Bare with me. Its a long one.
I'm sure like me,most of you as a kid dreamed of visiting the stars and exploring the vastness of space in your imaginary rocket ship. It seems to be something people are still fully active in pursuing. After all, we did manage to put a man on the moon right. Our thoughts and ideas all come together in science fiction. In the movies on our television screens, in comics and in books. As a species,there is just something greatly profound about leaving our rocky little world on colonizing another distant planet.
As of right now,we are still very far off from visiting any distant planet. We've only been able to go as far as the moon. Though man missions are currently being discussed for a potential Mars exploration. I want to thoroughly discuss the possibility if colonizing space is even plausible,let alone practical. Aside from the obvious fundamental problems facing us,such as intense radiation,weightlessness and micrometeorites aside,what it all comes down to is speed. In order to get anywhere in the universe,speed is essential to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Our space shuttles with its current chemical propulsion system are maxed out at approximately 17,320 mph..give or take. Which is reasonably fast,for Earth standards. A manned mission to Mars could take as long as 450 days with our current technology,depending on the orbits between the two planets. Now imagine how long it would take to get to some of our most outer planets,let alone another planet in a distant solar system.
But don't we have an ace up ourselves? What if one could travel at light speed? Surely we would be able to cut some time off our schedules if we were to harness the power of light speed. Clocking in at an impressive 186,282 miles per second, it seems if we were to build a spacecraft that could travel at that distant,we would be set for colonizing space for sure right? Well,perhaps and perhaps not. It takes light just a little over 8 minutes to cross the 150 million kilometer distance between us and the sun. Meaning if the sun were to just,disappear,it would take 8 minutes for us to even notice anything. Now,for another comparison. It takes a single light bean 100,000 years to travel from one end of the Milky Way to the other. It would take the same single beam of light 2.5 million years to get to our closest neighbor,the Andromeda Galaxy. Even light speed travel seems rather pokey when it comes to space exploration. Since nothing in the known universe can not travel faster than light, is it safe to say we our screwed? That we will never leave this planet? Well, what's giving up without trying? As expected,may scientists and enthusiasts have proposed plenty of ideas. I'll share some with you. Now with these it is feasible to expect that intergalactic space travel would most certainly be out of the question. Therefore most of these theories would be restricted to our own galactic neighborhood. Within our own galaxy and perhaps no further.
Of course the problem that comes with any sort of traditional rocket propulsion is that the spacecraft would need to carry its fuel with it. Which would require the ship itself to be very massive. How about we explore some more,radical ideas. Here are some solutions to the more intergalactic issues we face.
There is one last thing I wanted to discuss. Its more or less based in quantum mechanics and if understood,it could provide not just faster than light travel but instantaneous travel. physicists describe it quantum entanglement, spooky action from a distance as Einstein called it. So basically when two sub-atomic particles interact there is the possibility that they can become entangled. Which means that they are eternally linked by some process currently unknown to science. So whatever happens to one particle will immediately effect the other entangled particle. Force one particle to spin clockwise and the other partner particle will immediately start spinning counterclockwise. What makes this so intriguing is the fact that these particles could be separated by billions if not trillions of miles. This suggests that information not only travels faster than the speed of light but travels instantaneous. Spooky stuff indeed.
I bring this up because if we we're to some how figure this out and master this effect, the implications could be extraordinary. Not only could you potentially send information over long distances instantaneous but it may also be possible to send actual matter, I.E people instantaneous as well. Though that is still all very much speculative at this point. I mean we still have plenty of time to figure this out. In some 500million -to a billion years,the suns rays will be just hot enough to evaporate most of all the liquid surface water on earth. So 500 million plus years seems ample amount of time to figure all of this out. Assuming of course, we as a species are all still alive by then.
Well there you have it folks. I have put a huge amount of effort into this thread so even if you just manage to read it all then I applaud you. Hopefully I can generate some replies and if you do reply then I propose some questions for you.
is intergalactic space travel in your opinion feasible? Could we potentially reach the very edges of our universe in a single human life time?
If you were a betting man, out of all possible ideas whats your safe bet for any sort of future space exploration? I favor the lightsail, its practical,affordable and super efficient. A few thousand years from now thought,who really knows.
Feel free to contribute anything you want,maybe I missed something?. I welcome all forms of opinions so please go for it.
Sound off below!
I'm sure like me,most of you as a kid dreamed of visiting the stars and exploring the vastness of space in your imaginary rocket ship. It seems to be something people are still fully active in pursuing. After all, we did manage to put a man on the moon right. Our thoughts and ideas all come together in science fiction. In the movies on our television screens, in comics and in books. As a species,there is just something greatly profound about leaving our rocky little world on colonizing another distant planet.
As of right now,we are still very far off from visiting any distant planet. We've only been able to go as far as the moon. Though man missions are currently being discussed for a potential Mars exploration. I want to thoroughly discuss the possibility if colonizing space is even plausible,let alone practical. Aside from the obvious fundamental problems facing us,such as intense radiation,weightlessness and micrometeorites aside,what it all comes down to is speed. In order to get anywhere in the universe,speed is essential to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Our space shuttles with its current chemical propulsion system are maxed out at approximately 17,320 mph..give or take. Which is reasonably fast,for Earth standards. A manned mission to Mars could take as long as 450 days with our current technology,depending on the orbits between the two planets. Now imagine how long it would take to get to some of our most outer planets,let alone another planet in a distant solar system.
But don't we have an ace up ourselves? What if one could travel at light speed? Surely we would be able to cut some time off our schedules if we were to harness the power of light speed. Clocking in at an impressive 186,282 miles per second, it seems if we were to build a spacecraft that could travel at that distant,we would be set for colonizing space for sure right? Well,perhaps and perhaps not. It takes light just a little over 8 minutes to cross the 150 million kilometer distance between us and the sun. Meaning if the sun were to just,disappear,it would take 8 minutes for us to even notice anything. Now,for another comparison. It takes a single light bean 100,000 years to travel from one end of the Milky Way to the other. It would take the same single beam of light 2.5 million years to get to our closest neighbor,the Andromeda Galaxy. Even light speed travel seems rather pokey when it comes to space exploration. Since nothing in the known universe can not travel faster than light, is it safe to say we our screwed? That we will never leave this planet? Well, what's giving up without trying? As expected,may scientists and enthusiasts have proposed plenty of ideas. I'll share some with you. Now with these it is feasible to expect that intergalactic space travel would most certainly be out of the question. Therefore most of these theories would be restricted to our own galactic neighborhood. Within our own galaxy and perhaps no further.
- Nuclear pulse propulsion: While not quite as fast as light speed would still provide us to travel between the stars in a manner of decades then centuries.
- Antimatter rockets: When normal matter and antimatter come into contact with each other,they annihilate each other thus creating a very efficient and high amount of energy that would acquire us to reach near the speed of light. However,producing any antimatter is highly costly and would bankrupt the project even before it gets off paper.
Of course the problem that comes with any sort of traditional rocket propulsion is that the spacecraft would need to carry its fuel with it. Which would require the ship itself to be very massive. How about we explore some more,radical ideas. Here are some solutions to the more intergalactic issues we face.
- Beamed propulsion: Okay,while not very radical I suppose, it is way more efficient than any chemically fuel rocket system. With some sort of light sail or magnetic sail powered by some kind of massive laser or even a particle accelerator could potentially reach speeds that exceed that of what any sort of rocket propulsion system could reach. It would sure be easier on the wallet..
- Warp Drive: Here's a no brainer. What is popular in science fiction may very well be practical in real life.According to one Albert Einstein,space-time is curved, so one could imagine taking advantage of this curvature to take a short cut through space-time. Essentially a ship of some short lye's in some sort of bubble while the ship moves along space-time,it condenses the space-time behind it while expanding the space-time in front of this ship. This would allow us to easily by pass the speed of light and go anywhere in the universe in no time flat. However the technology need to power such a ship that would manipulate all of space-time like that is currently out of the possibility of human understanding. If its even remotely possible,we are a long way off from finding any answer.
- The Wormhole hypothesis: Another science fiction favorite, I'm sure most of you know what a wormhole is and how it works. Well,if you don't then here's a very blunt explanation. " Wormholes are conjectural distortions in space-time that theorists postulate could connect two arbitrary points in the universe". Einstein's theory of general relativity does allow for wormholes to exist. However just like the warp drive, the technology does not exist for us to simply just tear a hole into space-time to create such a phenomenon and may likely never exist.
There is one last thing I wanted to discuss. Its more or less based in quantum mechanics and if understood,it could provide not just faster than light travel but instantaneous travel. physicists describe it quantum entanglement, spooky action from a distance as Einstein called it. So basically when two sub-atomic particles interact there is the possibility that they can become entangled. Which means that they are eternally linked by some process currently unknown to science. So whatever happens to one particle will immediately effect the other entangled particle. Force one particle to spin clockwise and the other partner particle will immediately start spinning counterclockwise. What makes this so intriguing is the fact that these particles could be separated by billions if not trillions of miles. This suggests that information not only travels faster than the speed of light but travels instantaneous. Spooky stuff indeed.
I bring this up because if we we're to some how figure this out and master this effect, the implications could be extraordinary. Not only could you potentially send information over long distances instantaneous but it may also be possible to send actual matter, I.E people instantaneous as well. Though that is still all very much speculative at this point. I mean we still have plenty of time to figure this out. In some 500million -to a billion years,the suns rays will be just hot enough to evaporate most of all the liquid surface water on earth. So 500 million plus years seems ample amount of time to figure all of this out. Assuming of course, we as a species are all still alive by then.
Well there you have it folks. I have put a huge amount of effort into this thread so even if you just manage to read it all then I applaud you. Hopefully I can generate some replies and if you do reply then I propose some questions for you.
is intergalactic space travel in your opinion feasible? Could we potentially reach the very edges of our universe in a single human life time?
If you were a betting man, out of all possible ideas whats your safe bet for any sort of future space exploration? I favor the lightsail, its practical,affordable and super efficient. A few thousand years from now thought,who really knows.
Feel free to contribute anything you want,maybe I missed something?. I welcome all forms of opinions so please go for it.
Sound off below!
