Space Discussion Thread

[ThePhotonist]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

I have unusually high hopes for the future of manned spaceflight. There are actually some very interesting methods being explored right now that could attain faster than light travel, of course it will mean nothing unless we figure out how to do sustainable fusion or we will not be able to power any of these systems, but that's on it's way too. I certainly think that if anyone had the tech to go to another star it would be a world effort, it wouldn't just be one country, not something like that.

 

[Rivem]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Honestly I think if we can figure out what gravity is and reverse it then we have a chance for proper space travel. But that's just my opinion. We're too primitive for it right now and I don't expect us to mature enough within the next few centuries.

Knowing more about gravity is definitely a big deal. Not only could it provide thrust, it might hold the key to figuring out how to create warps.

I wouldn't hold my breath either though. We just found out that there are gravity waves (and probably particles). No idea how to make them artificially though.

 

[Razako]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Honestly I think if we can figure out what gravity is and reverse it then we have a chance for proper space travel. But that's just my opinion. We're too primitive for it right now and I don't expect us to mature enough within the next few centuries.

Isn't dark energy sort of the 'anti' force to gravity? It's what's accelerating the expansion of the universe in opposition to gravity.

 

[Rivem]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Isn't dark energy sort of the 'anti' force to gravity? It's what's accelerating the expansion of the universe in opposition to gravity.

That's what it looks a bit like, but there's not really any knowledge on how dark energy actually works to expand the universe or how we could even interact with it. Definitely something far from understandable for the time being.

 

[RedCowboy]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

The Gravity B project proved the fabric of space/time exists and gravity of large objects such as planets do warp space/time....so we know it is warpable.

Ironically the project ran short on funding and an Arab prince helped fund it....yes my mind was blown too.

Yes cold fusion will change many things, especially our petro dollar that's in trouble, did you notice the big fight between USA/OPEC and the Russia/China conglomerate? They are building a high speed rail from Beijing to Moscow and China bought 51% of Russia's oil fields, they run them and will be competitive in time.

Those low low gas prices were to make it unprofitable for China/Russia as our shale and fracking is cheap, Oh guess who is building a super collider 4 times the size of ours ....Yes China, if they get Cold fusion sustainable first the balance will tip and as they are now part of the international banking system and able to set prices we will watch China/Russia travel the stars, we will be broke, and in debt, possibly fighting the holy wars in our streets....it's like a bad B movie huh?

Chances are sustainable cold fusion will spread quickly, too many greedy spies will sell out, but our control of the oil/energy will be over, maybe we can hitch a ride like we do to the international space station.


p.s. The vast distances between Earth and anywhere is light years, alphacentauri is our closest neighbor and we will need to warp space/time to go anywhere...my question is, will warping space/time slow it's passage for only the space travelers, will they return in a month to an Earth 500 years older? Or is that only for high velocity time dilation where space is not warped with it?

We are just so very far away from anything, it's why we exist, the gamma ray busters are the great sterilizers and only our remote location between two of our galaxies spiral arms protects us.

We will need to control vast amounts of energy such as cold fusion and warp space time to go anywhere except Mars and it's not that special, if there's microbial life or not, is it 3 DNA strand life or like us, yes I want us to go, but to really get out there means we have to stop being here and start being there, we can't rocket there by burning matter and spewing expanding gasses, that's very limited, even the ion drive is too slow, we are talking years and years just to go next door. We must warp the fabric of space time.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Speaking of space. Has anyone else tried to take a quick peek at Mars tonight? I completely forgot about until about 10 mins ago when checking my astronomy application on my desktop!

If you didn't know. IIRC until May 30th, Mars will be at it's closest point to Earth in it's orbit. Which means it will be the biggest it can get! If you are trying to look for Mars, try looking toward the Southern Sky and find the Moon. From there, look up and to the right and you should see a bright looking dot. That's Mars! I think... lol

I snapped a picture with my iPhone. Not bad for an iPhone 6 to capture another planet :yh:

-Alex

 

[Rivem]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Speaking of space. Has anyone else tried to take a quick peek at Mars tonight? I completely forgot about until about 10 mins ago when checking my astronomy application on my desktop!

If you didn't know. IIRC until May 30th, Mars will be at it's closest point to Earth in it's orbit. Which means it will be the biggest it can get! If you are trying to look for Mars, try looking toward the Southern Sky and find the Moon. From there, look up and to the right and you should see a bright looking dot. That's Mars! I think... lol

I snapped a picture with my iPhone. Not bad for an iPhone 6 to capture another planet :yh:

-Alex

Just brought my telescope back in. Saw the ice caps, and it was great. I've been checking Mars out at least once every week though.

Especially good time to spot it though. It's very red and very bright due to opposition.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Just brought my telescope back in. Saw the ice caps, and it was great. I've been checking Mars out at least once every week though.

Especially good time to spot it though. It's very red and very bright due to opposition.

Sweet! Also, if you are daring, Saturn is right between Mars & the Moon :crackup: Can't pick that up without a telescope though haha!

I need to get myself one!

-Alex

 

[Rivem]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Sweet! Also, if you are daring, Saturn is right between Mars & the Moon :crackup: Can't pick that up without a telescope though haha!

I need to get myself one!

-Alex

If you're considering one, go to a local star party to try some out. (Good) Telescopes are unfortunately a way bigger money pit than lasers, so you'll definitely want to make a choice you'll be good with for a long time.

 

[Skans]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

No interstellar space travel for humans. Ever. Robotic ships, maybe but I doubt it. Why?
1. Too slow, even if large matter could miraculously approach the speed of light, which it can't....and won't.
2. Requires way, way way too much energy to do this in the span of a human lifetime.
3. "Warp speed" is Star Trek B.S.....might as well be called Bull-Crap speed, at least in this universe. "Bull-Crap factor 4, engage!"
4. Transporters - more complete B.S. Ain't ever going to happen. EVER! And, even it were possible, are you going to step into a machine that kills you by converting you into energy? You might as well let a Lion eat you, let it run 100 miles and then poop you out - there you go, you were just "transported" 100 miles - hope you enjoyed your trip!
5. And, let's say you survive "suspended animation" and make it to another nearby star. Then what? You find a few dead planets orbiting a star; decide to land on one. Oooops, don't have enough energy to get off the cold dead rock. You die. Or, perhaps you make it off the cold dead rock - Oooops, forgot, there isn't anyone to prep your body for suspended animation for the flight back to earth - you die. Or you just die one of a million other different ways.

Sorry to be such a crumudgeon. The laws of physics is why I don't believe we have ever been visited by an alien race. There are probably plenty of intelligent species out there....its just that I don't believe they are any better at breaking the laws of physics than we are.

 

[Pi R Squared]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

And have we already discovered everything there is to discover? Have we invented everything there is to invent? Do we know everything there is to know? Is there no room left for advancement in science and technology?

Alan

 

[Razako]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

And have we already discovered everything there is to discover? Have we invented everything there is to invent? Do we know everything there is to know? Is there no room left for advancement in science and technology?

Alan

There's still room for advancement, but I feel like we're hitting diminishing returns at this point. We'll need radical new technologies to make much further progress.

It's ultimately gonna depend on whether the rules of physics have any 'wiggle room'. If FTL travel is impossible then we're unlikely to have interstellar space travel in any kind of meaningful way. Even if we were able to develop ships traveling at near light-speed there would be problems. A little spec of dust out in space would hit like a bomb at such speeds. We'd pretty much need to develop 'shielding technology' to protect our starships from space dust.

Anyway, I believe we have some pretty obvious priorities here on Earth before we aim for the stars.
-We need to find a sustainable way to power our civilization. Even if climate change is some kind of hoax, we're still gonna run out of fossil fuels eventually. Fusion power would be IDEAL, but if that's impossible/impractical we could probably make due with a global interconnected solar powered grid.
-We need to fix the overpopulation issue or we're going to destroy the habitability of our home world in a few hundred years. There's no way to sugar coat this one. People just plain need to stop having so many kids. Don't know how to enforce this without some kind of totalitarian global 1 child policy though.
-We need to stop wasting so many resources on war and religious disputes. Just imagine if all the resources dumped into our bloated military were going into a national renewable energy program.

Unless these issues are solved, our civilization will be unlikely to make it another 300-500 years, much less travel to the stars.

 

[RedCowboy]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

We have handicapped ourselves, debt is a financial weapon and Barry has done his job well, now it costs more for less, BTW did you hear Barry just lifted a 50 year weapons embargo with Vietnam?

We have wasted so much potential and sadly having the ability to project force worldwide overnight makes it where we don't have to fight.

Sadly we have already been set upon a course and much damage will take time to undo.

I swear I hate it, from riding animals to the moon and 50 years later what have we done.

Supposedly we reach infinite mass at light speed so travel would be sub light speed, and yes we will go no where at that speed, but if we can compress the space in front of us as we travel through it then we circumvent the light speed limit, we know time dilation exists, even out GPS has to account for it, but once we have the knowledge it will be easy, but it's hard to invest in the future when we are falling so far behind.

China is investing in the future, a new super cannel wider than the Panama, next to it even, worlds largest hydro electric dam, our leaders are short sighted and half our citizens don't even have a set of rules, looks like we needed the church after all, I kinda expected it but did not want to accept it, I thought rational logical man can do better without this hokus pokus impediment, but it was protecting us from ourselves.

Our greed is our undoing, that and complacency/apathy.

Hey, maybe China will show off some pics of the places they go.

 

[vortish]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Warp theory is not bs! Two well know physicists have proved that it is possible. Its a matter of folding space. Transporters on that kind of range no but matter transporters are possible the Jet Propulsion Lab has one running its just not perfected yet. Ion engines are capable of reaching right now about a half a c of acceleration at that speed we could reach our nearest neighbor in sixteen to eighteen years. so its not out of the relem of possible

 

[Razako]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

We have handicapped ourselves, debt is a financial weapon and Barry has done his job well, now it costs more for less, BTW did you hear Barry just lifted a 50 year weapons embargo with Vietnam?

We have wasted so much potential and sadly having the ability to project force worldwide overnight makes it where we don't have to fight.

Sadly we have already been set upon a course and much damage will take time to undo.

I swear I hate it, from riding animals to the moon and 50 years later what have we done.

Supposedly we reach infinite mass at light speed so travel would be sub light speed, and yes we will go no where at that speed, but if we can compress the space in front of us as we travel through it then we circumvent the light speed limit, we know time dilation exists, even out GPS has to account for it, but once we have the knowledge it will be easy, but it's hard to invest in the future when we are falling so far behind.

China is investing in the future, a new super cannel wider than the Panama, next to it even, worlds largest hydro electric dam, our leaders are short sighted and half our citizens don't even have a set of rules, looks like we needed the church after all, I kinda expected it but did not want to accept it, I thought rational logical man can do better without this hokus pokus impediment, but it was protecting us from ourselves.

Our greed is our undoing, that and complacency/apathy.

Hey, maybe China will show off some pics of the places they go.

Interesting perspective actually. I too sometimes wonder about whether we actually need organized religions for society to function well. Organized religion has pros and cons, but it does seem to provide a 'unifying force' and 'guidance' to some people. Working together to achieve something greater than individual gratifications. Without religion I've seen some people lose their direction in life. They'll just seem to have a 'whatever' attitude about stuff.

Is the belief in accountability for our actions in this life necessary to keep society running well? I personally don't know. Possibly it is for some people and not for others.

 

[Skans]

Re: Interstellar Space Travel

Warp theory is not bs! Two well know physicists have proved that it is possible. Its a matter of folding space.

First, there is no proof that space is folded in this universe. Second, there is no proof or even a provable theory that space can be mechanically manipulated. Third, even if space could be mechanically manipulated, humans don't have the capability or resources to do it. Fourth, even if space could be mechanically manipulated......by humans, that doesn't mean you could travel any faster through it! Fifth, even if you could somehow punch through folded space, you would in all probability be immediately destroyed.

If I draw a dot in the center of a piece of paper and then fold it so that the dot is closer to one of the edges of the paper, did the dot actually travel anywhere in relation to the paper that it is affixed to? No. There is no technology that can cause the dot to travel from the middle of the paper to the edge of the paper without destroying the dot or the paper.