Posted on 05/14/2018 11:08:12 PM PDT by BenLurkin
It’s a staple of science fiction.... the idea of sending out spaceships with colonists and transplanting the seed of humanity among the stars. Between discovering new worlds, becoming an interstellar species, and maybe even finding extra-terrestrial civilizations, the dream of spreading beyond the Solar System is one that can’t become reality soon enough!
For decades, scientists have contemplated how humanity might one-day reach achieve this lofty goal. And the range of concepts they have come up with present a whole lot of pros and cons. These pros and cons were raised in a recent study by Martin Braddock, a member of the Mansfield and Sutton Astronomical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The study, titled “Concepts for Deep Space Travel: From Warp Drives and Hibernation to World Ships and Cryogenics“, recently appeared in the scientific journal Current Trends in Biomedical Engineering and Biosciences (a Juniper Journals publication). As Braddock indicates in his study, the question of how human beings could explore neighboring star systems has become more relevant in recent years thanks to exoplanet discoveries.
…
All told, Dr. Braddock considers five principle means for mounting crewed missions to other star systems in his study. These include super-luminal (aka/ FTL) travel, hibernation or stasis regimes, negligible senescence (aka. anti-aging) engineering, world ships capable of supporting multiple generations of travellers (aka. generation ships), and cyogenic freezing technologies.
For FTL travel, the advantages are obvious, and while it remains entirely theoretical at this point, there are concepts being investigated today. A notable FTL concept – known as the Alcubierre Warp Drive – is currently being researched by multiple organizations, which includes the Tau Zero Foundation and the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory: Eagleworks (APPL:E) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
cons: You can never come back.
pros: We could send liberals.
the only way meaningful space travel could be possible would be to slip in and out of another dimension where time does not exist
and transplanting the seed of humanity among the stars...
What did the stars ever do to us to deserve that fate? :)
In the meantime, there’s a whole group of folks in San Francisco that are desperately figuring out how to get to Uranus.
I think even a Mars mission, would be a one way mission, and these people are talking about traveling to the NEAREST star? Are they kidding? At 36,000 miles per hour, it might take them 75,000 years to get there. I don’t think it will work. Maybe in the millennial kingdom, we can travel there, at the speed of thought, but until then, it belongs in the comic books.
I was in San Francisco a couple of months ago. By the looks of some of them, they succeeded. I heard English spoken once in a while, but not very often. 👎
You might be right.
The other major problem is how to keep the ship from being destroyed by a grain of sand while traveling even a fraction of the speed of light.
If your in another dimension then this would not be a problem.
No, it does not. You will find NO theoretical physicist who believes that it's possible. Saying that we will someday find a way to travel faster than the speed of light is EXACTLY the same as saying "someday we'll find a shorter distance between two points than a straight line."
No. We won't.
The geometry of the universe is what it is, and so many phenomena from intrinsic spin to antimatter to mass energy equivalence to time dilation to Lorentz contraction to things as simple as the color of gold, ALL are a direct result of relativity.
There is no shorter distance between two points than a straight line. Period.
[ cons: You can never come back.
pros: We could send liberals. ]
You forgot the other pro....
If the liberal infection is terminal we could leave the liberals behind...
how to get to other stars and galaxies... has been known for a number of years..... we don’t have to pay tons of our tax money to research the question...
https://course-studies.corsairs.network/wile-e-coyote-sucks-at-rocket-science-5c2553e3e18
Which is why people talk about bending space/time. Although the energies to do that on paper are far greater than anything we have ever produced or could produce.
3D printing... If that breaks, you have a backup thumb drive of a printer plan...
Even at 36000 miles per second it would still take many years to get there. Probably to discover that there is nothing there.
That “card” was hit by a cosmic ray. And, poof, you have half a part. Oops.
I forget the exact numbers, but they are known... but the ballpark is correct:
Only thing needed is an engine with constant acceleration of, say, a tolerable 1.1g. Aim the craft towards Alpha Centauri, and go. After about a year stop the engines. you’d be going 50% the speed of light. After 2 years, maneuver the craft around, light up the engine again, and start “braking”.
For someone on earth, time elapsed is about 7 or 8 years. For someone on board the craft, time elapsed is about 2-3 years.
There are online calculators where one can plug in various numbers for time, distance, speed, with constant acceleration in mind, to determine how long the traveler ages versus earthlings.
Geez..
They’d also have to figure out a way to create artificial gravity........
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