I thought this would make for an interesting discussion, especially on a scifi writer's forum. I like to imagine that in the future, we'll get to the point as a race where we find ways of traveling through the galaxy and colonizing new worlds. I'm an optimist, to quote Steven Hawking, but maybe that's not being realistic.
What do you guys think? What's the next step for us and do you think we'll ever leave this planet? Technology is evolving rapidly, but is it heading in the right direction? China started up their own space program a few years back and they're trying to make their own space station, which could put us in another space race, and that could kickstart us back into the direction we need to head.
Personally, I hope we make the leap, and I hope it doesn't take another fifty years. It was so long ago that we went to the moon. When we got there, we just kind of stopped and gave up, as if that was the end of the line. Can you imagine where we would be if we had kept going with that same momentum?
Posted by adenam (Member # 11902) on :
There's lots to explore still in our solar system. I'm eager to see humans set foot on Mars and Pluto.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Can you imagine where we would be if we had kept going with that same momentum?
The poorhouse?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I've read too much near-future sci-fi to not want us to eventually colonize the Moon and Mars and keep pushing further. I'm still like a little kid when it comes to the prospect of solar system exploration. The grown-up part of me knows that we have plenty of problems to be solved on our own planet, but I do still hope that somehow we'll be selfish and disregard that and go back to space anyway.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Can you imagine where we would be if we had kept going with that same momentum?
The poorhouse?
As opposed to right now? Three wars have bled our economy dry. If you ask me, scientific endevours might hurt our pockets in the short run, but long term you can't argue that the results would probably do much more for us than what we're doing right now.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:As opposed to right now?
Yes. Very much so.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:As opposed to right now?
Yes. Very much so.
Actually seeing as how NASA gets barely any money and a much larger amount of our taxes go into the military and foreign affairs, I seriously doubt the validity of what you're saying.
Facts:
-NASA receives less than half of a percent of the annual US budget. In dollars, that's 15 billion dollars a year on average.
-The military's budget has gone up considerably over the past decade, so much so that annually, we are spending roughly 1-1.5 Trillion dollars. The more we continue to spread out our forces, the more we end up spending.
It seems to me that the difference is fairly obvious. If we had invested our funds in science and space, we probably would have something to show for our cashflow. As it stands, right now, all we have are three wars and a broken economy.
I know several people who work at NASA and they are doing much more than simply trying to land on other planets. There's a project entirely concerned with the weather where hundreds of satelites are being used to predict massive storms and tsunamis that could save millions of lives. They're looking at trying to get to Mars, of course, but also asteroids and the moon. They hope to harvest valuable resources from them that would be otherwise difficult to obtain on the Earth. Their only complaint is that they don't have the resources they need to get the job done faster. Why? Because people can't look more than ten years into the future.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Can you imagine where we would be if we had kept going with that same momentum?
The poorhouse?
...
Posted by shadowland (Member # 12366) on :
I think the only way that space travel will become feasible is through a completely unexpected breakthrough technology, in which case the technology could be stumbled upon ten years from now or 500 years from now.
Posted by Happy Camper (Member # 5076) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Can you imagine where we would be if we had kept going with that same momentum?
In all honesty the "dont spend money on space exploration when we have so much more to spend it on earth" are fairly ridiculous; there's decreasing suck and increasing awesome. Space exploration increases awesome.
We could with entirely off the shelf technologies, half of them 40 years old get to Mars and begin terraforming it RIGHT NOW and get it all started with 60 billion$, thats a drop in the bucket for the US, Russia or China.
Mars Direct people, get it started.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Actually seeing as how NASA gets barely any money and a much larger amount of our taxes go into the military and foreign affairs, I seriously doubt the validity of what you're saying.
I don't see what that has to do with what I said, which is that that there's no way we could have afforded to keep spending money on the space program for the last fifty years like we did during the Apollo program.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Sure we could've.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
I'm not trying to dismiss your idea completely, because we certainly spent money on it, but it wasn't nearly as much as what we've spent on the military or how much we're even spending on the program right now.
quote:After the last lunar landing, total funding for the Apollo program was about $19,408,134,000. The budget allocation was 34 percent of the NASA budget.
That's 13 years of missions and research which accumulated to just over 19 billion. After altering those numbers for inflation, it comes out to the same average we're using right now, which is about 15 billion dollars a year. So again, I am going to have to diagree with you.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I don't know why you think that Porter. Nasa's budget peaked at 4.5% of the federal budget, whereas the military looks to be around 19%.
If we'd made less nukes and less fighter jets, we could have easily afforded it.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Interesting. It's not the first time I've been wrong today. Maybe it will be the last.
On a related note, I had an engineering professor say that it would be impossible for us to send a man to the moon today. (Well, actually, this was 15 years ago. But still.)
His argument was that as a nation, we are far less tolerant of risk and death than we were then, and now require that manned space flight be much safer than it was during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo missions. (the Challenger explosion notwithstanding). Given the exponential costs of lifting heavier and heavier payloads, among other engineering factors, he was of the opinion that the United States, even if it bent its whole economy to the task, would not be able to afford what it would take to safely send astronauts back to the moon.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Your professor was half right, at least as far as NASA's reasoning goes. Granted, he told you that 15 years ago, so maybe things have changed, but here is what I've been told by my associates at NASA regarding the moon.
The reason we haven't been back yet is simply because the technology we used 50 years ago no longer exists. The computers and equipment we had back then aren't being manufactured anymore. As a result, we're now left with rebuilding everything from scratch, and that's the major hold up. If we had continued on the momentum we originally had when we went to the Moon, we would have kept going back and we'd probably be doing other interesting things by this point. However, interest died down and the technology got phased out while NASA focused its resources on other endevours, not bothering to keep up with their research. You can thank the leaps in computer technology for that.
Project Constellation was supposed to get us back to the moon (this was abandoned recently), but because it was taking so long and because commercial companies like Virgin were working on it, too, NASA decided to sidestep that mission and focus on going to Mars and asteroids, so now we have an entirely different goal.
Time will tell if we reach that goal, however, but who knows when that will be.
Posted by shadowland (Member # 12366) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: If we had continued on the momentum we originally had when we went to the Moon, we would have kept going back and we'd probably be doing other interesting things by this point.
I think the technology that will allow us to colonize the planets within our solar system will be different than the technology that takes us to other solar systems, in the same way that the technology that I use to travel through town is different than the technology that I use to travel to different countries. Continuing the momentum we originally had would have taken us to other nearby planets, but I don't think it would have taken us to other solar systems, let alone galaxies. For that to happen, some revolutionary concept will need to be discovered (or maybe it has and we just haven't realized the magnitude of it yet). This is why I think we need to continue the funding of these types of things; we never know when we will stumble upon The Next Big Thing. But I don't think that investing heavily into one specific area will be what causes us to discover the key to interstellar travel.
Posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan (Member # 5626) on :
Project Constellation was cancelled by the Obama administration and Congress, not NASA. And we're not going to make it to Mars or any asteroids any time soon with the funding problems NASA is experiencing right now.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Can we get more people to agree to tax the rich more if we include budgetary salvation for NASA in the plan? What's that even called, Appeal To Spacenerdery? Whatever, can we do that?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I doubt it.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Oh well.
*watches another wing of his neighborhood school rot and collapse*
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
All though, if you wanted to give some voluntary taxes of your own to NASA, I'll bet something could be arranged...
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan: Project Constellation was cancelled by the Obama administration and Congress, not NASA. And we're not going to make it to Mars or any asteroids any time soon with the funding problems NASA is experiencing right now.
That's true, actually. I didn't want to get into the details about it, but yes, that is what happened. Obama's admin actually wanted to do more than just cancel the project, however. Luckily they were able to agree on a new direction for NASA.
Does anyone know the projected time they're hoping to get to Mars by? I know there's a plan but I can't remember what it is.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I know there's a plan but I can't remember what it is.
Hitching a ride with the Chinese? Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
You know, it's funny you should say that. The Chinese actually wanted to join our joint mission and be a part of what we're doing in space, but we turned them down. They were all like "Fine, be that way. We'll do it all by ourselves!" And now they are! Just goes to show you don't turn down free help. Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Originally posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan: Project Constellation was cancelled by the Obama administration and Congress, not NASA. And we're not going to make it to Mars or any asteroids any time soon with the funding problems NASA is experiencing right now.
That's true, actually. I didn't want to get into the details about it, but yes, that is what happened. Obama's admin actually wanted to do more than just cancel the project, however. Luckily they were able to agree on a new direction for NASA.
Does anyone know the projected time they're hoping to get to Mars by? I know there's a plan but I can't remember what it is.
Mars Direct Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I'm hoping an entrepreneur would make a prison and a retirement home on the moon.
The prison because how could you escape?
The retirement home because low gravity adds years to your life. (eta) Makes blood flow easier, makes mobility super easy even for those who couldn't walk in earth normal grav, etc.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I'm hoping an entrepreneur would make a prison and a retirement home on the moon.
The prison because how could you escape?
The retirement home because low gravity adds years to your life. (eta) Makes blood flow easier, makes mobility super easy even for those who couldn't walk in earth normal grav, etc.
I wonder how many people would commit a crime just to get sent to the moon. I think I would.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Hell yeah, me too. That would be the best prison sentence ever! Or the best retirement ever. Either way, really.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:I wonder how many people would commit a crime just to get sent to the moon. I think I would.
I had honestly never thought of that! LoL
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
As far as deep space travel is concerned, I do not see anyone doing this until one of two things happen:
1) Some sort of suspended animation or stasis technology is created so people do not age during a trip that would take thousands upon thousands of years.
2) FTL drives are invented.
I'd say #1 is more likely to happen, but who knows. For all we know they could be testing out an FTL drive in Area 51 as we speak.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Area 51 is where the government delivers the gold bribe to keep the aliens off our world...pfft, everyone knows that!
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Geraine, what about relativistic space travel? It might still be hard, because of the humongous energy levels involved, but it's certainly a heck of a lot easier than FTL travel. Considering FTL is in all likelihood impossible.
Btw, people, does anyone have a decent calculation for the actual energy to get a fairly large spaceship to relativistic speeds? I know it's a lot, but I can't remember just how much.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Btw, people, does anyone have a decent calculation for the actual energy to get a fairly large spaceship to relativistic speeds?
A ballpark for the energy is, about as much as the energy contained in its rest mass (mc^2). Fuel-wise, it would depend a lot on how powerful the thruster is.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I always felt like, much as was depicted in OSC's Worthing Saga, if stasis technology was invented it would have much more use planet side than for long-distance travel. Not that this changes your point just a thought. Though it's hardly inconsistent with NASA's history to think what they develop for space travel becomes directly or indirectly a part of everyday technology.
Hobbes Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
the 9th or 11th generation magnetoplasmic high velocity high impulse drives of the future could realistically attain those speeds with a few generations later fusion drives. (The key is to use early fusion for easier stuff like tritium to help fuse stuff like argon-krypton reactions and lithium)
Posted by cloark (Member # 12400) on :
Some fun space-travel related ballpark numbers to think about:
Time to get pretty close to light speed accelerating at 1g: 1 year.
Distance traveled during acceleration: 0.5 light years. (This is 800 times further than the distance to Pluto.)
Energy required to get a 1000kg automobile close to light speed: 9e19 J. (From Destineer's post.)
Gallons of gasoline my car would have to burn: 2.5e13 (mileage may vary) (this is about 3 times the volume of Lake Mead, when full)
Price for said gasoline: $100,000,000,000,000
And that completely ignores the fact that you'd have to be carrying along all that fuel. Maybe if we had near constant in-flight refueling for the full 2.8 trillion mile trip . . . .
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Gas is fairly inefficient and artificially expensive; while fusion motors could be fairly dense, and much cheaper and in some cases the fuel could be acquired during the trip.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Even better, use a mechanism that doesn't require bringing the fuel with you or stopping to get it along the way.
Or one that's relatively efficient, like atomic bombs.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Even better, use a mechanism that doesn't require bringing the fuel with you or stopping to get it along the way.
So, magic?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Ramjet propulsion? You should do som research before snarking.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I've been trying to do som research, but just haven't figured out how.
But yeah, I didn't think of that.
Posted by Nighthawk (Member # 4176) on :
I think we stand a better chance of doing it sooner with magic, to be honest.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Magic always wins. It's why we won WW2 and how I got my mounted and domesticated T-Rex named Truffles. It just works.
Now then, Truffles demands a sacrifice. I must depart for more fairy blood!
Posted by aeolusdallas (Member # 11455) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Can you imagine where we would be if we had kept going with that same momentum?
The poorhouse?
You do know that money spent on the space program isn't actually spent IN space, right? It's from an economic point of view similar to military spending or public works programs.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Space funding I'm sure does give us some return though, I would consider it closer to more akin to science funding.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I could have sworn that NASA made the country money with it's patents like velcro...but I couldn't find a source, so I can't say that with any authority.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I could have sworn that NASA made the country money with it's patents like velcro...but I couldn't find a source, so I can't say that with any authority.
Don't forget Tang.
NEVER forget Tang...
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I think coming up with some sort of stasis technology would benefit those traveling as well as those that stay on Earth.
FTL or Relativistic travel technology would benefit us in other ways. High speed travel would benefit us with resources.
I will say though that if the government ever puts out a call for colonists to go to another world, I'm signing up the first chance I get. I suppose I'll see some of you on the ship
While FTL travel is probably impossible, I wouldn't rule it out. We've recently discovered the laws of physics may change in different parts of the universe, and we thought that was impossible as well.
Ramjet and light sail are the two most feasible options. Wikipedia has a cursory survey.
While improvements in propulsion would be great, the biggest thing getting us to the far stars will be incremental improvements in keeping small groups of people alive for generations with access to basically no resources but what they bring with them and the energy they can harvest from starlight (and to the near stars, there would be considerable light the whole way, initially from the sun, later from both, and finally from the target).
We could probably fly a generation ship to Alpha Centauri, with people on board, in something like 400 or 500 years (less on board, though not a huge amount). That's a heck of a long time, but I feel doable. Early groups of humans often migrated over similar time frames, almost as alone.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Ramjet and light sail are the two most feasible options.
Fair enough.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
fugi13...that sounds exactly like Orphans of the sky by Heinlein.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: We could probably fly a generation ship to Alpha Centauri, with people on board, in something like 400 or 500 years (less on board, though not a huge amount). That's a heck of a long time, but I feel doable. Early groups of humans often migrated over similar time frames, almost as alone.
There'd be no reason to go to Alpha Centauri though, since it doesn't have any habitable worlds. We could always terraform, I suppose, but are there even any planets in that buffer "life" zone?
I say we just do what they did in that old video game from Bungie, the makers of Halo (I think the older game was called Marathon), and hollow out one of Mars' moons and turn it into a spaceship! Then we can just send it off to some distant world and forget about it for 300 years. Completely silly and non-sensical...or best idea ever? I think we all know the answer to that.
Now hurry up and get your drills! I'll meet you in space, Bruce Willis style.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The odds of finding any actually habitable worlds around even a planet with possibly habitable worlds is very low, and basically zero for any system within striking distance. While I think it'd be great if we could find habitable worlds, in the "short term" (the next few thousand years), I think the best bet is developing the technology and aiming for space colonies in nearby, resource rich systems (which Alpha Centauri is likely to be).
Terraforming as a practical endeavor, at least with the materiel that could be brought interstellar (within our solar system's a bit different) and the time frames we'd like (less than thousands of years), is far further out scientifically than traveling to other star systems is.
Stone_Wolf: yep, generation ships have been a common theme in science fiction many times.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Actually there's been quite some evidence I've read that NASA might be rethinking how rare habitable worlds might be. They might be alot more common than we gave credit for.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
And understandably so, we can only make an educated guess on the matter. A constantly updating educated guess it may be, but we can never make a declaration of fact until we put hardware on the ground and retrieve the information.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Actually there's been quite some evidence I've read that NASA might be rethinking how rare habitable worlds might be. They might be alot more common than we gave credit for.
Quite a bit more common, definitely. However, the definition of being habitable in that case isn't the same as "habitable by people who arrived in a generation ship using what they've brought and can create with what's on hand". Also, quite a bit more common is a long, long way from "above a tiny tiny percentage chance for any world in feasible range".
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Why do they think they're more common? I mean, in order to make that kind of hypothesis, wouldn't there have to be other habitable worlds to use for comparison, instead of just this one? I have to wonder about how this convorsation went at NASA when they figured this out...
Scientist 1 (henceforth known as Bob): Man, so we've been at this for a while now and still haven't found any new Earths.
Scientist 2 (henceforth known as Pac-Man): Yeah that sucks.
Bob: Hey, I have an idea! What if there are more habitable planets than we first thought? Think about it! It would be like Star Trek. We could both get hot green girlfriends!
Pac-Man: Or maybe other Earths are just super rare. You know, like what the evidence points to.
Bob: That's stupid. You're stupid!
Pac-Man: But what about the Drake Equation?
Bob: Equation? Drake? This isn't Uncharted! I beat that game last night! Besides, we're scientists, not math teachers. Don't you know anything?
Pac-Man: My God, you're right!
Bob: Hells yeah I am! There's a reason they put me in charge of the department, you know. I make shit happen.
Pac-Man: Word.
j/k
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
I vote that Jeff gets to stay.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: I'm an optimist, to quote Steven Hawking
:squick:
Just a nitpick really... Stephen Hawking is an avowed *positivist*. He is not an optimist, per se- at least not an avowed one.
Positivism is a perspective and approach to science, and is nothing to do with optimism.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:Actually seeing as how NASA gets barely any money and a much larger amount of our taxes go into the military and foreign affairs, I seriously doubt the validity of what you're saying.
I don't see what that has to do with what I said, which is that that there's no way we could have afforded to keep spending money on the space program for the last fifty years like we did during the Apollo program.
The Apollo program, as far as I have gathered, was a *profitable* venture, when the value of technological advances related to the project are factored in. The economic benefit of the investment (roughly $25 billion), has been staggering over the past 5 decades. There is virtually no industry that has developed in the last half century that doesn't owe at least part of its growth to NASA spending.
Critics of NASA are so often short sighted critics of (admittedly real) wasteful spending, who refuse to see the full picture of what state sponsored R&D can do. Because there is no other sector of the economy, no private enterprise, prepared to invest a hundred billion dollars in a venture that has no profit motive.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Even if there's no other gain, I tend to think the continued survival and propagation of our species is a pretty profitable venture. When did we as a people lose the ability to aim for long term results? I wonder what our generation's response would be to, say, the Marshall Plan.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: I vote that Jeff gets to stay.
I second that!
quote:Even if there's no other gain, I tend to think the continued survival and propagation of our species is a pretty profitable venture. When did we as a people lose the ability to aim for long term results? I wonder what our generation's response would be to, say, the Marshall Plan
Funny you mention this line of thought, because I've noticed that America doesn't really think long term at all. It's actually a bit of a foreign concept for us. We make investments and expect results in under 5 years.
Japan is a great example of the total opposite. Many companies over there plan things out and make investments that affect future generations rather than just the current one. It's a completely different way of viewing the world and the way business is done.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Patience is not an American virtue.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Japan is a great example of the total opposite. Many companies over there plan things out and make investments that affect future generations rather than just the current one. It's a completely different way of viewing the world and the way business is done.
Japan's debt is 2.5 to 4 times the US as a percentage of GDP (depending on counting methodology) -- and they don't have being a world superpower involved in multiple wars as an excuse. They pour huge amounts into wasteful construction projects to buy out political constituencies. If Japan has much of an aptitude at planning for the future, they're doing an awfully good job of hiding it.
And there are plenty of US companies looking far more than five years out. There are multiple US based aerospace (emphasis on space) companies basing their business on space launches anticipated decades in the future. US companies sink huge amounts of money into future research programs that only pay out after over a decade or more of work. Venture capital firms frequently sink hundreds of millions into companies that aren't expected to even turn a small profit until more than five years in the future.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Now fugu, that is just depressing. 4 times our debt? Are you sure about that? I mean, we have 15 trillion dollars of it, and even double it's still hard to imagine. Of course, if your numbers are recent and reflect the insane natural disaster they recently experienced (and the nuclear facility that was directly affected), I can imagine it being possible. Still, that's a lot of money.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Jeff...he said...
quote:Japan's debt is 2.5 to 4 times the US as a percentage of GDP...
So, it is only compared to their gross domestic product...prolly not compared to our total.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Somebody Will, a song about space travel, and any project that people dedicate themselves to, knowing they will not see its completion.
The singers are not really at a professional level, but I love the lyrics.
[ June 14, 2011, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Jeff...he said...
quote:Japan's debt is 2.5 to 4 times the US as a percentage of GDP...
So, it is only compared to their gross domestic product...prolly not compared to our total.
Ah ok. My bad then Posted by Sa'eed (Member # 12368) on :
I actually get somewhat scared when I think of this question due to the likely possibility that, as gigantic as the universe is, we will always be limited to this planet due to the laws of the universe. That is, it'll always be unfeasible to visit other star systems or to even establish human life elsewhere in this solar system. This planet is all we might ever know and we're screwing it up.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
It's not impossible, Sa'eed, just improbable that we'll do it in the near future. Humanity is just too limited right now to acheive that kind of travel, but they used to say the same thing about going to the moon, as well as a whole slew of other things we eventually acheived. Just give it a few more centuries Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I think interstellar travel is possible. I do not think it will necessarily ever be an economically useful way to deal with the limited resources on our planet (in particular, ones that make it a nicer place to live than a sealed biodome)
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
On paper, the technology already exists for relatively cheap interplanetary travel and possibly even to get up to low relativistic speeds. In fact, it has been around since about 1947. Just one problem, it's illegal. Check out Project Orion and nuclear pulse propulsion.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Yeah! I remember that concept. Nuclear powered propulsion. The only reason it's illegal is because the UN decided against detonating nukes in the atmosphere, which it technically does...
They are supposedly working on a new way to use this technology that would get around this law. I don't know the details though.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No need to detonate nukes in atmosphere, just launch from space. And Project Orion is probably infeasible as primary propulsion for anything beyond travel in the solar system (though it'd be great for that), because even with its extreme efficiency, the amount of fuel to be carried is just too huge.
Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
I believe one of the SALT treaties also banned space based nuclear weapons, banning one being built and launched in orbit as well.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
And it's not as shortsighted as you might think. The speeds that one of these vehicles could achieve could cause it to wipe out all life on Earth if it were turned against the planet.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Screw the risks! I say we do it so I can go to Mars before I die Posted by Wingracer (Member # 12293) on :
I never said it was shortsighted. Merely pointing out that we had the technology decades ago, but just weren't allowed to use it.
Being in the racing business, I run across this sort of thing all the time. People like to say things like "we put a man on the moon but can't make brakes that last a race at Martinsville." The truth is, we CAN. The technology exists but is banned by the organizing body. We all have rules to follow, even NASA.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I think FTL Travel will one day be possible, obviously in a way consistent with our current understanding of physics.
I think magnetic plasmic propulsion is pretty feasible for interplanetary space travel a few generations later, fusion engines according to the calculations I have access to can reach 1-2g acceleration and make a 2 day trip to mars with only fuel taking up 5% of the mass of the ship.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"I think FTL Travel will one day be possible, obviously in a way consistent with our current understanding of physics."
I'm curious which way that would be...
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:obviously in a way consistent with our current understanding of physics.
Less than obviously, because there aren't any feasible ways for that to happen that I'm aware of absent the expenditure of amounts of energy on scales like the total output of the sun for a long period.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Even that would only, what, get us close to the speed of light? I mean, you can't just brute force it, after all.
Heck, in a location where the speed of light is lower than it is in a vacuum, going faster than that speed only causes you to bleed energy until you go slower than that place's speed of light, from what I've read...
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Even that would only, what, get us close to the speed of light? I mean, you can't just brute force it, after all.
That's for holding open a wormhole.
quote:Heck, in a location where the speed of light is lower than it is in a vacuum, going faster than that speed only causes you to bleed energy until you go slower than that place's speed of light, from what I've read...
Yes, it's called friction . The speed of light is slower in various materials because the light is being absorbed and then emitted from atom to atom.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Look, it's really quite simple, people.
All we have to do is open a trans-dimensional gateway so that we can "slide" into an alternate reality where this other universe is actually smaller. Then we just spend a few hours in there heading to wherever we're going, and the "slide" right back out. Then viola! We've just traveled 23000 light years in two hours. No explanation required!
Or
We do the KAPAX solution. Just wait for a beam of light and "catch" it and hold onto it until we get to our destination. Light would become the new public transportation system! I'd like a ticket for 1, please.
Or
We do the Event Horizon solution. Bend space like a piece of paper so that we can just pop up on the other side. Because going in a straight line is boring and for losers.
Or
We create a giant system of "Gates" we can use to travel through wormholes from system to system. Since we probably won't have the tech to build them anytime soon, we'll have to randomly discover them in Egypt. I'm sure nothing bad will come of this.
Or
We just ignore the laws of physics and do it anyway. Because laws were made to be broken, and screw physics and all that other crap. Star Trek had the right idea all along.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: "I think FTL Travel will one day be possible, obviously in a way consistent with our current understanding of physics."
I'm curious which way that would be...
Miguelle Alcubieres Warp Drive is actually an example of ftl travel being possible under our current understanding of physics but engineeringly prohibitive, its obviously the case that ANY revolutionary breakthrough that would allow for FTL travel would have to still conform to our current understanding of physics that has been experimentally proven to be true.
Luckily we're not limited to traveling faster I'll paraphrase Asimov.
quote: Suppose you are a traveller trying to reach point B from point A through a valley of dense foliage and that this trip will take no shorter than three days. That is three days of travel no matter how much effort or energy one puts into traveling through this valley [analogy to the lightspeed limit - Blayne].
However, what if we are clever? And instead of traveling on foot which we know to be impossible to ever travel to the other side of the valley in under three days decide to undertake the same journey in an hot air balloon? We are still under the same rules as before, but through our "shortcut" have found an ingenius solution to the "speed limit" we can travel to traverse the valley.
Essentially the solution is obviously not traveling via acceleration but to find a shortcut, a loophole, that allows for something akin to Ftl travel while not breaking the laws of physics.
Now I'm not saying Alcubierres drive is the solution, even further refinements to it haven't really made the issue any more insourmountable to our current understanding of engineering the principle is clear. There ARE ways to travel FTL, we just need to keep searching.
When I say "travel faster" I do not say accelerate, which physics say is impossible, I mean "find a shortcut".
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Blayne, did you even read my post? I gave you like five examples of shortcuts. I mean, honestly, if none of those work for you then you are just asking the impossible.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Miguelle Alcubieres Warp Drive is actually an example of ftl travel being possible under our current understanding of physics
No more accurate than the last time you claimed this.
Does the word "speculative" mean anything to you?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:Miguelle Alcubieres Warp Drive is actually an example of ftl travel being possible under our current understanding of physics but engineeringly prohibitive, its obviously the case that ANY revolutionary breakthrough that would allow for FTL travel would have to still conform to our current understanding of physics that has been experimentally proven to be true.
Except for all the parts that, as far as we know, aren't possible. Like entering and leaving the bubble, which is the most essential part (assuming we can find one within range, since creating one is even far out of the range of possibility with current theories).
quote:Essentially the solution is obviously not traveling via acceleration but to find a shortcut, a loophole, that allows for something akin to Ftl travel while not breaking the laws of physics.
Take a look at the estimates of the energy involved, then take a look at my post again.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: Blayne, did you even read my post? I gave you like five examples of shortcuts. I mean, honestly, if none of those work for you then you are just asking the impossible.
Find me some physics papers that explicitly say they're possible.
quote: Take a look at the estimates of the energy involved, then take a look at my post again.
You miss the point, the point is FTL travel in theory is plausible, we just need to find something convenient.
quote: No more accurate than the last time you claimed this.
Does the word "speculative" mean anything to you?
I'm going to go with the theoretical physicist on this on instead of random forum poster.
Also we're Kardeshev 0 on the scale of civilization advancement, go up a few levels and we might meet the energy requirements.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
quote:You miss the point, the point is FTL travel in theory is plausible, we just need to find something convenient.
But all the theoretically plausible methods are necessarily inconvenient, and extremely so. That it would be theoretically possible to make an unbroken human chain around the world touching hands, including in the oceans, does not mean it can ever happen, and that is orders of magnitude more easy than FTL travel under our current physical understanding.
Physics might definitely come up with some means of practical FTL travel eventually; I hope so. But it will be new physics.
quote:I'm going to go with the theoretical physicist on this on instead of random forum poster.
I'm fairly certain you're not reading the theoretical physicist right. I bet you the theoretical physicist is talking about something that gets around some of the biggest restrictions in physics (reaching the speed of light in a vacuum), but is still not possible in our current understanding of physics. That's called speculation about possible future advances in physics, not outlining a situation that's theoretically possible today.
quote:Also we're Kardeshev 0 on the scale of civilization advancement, go up a few levels and we might meet the energy requirements.
I don't think you understand the scales of energy being discussed. To even have a chance of harnessing the amounts of energy under consideration, we'd need something like a Dyson sphere.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I'm going to go with the theoretical physicist on this on instead of random forum poster.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
My theoretical physicist can beat up you theoretical physicist.
Literally.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
My theoretical physicist can beat up you theoretical physicist.
Theoretically.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
:lol:
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Look, All you have to do is make yourself BIGGER. E.g., the time it takes for an ant to cross a football field vs. a 18 year-old running back pumped full of steroids.
If the ant were BIGGER, say as big as the entire field, then its relative speed (in terms of getting from some point (a) to point (b) would be, well, instantaneous--seeing as its already everywhere (relative to the football field)etc.
Now, extrapolate this notion of "change of scale" to our most human of conditions...and you can imagine (I hope) that it is, in fact, the "scale" of this very imagination (in question) that is the important variable. The trip across the universe is an imaginative act, both in the lab and under the covers.
I've seen some of you, if ever so briefly, standing there on the 23rd moon of Alpha Centuri. The ships will get there,
eventually.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Thread won by deerpark.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Find me some physics papers that explicitly say they're possible.
*smacks forehead*
It was a joke, Blayne. All of them were.
Except for the one where I said we'd have to find stargates in the middle of Egypt and use them to travel throughout the Galaxy. That one was totally real!
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I'm going to go with the theoretical physicist on this on instead of random forum poster.
Seriously.
I've decided this (well some variation on it) will be my default post whenever I reach an impass with Blayne on China/Communism/Russia/US/Anime/etc.
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)