Space Travel now? later?

[wonderdummy]

With the issue of interstellar travel increasingly upon us, how will we get around
hundreds of years from now

Hyperspace or what??

Tell me what you think  

[Nadian]

Short of a revolution in physics or a miracle in energy storage/production I don't really expect any space-folding type travel such as hyperspace or even simply very-near-light-speed travel, especially in the next few hundred years.

While it may seem like we've had major advances in the energy area in the past 100 years, I'd argue that we really haven't. We've been mostly using (as I understand it) highly condensed forms of solar energy from fossilized biological material created over millions (billions?) of years. It's a source that easily produces a lot of energy for no effort but, most importantly, it's not something we really expect to find everywhere in the universe. It's these two things which make me say we've only had a good boost, but really over the past hundred years we haven't really seen a jump away from this boost yet.

I think we'll be seeing more efficient designs similar to what's being worked on now (such as Ion engines) or even something based upon new quantum physics discoveries.  

[Cornelius loh Quatious]

I'm confident that FTL travel is totally physically impossible, so that leaves the second and third options. While the idea of jump-gates has been thought of (many scientists believe that black holes are actually worm holes), I doubt that humankind will harness that kind of travel within the next millenium or so. But I've been proven wrong before, so who knows.

So, the closest choice on the horizon would be sub-light speed travel (very, very much sub-light speed) with cryogenic freezing of the crew. We can now successfully freeze and revive animals within a few hours, but for centuries or longer will require much more research into the field. Still, this is the route I'm betting on.  

[Nadian]

dboyzero

So, the closest choice on the horizon would be sub-light speed travel (very, very much sub-light speed) with cryogenic freezing of the crew.

I've actually heard some very interesting things concerning the need for cryogenic freezing and near-light-speed travel / general relativity. Something along the line of a trip seeming long for an observer on earth taking nowhere near as much time for the traveler if they're going a significant fraction of the speed of light. It has to do with time dilation, time the traveling individual experiences being much slower than a still observer, all part of the requirement that from all frames of reference light must be observed as traveling at the speed of light at a maximum.

To illustrate, you have points A and B and O (observer) and T (traveler). Light takes one year to travel from A to B and vice versa. T and O are on A and T leaves A heading towards B at half the speed of light.

To O, it takes T two years to complete the trip, I think. That's pretty simple... maybe too simple (Might be other things such as T appearing to be pretty long during the trip, though.)

T is heading towards B, so if time was passing normally for T the light coming from B would look like it's traveling at 1.5 times the speed of light, which is too fast hence T must be experiencing slower time. (That's what general relativity posited; universal speed limit is the speed of light, so in this reference time and/or distance have to change.)

The general relativity math really is escaping me right now, but it's almost easy to see that for T either the observered distance has to be shorter (since what light traveled in a period of time would seem to be going faster than the speed of light if the distance didn't appear shrunk) or when one second has passed for O the same light that T observered must have traveled 1.5 times the observered distance hence T experienced only 2/3rds a second in the same time. (Wait... was that it? Hey, it could be, possibly meaning T sees its trip as taking only 16 months instead of O's 24 months... hmmm...)  

[Cornelius loh Quatious]

Yeah, you're on the right track. It was Einstein's whole thing about how as you approach the speed of light, time slows down for you. Orson Scott Card made lots of use of it in the Speaker for the Dead series. Still, the sheer absolute magnitude of the cosmos would lead me to believe that cryogenics would need to be able to successfully freeze people for at least a few decades, then be able to wake them up without any adverse side-effects. Our closest neighboring star is Alpha Centauri, and it's a lightyear and a half away.

Still, the whole field is still very much in its early stages, so who knows what they'll come up with.  

[Hiitachin Kaoru]

I'm pretty skeptical about any of those possibilities in the near future.  

[dothackRAVE]

Einstein once proposed that as we approach the speed of light, mass increases. At the speed of light, mass is INFINITE. Tell me, how is it physically possible to propel an infinite mass, AND maintain light speed?

F=ma, if mass is infinite, force is infinite. That means the engine has to produce infinite force to propel an infinite mass. Not possible.

So, what do we do? I believe that there is a way of travelling at the speed of light without actually going that fast.

This will require actually "bending" the fabric of space and time. Just like on a sheet of paper, the fastest way between two points will be to fold the paper together and go past the space between the two points. To do so will be to actually break the fabric of space, go into an alternate dimension, and appear on the other side(worm holes). In the real world, however, it will seem like you have travelled great distances within a short time.

v=s/t

I believe that the whole idea of "breaking" the fabric of space will require us to generate a strong gravitational field. One theory of the black hole is that the great compact mass at its centre actually breaks the fabric of space, leading to an alternate dimension.  

[bloodlust_angelkel]

Space travel now anything to do with it would be great 3nodding  

[Darkdestroyer]

I really think we should solve the problems on our own planet until we go looking for others! stressed I think teleportation is the only plausible way to transport across space, however far away it is. confused  

[Cornelius loh Quatious]

Do you mean teleportation through wormholes, like has been suggested, or like being split up into a bunch of tiny pieces and shipped light-years across the universe? Or, like the famous puzzle, being taken apart, analyzed and copied, and recreated elsewhere? Teleportation itself is a mystery, since we really have no idea how to do it at the moment.

Perhaps one could consider that one of the big problems on this planet is overcrowding, in which space travel may be a potential solution? If the Earth gets overcrowded, colonization of other planets will certainly begin to look very beneficial.  

[Darkdestroyer]

Well, the sun will eventually implode anyway, however many billions of years away that is. So we will have to move. Teleportation is risky because when you split up all the atoms, how can they be sure where to return? Unless you used electrical stimulation on the receiving end or some form of acute ionic attraction I don't know how they would reform.
It's a very interesting topic. 4laugh  

[The Heartbreak Kid]

I really don't know how we are going to do it. It just seems so impossible at the moment (besides the sci-fis that are continually fueling our imaginations). I guess we are just to wait sad  

[LemurMaster]

Darkdestroyer

Well, the sun will eventually implode anyway, however many billions of years away that is. So we will have to move. Teleportation is risky because when you split up all the atoms, how can they be sure where to return? Unless you used electrical stimulation on the receiving end or some form of acute ionic attraction I don't know how they would reform.
It's a very interesting topic. 4laugh

For the record, 5 billion years.
In the near future, I don't believe that we will be able to use any of these methods. As far as we Earth scientists know, there's no way to get to the speed of light. Cryogenic freezing is being developed, but it'll most likely take quite a while before we can use it for hundreds of years. The jump gates are a nice idea, but how would they work?
First off, we should look at Mars maybe. The chances that there are other life-holding planets is pretty slim anyways...  

[Cornelius loh Quatious]

I don't know about "slim," but planets with similar conditions to Earth have been found, albeit hundreds, thousands, and millions of light-years away. Yellow star, same distance; we can guess at the composition type, but that's about it.

Nevertheless, due to the sheer size of the universe, I would be dumbfounded if this was the only planet that could support life. Whether or not other planets actually HAVE life (sentient or otherwise) is a different matter entirely.

Still, I agree that getting to those planets is farther in the future than I think any of us are going to live.  

[imbellis]

i dont think mass migration to other planets will happen soon at all. although i believe that it is neccessary for the continuation of the human race. our world has been ruined by factories, cars. and just humans in general. we are running out of resources needed to sustain our existance. unless we do something radical to change this, we will all starve to death i think. which isnt great.

i reckon the ony viable space travel theory would be the hyperspace jumps through wormholes. this is only because its impossible to go faster than the speed of light without stopping time, which is madness. problem with wormholes is that even if they do exist, there is no way of knowing where in the universe you would be transported to. and of course theres no promise that you'd come out alive.