In 1957 or thereabouts, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novelette called Venture To The Moon in which he envisaged mankind's first trip to our satellite as, first of all, a joint venture between the United States, the Soviet Union, and (don't laugh) Great Britain. Secondly, it was big. About a hundred scientists and engineers (all men, of course! :P) from all disciplines and they stayed there for six months. Of course the point of Clarke's vision was to explore the moon, find out what was there, what could be made use of. Whereas Apollo was about nothing more or less than "getting a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" - before the Russians did. Apollo was beautiful, poetic and the ultimate expression of mankinds ability to touch what he reached out for; and it was utterly pointless and wasted enormous amounts of economic resource to very little tangible benefit.

So something like the Clarke plan has to be on the table for the next move. And again, we aren't doing a one-shot deal so we have to build our ships (and there must be at least three ships) in orbit. We've spent the better part of a decade building the ISS - is it actually any use for that? If not, that's another colossal waste of resource. Then when we get to the Moon and spend three or four decades building a substantial base for solar system operations.
The Moon as a launch platform is a God Given Gift, we should use it. We're still stuck with getting into orbit, but that will matter less once we actually expand into the Solar System. We are cursed on Earth with the Solar System's largest surface gravity. But the moon has a fraction of the gravity and no atmosphere to give weather troubles.

Then we build several huge ships, fill them with resources and building materials, and (again) about two or three hundred pioneers, and set them off on the two year voyage. Kim Stanley Robinson's massive epic on Mars exploration is more concerned with Terraforming than I personally feel any need for, but the basic premise is the same.

And from Mars we can get to the real El Dorado of the Solar System: The Asteroids, the Moons of Jupiter and the Rings of Saturn.

I much agree that saying develop a plan is far from the doing. Anyone can state that "We would like to...". Putting aside the conspiracy theory stuff of whether we did or did not go to the moon, the point remains we seem to need competition to achieve. The setting of a goal to achieve the moon by JFK was such an effort. It resulted in what little we have today in the efforts to get a toe in weighlessness and space frontier door.

Going to Mars would be a worthwhile effort. Maybe there is nothing there to be found, maybe there is. In the doing it would lead to challenges we can not at present overcome but should result in ever increasing knowledge that could be used to further the goal of just getting to farther out than we now can acheive with manned expeditions. Offshoots of the applied knowledge gained would be of unknown value to our standards of living and health. One can never underestimate the applied benefits of such knowledge.

Just the mining aspect that could be gained in raw materials within the solar system would make the payoff well worth the effort to make it to space beyond the lab-rat era we seem permanetly stuck in.

I agree with cleft that we definetly should be trying to get to Mars. However, the most valuable thing we could find, to me, would be signs of life, which I definetly think we will find somewhere. It's just a matter of time.

Originally Posted by cleft

Just the mining aspect that could be gained in raw materials within the solar system would make the payoff well worth the effort to make it to space beyond the lab-rat era we seem permanetly stuck in.

Very nicely put.

Originally Posted by Locke

agree with cleft that we definetly should be trying to get to Mars. However, the most valuable thing we could find, to me, would be signs of life, which I definetly think we will find somewhere. It's just a matter of time.

Valuable in terms of the sum of human knowledge, yes. Valuable in terms of the radical alteration to the human psyche and to Humanity's view of its place in the Cosmos, certainly. But for interplanetary exploration for resource exploitation, it would, I'm afraid, sound the death knell.

It's a long way to the edge of our solar system, a very long way, and I doubt we'll ever make it there.

Originally Posted by Pendragon

I allways had this idea of spaceships just steering around freely in open space, but I guess that only works in the movies.

For example in Startrek/Starwars spaceships actually navigate like submarines. They can steer in any direction, or fly in a straight line. Is that even possible in space, with all those gravitation forces at work? Or is the only way to move by swinging around planets and suns, like space-probes do? In that case it would be impossible to make any move that wasn't planned in advance. Would make a pretty lame sci-fi movie :wink:

You can turn around in space without large gravitational pull using rockets. You could even turn around (slightly) by pissing out into space, or throwing marbles out of a bag into space. p1v1 = p2v2

Another thing about deep space travel is that it will bound to damage the human body. Due to no gravity, the internal functions are greatly affected and puits the body under a lot of pressure. As probably seen on tv, astronauts have to cary out particular exercises.

I think the easiest way to fake gravity would be to create a hollow hoop around the spaceship, and spin the hoop around at just the right speed. When you go inside the loop the centrifugal force would feel just like gravity.

There is also a limit on how many hours that a person can stay out in space before they have to return to earth before leading to permanent damage to the body

Gravity isn't really that important; the reason astronaughts exercise is because once they're back on earth they have a hard time re-adjusting to it. What permanent damage is there?

Well, uh, bone decalcification for one thing.

I did forget to answer the earlier point about the ease of piloting around space. For the most part you are in free fall, but manoeuvering is easy using rockets. That is to say, making a move or a change of orientation is easy. Getting to where you want to go is not easy. For example the Gemini pilots trying the first rendezvous found out the hard way that if there's a rocket you're trying to get you, and it's higher up and behind you, it's no good trying to fire your rockets in the opposite direction from the rocket and think that you're going to meet up. Increasing your speed will cause you to drop to a lower orbit, and moving faster in the orbital direction. You actually have to fire in such a way as to slow down, so that you reach a higher orbit and then let the other item catch up with you.

I didn't say it was easy, just correcting the person who said it was impossible.

Sure it's possible. Very hard...very very hard, but possible. A few decades ago people didnt think it was in their power to go to the Moon. But they still tried. If you don't succeed at first, try again( Well, this rule doesnt apply to parachute jumping) In my opinion its better to spend millions of dollars on research then thousands on weapons.

Originally Posted by kestasjk

Gravity isn't really that important; the reason astronaughts exercise is because once they're back on earth they have a hard time re-adjusting to it. What permanent damage is there?

The effects of long-term exposure to reduced gravity on humans includes weakening muscles; changes in how the heart, arteries and veins work; and the loss of bone density, among others. The loss of bone density is probably the most dangerous for humans.

this can be couteracted by creating a gravitationel spin, like a wheel,...

In order for the astronauts not be become sic of the effects of turning, you need to make the diameter of this wheel big enough.

A possibility and a prospect for doing this is with counteracting modules conected with a theter. (wire)

There's also an experiment ongoing with mice, how they react to this kind of spinning forces.

As for Antigravity forces, one might take a look at; http://www.americanantigravity.com

Radiation will be another concern that will have to be blocked so that humans won't get radiation poisoning and die.

We have allot to understand and overcome but using our minds we humans can do whatever we want with enough time to get it done and with enough money.

the universe has already been very beneficial to mankind in numerous ways.

don't think 'imediate short term return'
THINK: 'future investment'

Don't think: 'risk'
THINK: 'Adventure'!

Don't think: 'linear'
THINK: NON-linear!

Take a bit of Jack Vance, and Blade Runner, Fith element and Star Wars and let your IMAGINATION do the rest, take a trip to the stars and

GAZE AWAY, dreaming is good for everyone of us.

Life, we will surely encounter, the real question is: how are we going to treat it?

"Life, we will surely encounter, the real question is: how are we going to treat it?"


We will treat it as it treats us. Flexibility in what you do and where you go should always be your notto, for sometimes things don't always go the way you expect so be flexible in your paths.

but take the amazon forest for example, that's a living thing, how does it treats us? And how do 'we' treat 'it'?

Humans don't always share the same respect for living things, even if he's dependend on 'it'.

But we should go out, to the stars I mean. We already could have done so, but there where always forces at work that stopped us from evolving.

Greetz,
Fuku

Radiation in space will be a very big problem to try and stop from penetrating the ship. There's nothing known today that can shield humans from certain types of radiation found in space.One solution would be to genetically alter humans for space travel so that they are resistant to radiation like the cocaroach is here on Earth.

That still presents another problem is that wherever humans go the planets they may find won't have the same type of environment that is found here on Earth. How will humans be able to live in places, like Mars, that have very little to eat, drink or breathe? Again perhaps genetically altering humans to be able to live elesewhere is one solution, but without knowing about other planets elesewhere in the galaxy then how can we alter anyone?

Traveling great distances will require allot of time and speed. To get to our nearest star from here will take several lifetimes if not more depending upon the speed of the ship. Even if we could travel at the speed of light we wouldn'tget to our nearest star for ober 2 lifetimes or about 180 years!

There's nothing known today that can shield humans from certain types of radiation found in space.

Nothing?

It's funny how we manage to live on a planet that exists in space, I'm sure the right amount of alloys and compounds can filter out the radiation that we need to worry about, after all we are being bombarded by many forms right now and somehow we manage to survive

Yes, but we are shielded by the magnetosphere and our atmosphere to protect us somewhat of the harmfull radiation. There are certain types of radiation, like Gamma and cosmic that go right through the shielding and even penetrate all of the way through the Earth! So if the Earth cannot protect us what will?

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

Yes, but we are shielded by the magnetosphere and our atmosphere to protect us somewhat of the harmfull radiation. There are certain types of radiation, like Gamma and cosmic that go right through the shielding and even penetrate all of the way through the Earth! So if the Earth cannot protect us what will?

My point is we somehow manage to survive despite the fact that yes we are in fact being hit by many forms of radiation. So if we can get the levels down to a certain level we will still be ok.

Originally Posted by (In)Sanity

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

Yes, but we are shielded by the magnetosphere and our atmosphere to protect us somewhat of the harmfull radiation. There are certain types of radiation, like Gamma and cosmic that go right through the shielding and even penetrate all of the way through the Earth! So if the Earth cannot protect us what will?

My point is we somehow manage to survive despite the fact that yes we are in fact being hit by many forms of radiation. So if we can get the levels down to a certain level we will still be ok.

That's is the problem, there's nothing yet known that can stop certain radiation from harming us, other than geneticly altering humans to be able to live in space for long periods of time without consequences that are deadly to them.

Originally Posted by Pendragon

Originally Posted by Stargazer

Well it all depends on what kind of propulsion you have and the velocity and mass of the spaceship and so on. It takes a lot of fuel to change course in space, which is why our space probes and space crafts are doing it so slowly or by slinging by a planet or moon.

So with a bigger engine you could steer freely? That would be awesome :wink:

Well, more fuel and a bigger engine means more mass, which again is more difficult to control, but I suppose the more thrust one have per time, the quicker manoeuvre one can make.

Mass...Fuel... You're missing the biggest problem here..MONEY

a great website about astronomy Link removed IS

where's the web site?

If you're removing the spam, shouldn't you also ban the spammer?

there are many things we must overcome in order to travel in space and many of them are to do with humans in space, long amounts of time, health problems. but using some dgree of imagination we are gaining ideas on how to overcome them.

it is blatently obvious that any kind of spacecraft that has to make an intersteller journeycan not use any form of fuel based propulsion, obviously some kind of space-drive is nessisary.

but at this stage we must first learn to travel to the other planets in our solar system before we can even contemplate creating the technolagy to take us to the stars. one small step at a time.

I heard dat scientist r now in the process of creating a method of spcae traveling called 'laser sail',using a new kind of material which can be push by laser.I forgot the name of the material,they intend of using dis material 2 build a large umbrella which carries telescope travelling in2 deep space.

Traveling great distances will require allot of time and speed. To get to our nearest star from here will take several lifetimes if not more depending upon the speed of the ship. Even if we could travel at the speed of light we wouldn'tget to our nearest star for ober 2 lifetimes or about 180 years!

Um.. no... If we could travel at the speed of light it would take us 3.4 years to get to the nearest stars. We've already figured out how we could go at 1/2 the speed of light (it's way beyond current resources, though), which means that it would take us all of 6.8 years just to get to Proxima Centauri.
And of course, technically, going to the nearest star at the speed of light would only take 8 minutes. But that's just being smart-alecky.

Originally Posted by Legendary

Traveling great distances will require allot of time and speed. To get to our nearest star from here will take several lifetimes if not more depending upon the speed of the ship. Even if we could travel at the speed of light we wouldn'tget to our nearest star for ober 2 lifetimes or about 180 years!

Um.. no... If we could travel at the speed of light it would take us 3.4 years to get to the nearest stars. We've already figured out how we could go at 1/2 the speed of light (it's way beyond current resources, though), which means that it would take us all of 6.8 years just to get to Proxima Centauri.
And of course, technically, going to the nearest star at the speed of light would only take 8 minutes. But that's just being smart-alecky.

You cannot travel at the speed of light, and 99.995% of the speed of light is no where near as fast as the speed of light. The problem is that there is a huge difference between 99.5% of the speed of light and 99.995% of the speed of light and 99.99995% of the speed of light and so on. After a certain point velocity isn't a good way of representing velocity anymore. So it is better to use the lorentz contraction factor, gamma = 1/square root ( 1 - (velocity/speed of light)^2). For the three velocities above the gamma is 10, 100 and 1000 respectively. You can think of gamma as a kind of warp velocity and they represent the effective speeds of 10 times, 100 times and 1000 times the speed of light. So even though velocity cannot exceed the speed of light there is no limit on gamma, which is a truer more realistic measure of velocity.

So for the nearest star Proxima Centauri, which is 4.24 light years away, traveling at 99.5% of the speed of light will get you there in about 4.24/10 = .424 years or in about 5 months. At 99.995% of the speed of light you will get there in about 4.24/100 = .0424 years or about 15 days. At 99.99995% of the speed of light you will get there in 4.24/1000 = .00424 years or about one and a half days. Regardless of which of these velocities you use however it will take about 4.24 years for the people watching on earth.

There are two big difficulties however. The most important is acceleration. The only really safe acceleration is 1 gee or 9.8 m/s^2 since the long term affect of this on the human body is well known. But at this acceleration it will take at least a year to get anywhere near the speed of light. On the trip to Proxima you will only get to about 90% of the speed of light before you have to start slowing down. As a result the trip will take over 3 years aboard ship.

The second problem is energy requirement. Accelerating to 99.5% of the speed of light will require energy equal to at least 9/10 of the mass of your ship coverted to pure energy. But there is the problem of conserving momentum as well which requires propelling reaction mass behind you. The above trip to proxima at 1 g, in order to satisfy the conservation of energy and momentum, requires the use of 99.8% of the mass of the ship for energy and reaction mass at the theoretical limit assuming 100% efficiency in converting matter into the kinetic energy of your ship and the reaction mass.

The numeric results reported above is the result of running an actual simulation of a flight to Proxima at 1 g using my program relspace, which is equivalent to solving the problem using numerical integration. The simulated trip took about 3 years and 11 months, athough this may be improved with better navigation. It should also be noted that this trip took into account losses of time and energy due to the gravitational pulls of the earth and the sun (and the other planets).

the idea of going to proxima centurai is a bit redundant anyway, why would we choose proxima to go to? its a small red dwarf star. Once you get there, then what? you just have to turn back, theres nothing else to do. If or when we do go to the stars, the obvious destination would be a star with a planet that would be possible to habitate? i dont know how far that would be, but alot further than proxima i'd imagine

yes it is possible with a new type of rocket engine known as "ionshift" which uses very less fuel compared to other rocket engines. 8)

This is all well and good but unfortunatly Einstein said that we cannot travel faster than light. Personally I don't believe this to be true but what if it were, undisputedly, 100% true. It would still take 4.22 years (at the speed of light) to even reach Proxima. That's a round trip of almost 8 and a half years. Over 4 years to reach something that's only 0.08 the size of our sun (and about half as interesting).
The next nearest, outside the Centaurai cluster (Barnard's Star) is 5.94 light years away. Even at the speed of light, the atoms of hydrogen and other gasses between stars would make mince meat out of the crew and ship. As for going to stars with planets, the closest is ESP Eri at 10.49 ly's.

Untill the "Deflector Shield" (as seen in StarTrek) or some other simillar device is invented to remove all matter from the path of the ship, these speed's are just suicide. Just imagine getting hit in the head by a grain of sand traveling at 186,000 miles/sec. Even if "Status Chambers" were introduced and ship speeds were kept to 0.25c (more or less), everybody you knew and loved back home would be long dead by the time you returned...

So the answer to the topic question in my view is not at the moment but not for a long, long time either unless we make some major strides in technology.

Originally Posted by IrishStu

Untill the "Deflector Shield" (as seen in StarTrek) or some other simillar device is invented to remove all matter from the path of the ship, these speed's are just suicide. Just imagine getting hit in the head by a grain of sand traveling at 186,000 miles/sec. Even if "Status Chambers" were introduced and ship speeds were kept to 0.25c (more or less), everybody you knew and loved back home would be long dead by the time you returned...

A very accurate point. It has been estimated that around 0.3C (and likely a lot lower) is about the top velocity we could reasonably expect to be able to shield any life within a ship from those energetic collisions.

So, yeah, it is a massive problem.

As far as technologocial or scientific breakthroughs allowing travel at C (or transluminal pseudovelocities), I frankly just don't see it. So far, every possible way we've thought of to do so is so far out of our reach that it may not happen for 10,000 years - if ever.

Wormholes may not work, are unstable, connect to God knows where, and would require some hypothetical "exotic" matter to keep them open. And the passage of any mass into them may well collapse them in an instant.

"Warping" space? How? This is not like flipping on a light switch. Manipulate the metric? Good God, this is akin to magic.

A "Quantum Leap?" Again, how? Quantum probability cannot be affected by us, except as observers. How can this be turned into a FTL jump-drive?

Answer - none of them can. Much as I wish I could state otherwise.

1. Generation ships.
2. Extended life spans.
3. Hibernation.

Star Gate type: Disassemble into subatomic parts and then "transferred" via some high speed trying to "bend" the way, cutting short the distance?

"post deleted"

Ophiolite's terse, but 'on the money' post is helpful. At .25 cee it'd take about 15-20 years to get to the Centauri system. Fortunately, the Alpha Cent. system is not just a red dwarf, but a triple star system, so there will be lots to see there. It might well have enough physical resrouces to allow the building of a series of self-sustaining space habitats there. Given that it's a one way trip, that's the only likely way of going there. No point in sending an exploratory vessel and then just throwing away the crew and cargo.

Generational ships would be needed for trips lasting longer than the breeding time of our species, that is, about 25 years. However, we do not yet have any breeding, self-sustaining space colonies. Those problems would have to be solved before generational ships become a reality.

Hibernation is a complex physiological process which no humans, or iany of the higher primates have, and would have to be genetically engineered to have. It's not realistic from a medical standpoint. We are not rodents nor bears, and possess NONE of the built in, complex, specific, physiological adaptations necessary for it. It's beyond any biological science we have or are likely to have.

Long life spans, we are good at that, being the longest lived mammalian species on the planet. Given telomerase & other longevity research findings, indeed a much longer, fertile life span seems possible, even likely.

Ophiolite has hit upon the major strategies for practical, doable interstellar flight.

Yevaud, you have astutely discussed the reality of velocities of space flight. The radiation from atoms in space that any space craft travelling at a significant speed of light would encounter are real. Not only constantly hitting that atom/cu. m. cause serious damage to the space craft's front end, but it'd create radiation which might cause serious injuries to the passengers.

We are indeed limitted by light speed and running into atoms in 'empty' space.

There are however, some effects which are being researched in physics labs. The most promising, but totally unconfirmed, is that of quantum tunneling. This is familiar to those who know of transistors and how the 'electron' tunnels thru solid matter, creating the transistor effect. The electron in effect 'goes around the distance'. Quantum tunnelling has been reliably demonstrated for electrons, protons, alpha particles (alpha decay out of atomic nuclei is a quantum tunneling effect), some enzyme effects, and even very heavy rhodium atoms.

The question is how fast does this quantum tunnelling take place? Relativity states an absolute barrier at light speed and there are no good data to suggest that this can be overcome.

However, quantum tunneling, never observed or confirmed, is theoretically the basis by which black holes evaporate, as quantum tunnelling might, consistent with quantum mechanics, as pointed out by Hawkings, allow a temporary, but unusual exceeding by particles or photons of light speed and particles could 'tunnel' out of a black hole. This has never been observed, Should it be seen in labs, it might verify, in part, Hawkings' suggestions regardin black hole evaporating.

Experimental research may indicate that quantum tunneling might exceed light speed. If this is the case, then it's possible to create a sort of "quantum gate" taking mass/photons from one point in local space to another. This is highly theoretical, and altho at least one study indicates it might be the case, is not yet confirmed. So caution is advised whenever anyone states that cee can be exceeded.

Caution is absolutely required, lest someone read of it and decide that it must be real, feasible, and begin yet another nonsensical rant about it (oh yeah - we've never had *that* happen before).

There does seem to be some limitations on tunneling. Of course, this is a factor in the probability-density of the Quantum - the larger the distance, the lower the odds of tunnelling occurring. For any large mass, such as a small ship, the odds are vast that it could tunnel at all. However, it is true it's possible. Just of a very low probability. Hell, there's an infinitesimal probability that I'm not in my chair at my desk at home...I'm actually floating in orbit around Rigel.

I suspect that were something of this nature to be a reality, we'd be talking about numerous small jumps, rather than one long-range one.

Originally Posted by Yevaud

A very accurate point. It has been estimated that around 0.3C (and likely a lot lower) is about the top velocity we could reasonably expect to be able to shield any life within a ship from those energetic collisions.

So, yeah, it is a massive problem.

As far as technologocial or scientific breakthroughs allowing travel at C (or transluminal pseudovelocities), I frankly just don't see it. So far, every possible way we've thought of to do so is so far out of our reach that it may not happen for 10,000 years - if ever.

It is true that today we have no means of viable ftl travel even though there has been A LOT of speculation. However 1e4 years is a long time for humans to do a lot of thinking. Considering what little we know now and how much we will know in the future in my opinion, all bets are off.

Originally Posted by Yevaud

"Warping" space? How? This is not like flipping on a light switch. Manipulate the metric? Good God, this is akin to magic.

Magic you say? Well I happened to know that the planet Earth warps space-time every single day! All you need is matter.

Originally Posted by Yevaud

"Warping" space? ......... Good God, this is akin to magic.

'The technology of any sufficiently advanced civilisation is indistinguishable from magic'. Arthur C. Clarke

Originally Posted by steve

Hibernation is a complex physiological process which no humans, or iany of the higher primates have, and would have to be genetically engineered to have. It's not realistic from a medical standpoint. We are not rodents nor bears, and possess NONE of the built in, complex, specific, physiological adaptations necessary for it. It's beyond any biological science we have or are likely to have.

Scientists did recently put a dog on pause; they replaced its blood with some salty solution and chilled it, and managed to wake it up afterwards by replacing its blood back, and there were no side effects. So hibernation might be a good alternative to generation ships.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Originally Posted by Yevaud

"Warping" space? ......... Good God, this is akin to magic.

'The technology of any sufficiently advanced civilisation is indistinguishable from magic'. Arthur C. Clarke

True. And I'm certain that the technology of now would seem like magic to someone from 1750. However, manipulating spacetime at such a fundamental level *is* pretty out there. It would require levels of energy generation and usage that we can't even dream of yet. After all, we do see the metric being warped and stretched - by huge masses. I think we'd have to replicate those effects to "warp" space ourselves.

Originally Posted by Yevaud

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Originally Posted by Yevaud

"Warping" space? ......... Good God, this is akin to magic.

'The technology of any sufficiently advanced civilisation is indistinguishable from magic'. Arthur C. Clarke

True. And I'm certain that the technology of now would seem like magic to someone from 1750. However, manipulating spacetime at such a fundamental level *is* pretty out there. It would require levels of energy generation and usage that we can't even dream of yet. After all, we do see the metric being warped and stretched - by huge masses. I think we'd have to replicate those effects to "warp" space ourselves.

In 1e4 years you never know what could happen. And although anything
can't happen, there will be numerous technological advances.

Who knows, it may turn out that ftl travel is ultimatly impossible.

been thinking about posible new drives,
i s-pecialy like gravity drives and i wanted to find the most plausable.
And i think i came up with one.,or not??anyhow
Its base on (somehow) creating Gravity waves, but in a focused maner,
like a laser (most efficient emiter) and then directing that "laser"
to a faraway planet, or a star.
The theory is that the beam of gravity would create gravitacional pull
betwen the space ship and planet/star, and the space ship would be
puled towards that high mass object"".

Soo, im wondering can anyone "calculate how fast the ship could be moving, and could it travel faster than SL(of cours if Gravity waves travel faster)???
Im thinking beam of gravity with diameter less than a nanometer,
and thus high intensit directed to the neutron/quark star(or a black hole).
Which brings me to this:,
does the mass of the pull object have any influence??

just think of all the resources that would take up... and the whole ship would have to be a fuel tank.

I think its possible, 1960's humans went to the moon in a tin can with less cumputing power than a microwave oven (although they had the pioneering spirit, guts and brainpower in no short supply).

If we dont colonize other planets we are likely doomed. If we dont destroy ourselves first by venusforming earth, with nukes or a freek virus, nature may well do that for us sooner or later (asteroid, solar expansion). The chances are slim in the short term, but right now we have zero insurance, all the eggs are in the same basket and we're betting the entire human race on number 3.

- Solar sails or magnetic sails might help move ships along with much less fuel cargo (voyages are likely to be more like lengthy satelite missions planned in advanced than sci-fi's manouver-a-oy movies).
- We need to find ways to minimize exposure to cosmic radiation(layered plating, magnetic field?) while improving our cell's ability to survive radiation(I think a breed of cherobil mice have self-repairing dna, while some bacterias survive radiation). Genetic engineering will probably eventually help atenuate radiation(Homo Solaris?).
- The mastery of recycling technologies (life support, maintenance and repairs) will also be helpfull to survive isolated without supplies or any help for months.

Its entirely possible, all that's required is political will.

Originally Posted by BlackMunk

does the mass of the pull object have any influence??

Of course, It's in fact proportional.

I think the true question (haven't read the other post) is

"Can we travel faster than the speed of light?"

Originally Posted by itstemo1

I think the true question (haven't read the other post) is

"Can we travel faster than the speed of light?"

According to Einstein and all measurement since- not even if you had all the energy in the universe, not even if your ship was an elementary particle!

Gavity drive:
If your ship could somehow multiply the distant star's gravitational pull by 1000, your ship would probably not even drift in its general direction. If I go along with a gravity-gizmo, I'd say you would probably want to lock on a Jovian planet first to sling-shot you ship in the stars general direction, once on you way you might have to wait several years to get a lock on to that other star since I think gravity itself does travel at the speed of light.

Faster than Speed of light? No. Personally Id be scared going on a craft that would reach even 50% of light speed.

Meanwhile, back in a near future, ion drives(marginal acceleration but efficient) and solar or magnetic sails(using external energy instead of relying of massive fuel reserves) would result in ships that start out slow but would build up speed as time goes by. These are either in the experimental stage or not too far off I think.
Im not sure I'd want to go as fast as such a craft could reach over time, the faster you go the more difficult it is to detect, avoid or resist the ice chuncks, rocks and micro-meteorites that may be drifting in your path and the more damaging the colisions.

dupe post

It already take for ever to get from earth to the outside of the solarsystem in lightspeed... So well I guess it wouldn't be possible

I agree that Deep-Space Travelling at this moment seems hopeless but, most likely, there are still many 'quirks' of the universe that we do not know of yet. It would be VERY arrogant of us to think that we have discovered the majority of workings in the universe. After all, it's all theory. To conclude, I cannot discount Deep-Space Travel (DST).

Well there is a Worm Hole ... but according to some theories they can only send you blasting out of the solar system no more faster than the speed of light.... Nothing is faster than the speed of light... Well maybe... I hope so

You think there could be something faster than light? I must admit that I believe there is. In fact, I believe that there can be no limit to speed. Light just happens to travel at the speed it does and we just happen to have set that as the maximum speed that anything can travel because that's what our Physics says. I'm sure that someone else - If they spent enough time at it - could come up with a theory where light-speed is not the maximum.

Originally Posted by Chucky

You think there could be something faster than light?

I think that this depends on the role that each of us places on light in the universe.

I must admit that I believe there is. In fact, I believe that there can be no limit to speed.

So you believe in infinity?

Light just happens to travel at the speed it does and we just happen to have set that as the maximum speed that anything can travel because that's what our Physics says. I'm sure that someone else - If they spent enough time at it - could come up with a theory where light-speed is not the maximum.

Anyone can come up with such a theory. Finding evidence to support such a theory is currently not readily available, but who knows?

Yeh, I guess that what I'm saying is that infinity is possible. I know that according to our Physics anything that travels at the speed of light has infinite mass... ...But that's Physics, not reality. It just so happens however that our equations serve us well for space-travel.

Originally Posted by Chucky

Yeh, I guess that what I'm saying is that infinity is possible.

Yes, and quite a few people accept that it exists.

I know that according to our Physics anything that travels at the speed of light has infinite mass... ...But that's Physics, not reality.

The same physics that talks about infinite mass also says that nothing can travel at the speed of light other than light. If you want to envision faster than light motion, then you should be free to drop the infinite mass idea that does along with restrictions against it.

I know, I totally don't buy the infinite mass idea.

Originally Posted by Chucky

I know that according to our Physics anything that travels at the speed of light has infinite mass... ...But that's Physics, not reality.

Would it be unduly critical of me to suggest that your observations are unsubstantiated desire and not detailed mathematical analysis supported by countless observations?

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Would it be unduly critical of me to suggest that your observations are unsubstantiated desire and not detailed mathematical analysis supported by countless observations?

Yes, and furthermore without value or meaningful purpose. Since you know this, why do it?

Ophiolite, your response appeared to be somewhat arrogant of you. Indeed, I get the feeling that you are merely searching for a confrontation with that response. I hope that everything is currently going okay for you in your life and I mean no harm to you my friend with my posts.


Anyway, yes, my views on the workings of the universe are based on desires. However, they are desires built upon what I have learned so far on the whole area of science. I have probably not learned as much as you in this area but I am stubborn and it will therefore take time for me to be dissuaded from my beliefs.


Take care always and forever,
Kevster

Originally Posted by Chucky

Ophiolite, your response appeared to be somewhat arrogant of you.

Well, I am an arrogant fellow, but not a trace of arrogance was intended in that post.

Originally Posted by Chucky

Indeed, I get the feeling that you are merely searching for a confrontation with that response.

Had I been looking for confrontation I should have chosen a much less diplomatic turn of phrase and gone for your exposed jugular.

Originally Posted by Chucky

I hope that everything is currently going okay for you in your life and I mean no harm to you my friend with my posts.

Just as you misinterpreted my post as arrogant, I am in danger of misinterpreting yours as snide and patronising. I am sure I am mistaken.

Originally Posted by Chucky

Anyway, yes, my views on the workings of the universe are based on desires. However, they are desires built upon what I have learned so far on the whole area of science.

Nevertheless, they are desires. This is not scientific.

It doesn't really matter one iota that you are uncomfortable with the concept of infinite mass, if you are rejecting it, as you have done, without providing a single jot of substantiating evidence, or reference to well founded, alternate theory, then you are simply expelling hot air.

This is seems fine for casual conversation in the pub, but I doubt it adds much to the quality of scientific discussion. I have a host of unconventional views on conventional scienctific viewpoints - Neo-Lamarkian evolution and steady state cosmology, to name but two. However, I rarely if ever air these views (indeed I defend the conventional positions) because of the evidence: the lack of it for the unconventional and the mass of it for the conventional.

I would expect to be similarily attacked in a dry fashion if I started sounding off about my discomfort with neo-Darwinism on a regular basis. It is of course your choice, but for me an interest in science has to be accompanied by a commitment to the scientific method, and that means evidence based theories.

The fact that mass increases as you approach the speed of light has been experimentally demonstrated. When you accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light in particle accelerators they become more massive, just as predicted by relativity. It's not like this is just some untested hypothesis.

In any case, you certainly don't need to go faster than light to travel to other star systems. The nearest star is only something like 4.3 light-years away, so even at only 50% of light speed you could be there in 9 years. Not such a big deal if you:

-have a large, comfortable space ship
-are in some sort of suspended animation
-are a robotic probe ship

With antimatter fuel this would certainly be possible. It's even conceivable with fusion power; deuterium/tritium fusion has an energy density of 2.3*10^11 J/gram, which would be sufficient for intersteller travel. If you stuck 2 external tanks on the space shuttle and filled them with a deuterium/tritium fuel mix and replaced the engines with efficient fusion engines, you could get the shuttle something like 30% of light speed, which would have you at the nearest star in about 15 years.

Of course, it does mean that it will probably never be like startrek, where you can hop on a ship and be at a new star system in a couple of hours.

What an asshole you are Ophiolite - Your intelligence has clogged your brain and made you bitter.

Good day to you sir,
Kevster

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Had I been looking for confrontation I should have chosen a much less diplomatic turn of phrase and gone for your exposed jugular.

Wow. You come out with the most viscious and inappropriate attacks when there is so little need, and as well you assume that others are as viscious as you.

Just as you misinterpreted my post as arrogant, I am in danger of misinterpreting yours as snide and patronising. I am sure I am mistaken.

I suspect that, given a vote, most everyone would have interpreted your post as arrogant. His response, however, was quite reasonable, and probably on mark, to your unprovoked attack.

Originally Posted by Chucky

Anyway, yes, my views on the workings of the universe are based on desires. However, they are desires built upon what I have learned so far on the whole area of science.

Nevertheless, they are desires. This is not scientific.

Then you do not understand science. Science begins with ideas, not with proof.

It doesn't really matter one iota that you are uncomfortable with the concept of infinite mass, if you are rejecting it, as you have done, without providing a single jot of substantiating evidence, or reference to well founded, alternate theory, then you are simply expelling hot air.

First, of all, this is irrelevant. Second of all, if you accept the notion of infinite mass, then you are dreaming, without meaningful evidence.

This is seems fine for casual conversation in the pub, but I doubt it adds much to the quality of scientific discussion.

If no one finds it of interest, then no one need respond. Isn't that obvious?

I have a host of unconventional views on conventional scienctific viewpoints - Neo-Lamarkian evolution and steady state cosmology, to name but two. However, I rarely if ever air these views (indeed I defend the conventional positions)

This much is quite well-known about you. You believe that no one has any right to an idea unless it is based on reading of people that you consider experts in the field. You seem to have no ability to poinder new ideas, as you can only defend the ideas that you accept without question. Sure, you attempt to understand their reasoning, but will not question. I predict that you will never make a major breakthrough in any branch of science, as you are afraid to challenge and invent. I don't really care about this, yet you seem to be extremely viscious to those who do. Why is that? Not everyone feels the need to satisfy your requirements about what they must read before they are entitled, in your opinion, to spout, but not challenge, your experts.

I would expect to be similarily attacked in a dry fashion if I started sounding off about my discomfort with neo-Darwinism on a regular basis.

Do you not also expect to be attacked for your arrogant demand that others conform to your subjective view of reality?

It is of course your choice,

you say that it is "your" choice, but the choice is not whether to say what one thinks but if one is willing to put up with an attack by you in response.

but for me an interest in science has to be accompanied by a commitment to the scientific method, and that means evidence based theories.

Hogwash. Do children first develop their imaginations, or do they first develop a deep undertanding of the scientific method and then adhere to it doggedly? Your demands are ridiculous.

If you do not like an idea, then you should say so. However, you go far beyond saying so. You claim to be an expert, not because you have the guts to ponder new ideas on your own, but because of your dogged defense of what you beieve is the state of the art today.

You do not like it when people challenge your experts, unless and until they somehow convince you that they might be right. It obviously makes you feel extremely uncomfortable. So uncorfortable, in fact, that you feel that if you make such thnkers uncomfortble, you will feel much better, and tht somehow the greater scientific good will be achieved by shutting down the thinkers and trying to convert them into non-creative types people like you.

Sciforrefugee: You noted that: In any case, you certainly don't need to go faster than light to travel to other star systems. The nearest star is only something like 4.3 light-years away, so even at only 50% of light speed you could be there in 9 years. Not such a big deal

I thought this was pertinent. The rest of the thread, if I recall it aright, was focused on flash-bang scifi solutions to faster than light travel, or wormholes, etc. All uneccessary.

We have the technology today to send out an interstellar robotic probe. We lack the funds and the will to do so, nothing more. If we can develop a space based economy, that permits the continued expansion in economic power, then the funds will cease to be an issue. Regardless, I would expect such a probe to be launched, or be in the planning stage, before the end of the century.

Looking further ahead I don't envisage much commuting back and forth between star systems. Rather we are going to spread outwards as a wave of colonisation. While this might be achieved with generation starships and alternative approach is to send out robotic ships, with deep frozen embryos. These are then 'hatched' when a suitable planetary system is found. AIs can ensure the first generation are brought up to become proper little humans. Using an approach like this we could colonise the galaxy in well under one million years. ........

Which raises the questions, first asked by Fermi, Where is everyone?


Hermes, go bait someone who has an interest in what you think.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

We have the technology today to send out an interstellar robotic probe.

Do we? How would we power it? It's easy to imagine efficient fusion engines being developed in the next 100 years or so, but I don't know of anything offhand that could power a probe fast enough to go to another star system in a reasonable amount fo time.

Looking further ahead I don't envisage much commuting back and forth between star systems. Rather we are going to spread outwards as a wave of colonisation. While this might be achieved with generation starships and alternative approach is to send out robotic ships, with deep frozen embryos. These are then 'hatched' when a suitable planetary system is found. AIs can ensure the first generation are brought up to become proper little humans. Using an approach like this we could colonise the galaxy in well under one million years. ........

Not that I really know anything about this, but it seems like it would be much easier to freeze people and ship them off to be thawed at their destination -or just make a ship that can get there in a reasonably short time so that you don't have to freeze them - than it would be to build robots with AI that were able to properly raise babies.

I checked Nasa last year for 'WARP DRIVE' as part of my research into Exotic Matter ie. Monatomic elements. which is supposed to have space time properties . At first what popped up was 'Warp drive development program' but some time later when I went back to it it would not come up on the site. My thoughts were that you would not waste money on such a program without some idea as to how you were going to approach it. So maybe they are closer to inter space travel than we think, or they would like us to know. Also as a type one super conductor General Electric in US were hoping to develop the perfect enviromentaly freindly fuel cell from this substance. Until the US government prevented David Hudson from patenting the manufacturing process on the grounds of National Security, he spent 8 million dollars doing it. A fuel cell which self recharges and never runs out, Nah! who would want that/ what would we then do with all that oil!!

Tarquin

Originally Posted by TarquinTaylor

... my research into Exotic Matter ie. Monatomic elements. which is supposed to have space time properties .

You like to resurrect dead threads, right? "Monoatomic elements" is a tautology. Elements are chemical agents that by definition are made of only one class of atoms. Everything has space-time properties in a sense that they occupy space and experience time. The rest of your post is just a typical conspiracy theory. It is vague, based on preconceptions and angry.

TarquinTaylor. Over the last year in the newspapers have been stories of "hydrogen pellets", as in hydrogen in a safe form that can be used as fuel. Also a fuel made by bacterial action so endless amounts of it can be produced cheaply. Both of these are serious research with commercial use in the not too distant future.

For a while, I was keen on the idea of using electric fields to accelerate the already ionized components of the interstellar medium, for propulsion.
In the hope that would require less energy than ionizing the fuel in a normal ion drive, but the ISM is too thin. Making the size of the device impracticable.
If think there are some interesting possibilities for generating power from the ISM when far from a star and solar power is not an option. By converting the ionize and atomic hydrogen to H₂.
But a nice box of antimatter would really do the trick.

even if we did find a way round the exponential fuel problem of travelling fractions of the speed of light, space-faring folk would have to live outside of the timeline of everyone else, as even light is slow in the large scale of things. so unless you have all your friends with you when you travel, then its going to be a lonely existence for you, bummer or what.

space travel is possible after 200000 years as we would get the technology by then and also the star locations.