Space travel is a dream…no..myth! Impossible!

[knockoutjams]

Space travel is a dream…no..myth!

For some time now, we are all fascinated by the aspect of aliens and space travel. I for one think that the human race just hasn’t evolved enough to grasp the technology that may be required to make space travel a reality.

I even doubt the planet earth will still be surviving by the time we are evolved enough to harness the full potential of our brains considering we are so primitive in space technology that we have nearly been annihilated a couple of times in the past three centuries without even knowing it. Yep, one day you might have woken up and seen a fiery ball of rock a second before you saw blackness…and yep, not even the NASA dudes noticed that a comet the size of California was headed our way.

So, considering we are still dumb, I think that the earth will be destroyed even before we get to be bright enough to have at least a 3 month warning of an ELE.

What do you think? Is there any way in which I am wrong or misguided or ignorant of some form of technology through which space travel is possible?

Why do you think that space travel is some how possible? Where would we be travelling to? How long would a trip take? The way things look now, our speed of travel in space is so low, its laughable to even think of travelling to the end of our own galaxy.

If nothing else, its a comforting dream though.

[callumacrae]

I think it's stupid to look for other life anyway, it's a waste of money and chances are we'll fall out with them and they'll kill us all anyway.

I don't think it's about evolution any more. We've effectively stopped evolution. People who should die are surviving due to modern science, and people who should not have children are having children.

Computers are advancing so fast that one day they will be able to discover something. If you consider that 20 year ago computers had about as much computing power as a peanut, and scientists have predicted that by 2050 and £500 super-computer will be cleverer than the entire human race.

So unless something really bad happens, like the world ending in 2012 (lol!), or George Bush become president or something again, then I think we'll find something.

I don't think anything that bad is going to happen though

~Callum

[dojodesigns]

I think that humanity in general probably needs to conquer the problems they have on this home world (poverty, famine, strife, wars, racism) before even thinking about journeying to the stars. Do we really want our imperfections multiplied by the hundreds in other star systems? Also, would we want our first contact with some other sentient life to be someone with a flawed philosphy about their perspective of reality?

However, as far as once that gets done, I think it would be an incredible waste of space to continue to harbor humanity on this one insignificant little speck of dust and water we call Earth.

[fractalfeline]

I think the closest we'll get anytime soon to space travel is trying to invent Pod-Ships that can house a colony of settlers and be able to sustain them for the long distance travel it requires to get to a star system with a suitable planet to settle. That's gonna require artificial gravity technology, some sort of sustainable energy source, and a lot more research into hydroponics and long-term space health.

Hopefully with the push for alternative fuel sources and whatnot, we can figure an energy source that would be easy, such as an ethanol engine, for powering the Pod-Ships.

Once we figure out hydroponics, perhaps there can be a corn-growing lab in the Pod-Ship that provides food and ethanol energy to power the ship. Will it be enough though? I suppose all the human waste and whatnot will be recycled for use in growing the corn. Perhaps we'll have some sort of cow or chicken or pig population there too for meat purposes.

The artificial gravity is gonna be tricky. And likely very energy consuming if it is indeed possible. Unless we really think humans would tolerate bouncing around in zero gravity for multiple generations? How would people grow properly, get birthed, etc. in zero gravity? I have heard they're doing all sorts of experiments right now into the effects of zero-gravity on human health (as well as things like rat health lol). Unfortunately I don't know a whole lot about it :/

And how would you select people to act as settlers? Or guestimate the amount of time projected for being on the ship? Extra room for extra population as the settlers breed? How would the government on such a Pod-Ship run? Would they be even remotely answerable to Earth, officially or practically? What would happen to the society when it finally does land on a suitable planet? What if the destination planet is not actually suitable, how would they account for things like over-population and plotting a new course?

It helps that we don't even have very good ways of telling whether a candidate star has suitable planets or not. I'm no expert in astronomy though. Last I heard they could predict whether a star has a very large planet in close orbit by figuring out if there's a "gravity wobble." I suppose it would need more sensitive instruments to detect smaller planets at a suitable distance from the star that might be in a temperature range to sustain life. What goes into making such sensitive instruments though is beyond me

It's a long ways, but not theoretically impossible I think. But then again, we could have an apocalyptic type of war a la Fallout before we get even remotely close to developing the relevant technology.

[callumacrae]

Nah not a pod ship. You'll get sued by apple. They sued the video pod, tightpod, profit pod, and the pea growers.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3482

I wouldn't like to live on corn.

~Callum

[wolflock]

Less than 200 Years ago they believed that IF you could reach 80 km per hour, your heart would explode.

When the first cars came over the cobble stones, if you told someone that a hundred years from then There would be super highways with cars traveling at the speeds they do and that the super highways would be so clogged up with cars at certain times of the day, That it would take you ages to travel a little distance. They would have laughed at you, put you in a straitjacket and locked you away.

It was even a big name in computers (Cant remember who) that said, "I think that the market for computers in the world would be maybe 2." That is 2 IN THE WORLD!!! We have more than 2 per household.

More than 200 Years ago, If you spoke of flight (as in Airoplanes) you would have been accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.

Nothing is impossible, Just improbably.

Regards
Wolflock

[hot100]

Wolflock and Fractalfeline

You both definately have a point somewhere in there. Try this for size however..

The first problem would be the destination. Where would we be traveling to? We know so little of our own solar system. This is partly due to the fact that we lack the manpower and interest to investigate our solar system. Not until 1978 did we discover that Pluto has a moon. In fact a lot of astronomers still believe Pluto is not a planet but just the largest object in a zone of galactic debris known as the Kuiper Belt. We do not know how big Pluto is, what its atmosphere is like or what its made of. This is because most astronomers point their telescopes to far off stars in an attempt to discover more interesting phenomena like quasars and black holes. In short, our own solar system is too small or boring that astronomers no longer linger within its realms. Hence the ignorance about the possibility of space travel.

Do not let the fact that our solar system is too small fool you. Pluto is about 6 billion Kilometers away. Now, consider for the sake of amusement that there exists a space ship that could travel as fast as light. That is 300,000 km/s. It would take you 7 hours to get to Pluto. However, the current space ship speed is about 56,000 km/hr as recorded from Voyager 1. Do the math. 6 billion / 56,000. The result is the number of hours. Divide this by 24 to get the number of days and divide that result by 365 to get the number of years it would take you to reach Pluto if you were traveling away from Earth at 56, 000 km/hr. Pluto is just 1/50,000th of the way to the edge of our solar system.

After Pluto, the next thing out there is the Oort cloud. Its made up of a mass of billions of drifting comets. From Pluto it would take you 10,000 years to reach this cloud.

The distances are just too large that we cannot even comprehend just how far we are talking.
Pluto alone is 40 AU’s from us. AU – Astronomical Unit (the distance from the sun to earth). The center of the Oort cloud is 50,000 AU’s from us. It should be noted that due to the almost diminished gravitational pull of the sun at such distances, if a comet fell from the Oort cloud and started plunging its way towards the center of the solar system say specifically to crash into the Earth, it would take it at least 4,000,000 years to get here.

Now, in our galaxy, there are about 400 hundred billion other stars like the sun. The closest being the 3-star cluster known as Alpha Centauri which is 4.3 light years away. This distance alone is about 100 million times further than a trip to the moon. So, you multiply the time it takes you to reach the moon by 100 million and you shall be there.

We have been discussing only the distances in our solar system and galaxy. However, the total number of galaxies is estimated to be some where around 140 billion. Hence the question, with over 140 billion galaxies containing 400 billion suns with about 5 to 15 planets each, where would you go considering it would take you 10,000 years to travel only from Pluto to the Oort cloud in our own galaxy.

Space travel? I do not think so! Its not improbable but flat our impossible!

[knockoutjams]

[QUOTE=hot100;580565] We know so little of our own solar system. This is partly due to the fact that we lack the manpower and interest to investigate our solar system. Not until 1978 did we discover that Pluto has a moon. In fact a lot of astronomers still believe Pluto is not a planet but just the largest object in a zone of galactic debris known as the Kuiper Belt. We do not know how big Pluto is, what its atmosphere is like or what its made of. This is because most astronomers point their telescopes to far off stars in an attempt to discover more interesting phenomena like quasars and black holes. In short, our own solar system is too small or boring that astronomers no longer linger within its realms. Hence the ignorance about the possibility of space travel.[/QUOTE]


Exactly, we know so little about our own solar system. We know so little about the internal structure of our planet too. Some suggest that the interior is molten whilst others think it is solid. But who really knows? We havent been there yet.

Who among us knew that there are over ninety moons in our solar system? All of which have been discovered in the past 100 years.

Thanks for putting the issue of distance in perspective for us. The solar system is really an enourmous place. I do not think there is hope for humans ever reaching the edge of it.

[mac173]

The problems of space travel have been well researched. The International Space Station has been doing experiments for years, and the problems and difficulties in that project have taught us a lot about potential problems.

Hydroponics has already been developed well enough to sustain people in a closed system, and artificial gravity is a simple matter of spinning the ship.

hot100 hit the nail on the head. The problem is distance, and time. Theoretical work has been done on possible solutions to the speed of light problem (early work that will take decades to develop) and until it does we will be confined to the solar system.

We can only hope the comets and asteroids stay small.

[fractalfeline]

lol yeah the distances are quite large.

Perhaps we need to develop an engine that can go at a speed close to light speed? Hopefully, if relativistic calculations hold true, the actual occupants of the ship would not experience as much time on board as the people on Earth experience. Though I wonder a) how they'd actually invent such an engine and b) how would humans be able to survive the inertial shock of such a thing? I suppose speed up and slow down at a slow enough pace for humans to survive. How much is that anyhow? Another related point would be practical things like How much fuel would it take to reach such speeds?

I'm not one to think we'll figure out how to break the light-speed barrier. All I've heard in this regard is that the physics don't even know if it's possible. Wormholes? Would that work? How would we even remotely begin to build such technology to make things like wormhole travel feasible? Right now black holes sound like dangerous things to me.

I suppose it's time to take bets on the human race surviving long enough to develop feasible sublight engines and wormhole technology!

Another possibility is figuring out how to "terraform" Mars or the Moon. Good luck getting that going though. As someone said, we barely understand the climate and true nature of our own planet, let alone knowing enough to transform Mars (or the Moon) into a suitable climate for human survival. Taking bets on whether (assuming the humans survive long enough) terraforming or the engine will be developed first

Sigh, and I was getting all wistful for being one of those few on the first spaceship to Bold New Adventures and whatnot. Perhaps the general sentiment that we need to focus on sustaining life on the Earth as it is rather than worrying too much about space travel is a good one