Interstellar Travel - Will it ever happen?

[coder1]

Today in my physics class this question was raised. I was just curious what all you other brains out there thought about this question...

I know if you look in the news today and other discussions on possible future propulsion systems, people talk about nuclear, antimatter/matter, ion, etc. I know the potential for antimatter is great, but what got me was, lets say antimatter is abundant and easy to manufacture for space travel, what speeds are we talking then? I have heard quotes of Voyager and possibly other satellites travel around 45K MPH. Could we get to 500K? Maybe 2 million?. I mean 164 million mile per hour is only 25% speed of light. And it seems almost impossible to get that fast even with antimatter. And let?s just say for argument sakes that we could travel speed of light, the nearest star would still take 4 years to get there. Some stars would take a life time. So unless we find other ways of traveling other than linear vectors we won't be "startrekin? anytime soon.

Any thoughts?...

 

[BlamoHammer]

As soon as we find dilithium we''ll be alll goood

 

[coder1]

Lol, yea, that or make friends with Q

 

[Falloutboy]

I bet we will but it will be in the form of sleeper ships or multi-generational ships. unless thier is some huge leap in are understanding of phsyics I don't see us going around the universe at anywhere close to the speed of light in the next 100-200 years

 

[BW86]

Interstellar Travel will be possible in 387 years, 8 months, 21 days, 12 hours, 37 minutes and 12 seconds

 

[IEC]

Cryogenic freezing will probably come first... sleeper ships are the only near-term feasible way to send colonists.

 

[DigDug]

Nope, we never will. The pace of scientific progress, while amazing, seems to lead to an invincibility complex. That is, we assume that anything we have once thought of will eventually be done. Sorry, you star trek nerds - it ain't gonna happen.

 

[datalink7]

I believe so, but probably it will be some weird way like folding space as opposed to straight travel.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: Falloutboy
I bet we will but it will be in the form of sleeper ships or multi-generational ships. unless thier is some huge leap in are understanding of phsyics I don't see us going around the universe at anywhere close to the speed of light in the next 100-200 years

Our advances in physics have become greater and greater in a relatively short period of time, all things considered. In the last 100 years we've discovered more than in the last 1000, and in the last 50 we've discovered even more, in the last 10 even more, comparatively. I would say in 100 years more we'll have *significant* advances in physics, which will make near-light speed travel almost attainable.

 

[bootymac]

I think EVENTUALLY it'll happen, probably not any time soon tho

 

[KLin]

that guy from CDW needs to hurry up and get that worm hole equipment invented.

 

[BW86]

Originally posted by: KLin
that guy from CDW needs to hurry up and get that worm hole equipment invented.

wierd, that commercial was just on

 

[coder1]

I really think that unless we can manupulate space-time (Warp, Worm hole, <<Insert other Star Trek phrase>>) we will not be running into the Enterprise any time soon.

 

[ScoobMaster]

Even if we could propel a craft at speeds approaching light speed, the distances between solar systems and galaxies are SO VAST that it would take generations to reach them.

It is truly humbling and mind-boggling at how HUGE and vastly empty the universe is!

(as a side note - is anyone else excited about the current NASA mission to land a probe on Titan in December!?)

 

[olds]

It's already here. There is no effing way I am from this planet.

 

[BlamoHammer]

Damn it, why can't the Borg just attempt tp come back and destroy us all. Then we can have Geordi help us!

 

[flxnimprtmscl]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
It's already here. There is no effing way I am from this planet.

werd.

 

[LordNoob]

I don't know anything about interstellar travel but my thought is that if any sort of human space travel is ever going to become popular, we will need two things first: 1) a relatively cheap, reliable, and safe way of getting people/supplies from Earth's surface through the atmosphere and then to some sort of orbiting space station. 2) Some sort of space station/docking station that is functionally capable of assembling/maintaining/launching spacecraft not to mention capable of housing humans. The international space station is a good experiment in my opinion, but it seems like the U.S. is really pulling away from this sort of thing. On the other hand, I draw most of my space travel knowledge from reading science fiction so who knows. It just seems like surface based space stations would require spacecraft that are both capable of exiting earth's atmosphere and capable of interplanetary travel- something that would likely require two propulsion systems, right?

Cliff Notes:
1) we need to be able to easily reach earth orbit
2) we need some sort of advanced space station/docking station

 

[coder1]

Why do we need Geordi, I can already tell you just reverse the polarity and the cube will self destruct

 

[SagaLore]

We won't accomplish it the conventional way.

As soon as we figure out how to manipulate gravity, that is the key to faster than light propulsion. The laws of physics are all relative - if we generate a gravity field differential around a ship, we can create a perpetual worm hole - the ship itself will never be traveling very fast, but the spacetime around it will.

 

[DaveSimmons]

We can certainly colonize this galaxy if we really want to, using cold sleep, generation ships, or artificial birth from stored genetic material. That's all one-way travel though, taking years, decades, or even centuries.

 

[MithShrike]

I say we do great big colony ships that can wander like crazy. Near-perfect environmental recycling technology will be needed. It'd be pretty cool to see the human form adapted to microgravity.

 

[ScoobMaster]

Here OP:

The NASA interplanetary travel planner

neat Flash program that compares modes of travel off the earth

 

[So]

The real question is, will we find a way to do FTL (faster than light) travel? If not, than the only reasonable hope for going farther than alpha centauri is a sleeper/multi generational type ship, and even then, the people who leave will really not be in contact with the rest of us.

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: Mith
I say we do great big colony ships that can wander like crazy. Near-perfect environmental recycling technology will be needed. It'd be pretty cool to see the human form adapted to microgravity.

We can't. Our bones would fade to nothing. The only reason our bones are as strong as they are is to hold up our body from gravity. I read that astronauts returning to earth had a serious lost in bone strength, and these are short visits to space. We would need to implement artificial gravity before any long journeys in space.