As per title, if the whole world's resources, manpower and technology merged together to form what is know as UED(Or whatever fictional Earth Government u can think of) to create Warships, or more efficient Space Shuttle as big as Battle Cruisers you see on Starwars any fictional Space War.

We could solve alot of problems on earth. Now, we are running short on lands to live, lack of resources to cope with the ever-increasing demand. So, we travel to space and look for a habitable planet, we colonise the planet and send more humans from earth to stay there. Then we can now have our fair shares of resources.

Problem is, building a space shuttle is costly and deemed useless by a lot of people. The Space Shuttle we have now is traveling at a very very slow speed and consumes huge amount of fuel just to overcome gravitational attraction and drag by the action of Atmosphere on the Space shuttle.

This is the main reason why Earth's distance to most of the planets on the Solar System is large. Just like previous times where ancient civilization had difficulty to reach to the far reaches of lands.

So, what do u think the human civilization is going to look like when space travel is imminent? Or is it even possible to think of it? Discuss.

This post has been edited by wKkaY: Jun 20 2009, 03:41 PM

the $$$ used for researching and constructing a space-travelling vehicle that can transport humans to colonize other planet, and the amount of effort to transport people and materials blablablablalbla combined - we might as well use the $$$ to re-condition the earth.

Reconditioning the Earth yes is a good idea. But as u recondition the earth, you might as well think of the ever-increasing human population. Once u've got everything ready, Human population exceeds that of availability. So, why don't we travel to other planet, discover new species, phenomenon or even whole new thing to be added to our advantage to better Earth?

Scientist are also looking for water on Mars - possibility of life form on that Planet.

Let's make it simple.

1) Space travel is hazardous. Radiation levels are greatly elevated, especially in the case of a solar flare, with virtually no shielding other than the spacecraft itself, and research is going into finding different methods of shielding. Now take the distance to the next neighbouring star (which I doubt has planets), which works out to be about 400,000 times further away, and you have an idea of how far it has to go, and see 2) for how long it'll take.

2) Space travel takes ages. Current plans for travelling to Mars will take at the very least 8 months. Add that to shielding and you have big issues.

3) Habitability of other planets, most likely current candidate: Mars. Carbon dioxide dominated atmosphere, so we still have to get spacesuits, and still need sealed compartments. Also the issue of heating, since the atmosphere of Mars is so thin as to make it susceptible to large temperature fluctuations, which means more problems, and its weak magnetic field (approx 10^-4 of Earth's magnetic field) which means even more radiation shielding is required again.

Or put it this way: The problem with space travel is the humans themselves

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 01:42 AM

plenty of land area for humans.

funny thing about humans is that instead of conquering the wild areas of the land we're thinking of colonizing Mars. and others.

if only humans learn to conserve and plan out for nature and also learn to live on areas in the ocean and wild, then i think it's not an issue.

sorry, i'm digressing from the SPACE TRAVEL topic.

anyway if space is concerned, then i think forget about colonizing planets. if we're having a space ship, might as well have it to be able to sustain humanity.

example - those see in Macross or Wall-E life onboard a space unit.

space travel is absolutely necessary. our resources are depleting exponentially and even with new methods of conservation, our apetite is insatiable. we need ways to figure out he we can create a space colony not for just the current spurt in human population but for the long term future...
it is inevitable that someday human population would not be manegable on our land mass, and we must also think about the conservation of wildlife. there is only so much we landmass we can take up before we encroach too much into the important forests.

and for that last reason alone, we need to have foresight to go ahead with this.

we could start from the moon? create a dome like structure that can be self sustained, have solar power generators, plants for conusmption and oxygen creation.

1) Yes very true. Shielding itself is already a big issue to be thought of. With our current technology, we can't even shield nuclear explosion created by us. Well we don't really need to go to neighboring star. We can start off by sending humans to Mars.

2) That's why we need engines that can boost the speed of the Space Shuttle into nearing speed of Light. We can't achieve speed of light but we can reach like 80% of it.

3) Hmm, can we like, create volcanic eruption on Mars to allow new life? Life on Earth itself began due to Volcanic Eruption. With lands rich with fresh nutrients, soil and allow for the pioneer species to strengthen the soil then in turn the process goes on to allow for life.

Imagine 1 thing too, how long are you to able to live when you travel out?

there's was 1 concern on if we travel on speed of light, our process of aging become faster too. I forget where i read it but there's a concern and yet to prove because we aren't traveling > speed of light

It's still a science fiction as there are so many obstacles around it.The solar flare radiation,the technologies we currently have and the shear distance between stars.Besides,what we know about space is so little.

I doubt it would be possible in next few centuries.

People are working on it,but i dont think we get to see it in our life time.Unless immortality available for us in next 10-20 years.

An old article but a valid one no doubt, and proof that NASA is working on an outpost or mini colony of sorts on the Moon
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70205130324.htm

Start small and think big...

Venus might be the most likely candidate for space colonisation instead of Mars. The Venusian surface is hostile towards life on earth but 50km above, the conditions are the most similar to earth in the solar system.



Another question would be how to stay constantly at 50km above the surface.

However, it is not without problems:

Source of reference:
Wikipedia: Colonization of Venus under Aerostat habitats and floating cities

This post has been edited by Thinkingfox: Jun 15 2009, 05:17 PM

A far-fetched dream would be trying to explore Gliese 581 c & d in Constellation Libra, 20.5 light years away. This would probably be possible when we can travel at light speed.



Imagine a planet covered entirely by oceans. Wouldn't that be cool?

This post has been edited by Thinkingfox: Jun 15 2009, 05:37 PM

Until we find new propulsion technology, we will be stuck here on earth.

It's not shielding explosions, it's shielding cosmic rays, shielding gamma rays. All the solutions that exist today weigh a bloody ton, and since space travel requires a small spacecraft mass for efficiency, you have a big big issue there.

Unless we have the technology to convert thess harmful rays into electrical energy, which would kill two birds with one stone.

i dont think its a source of energy. it aint sunlight.

Gamma Rays is a form of energy.

Question... This things may weigh a ton, but in weightless space, is it a problem? (except the part where you're trying to get it out of our gravitational field.. which I feel can be easily solved with a space elevator)

So your point is to send a few batch of human to Mars? Why would we do it... God has gave us more than enough for us. Earth, is somewhat a much resourceful planet than wat human can use... (Despite the fact that we overuse and negatively use them) I'd rather spend the $$$ educating, or probably *transport all the resource from mars to earth"

No, it's highly unlikely we're going to be able to convert them to any useful form of energy at all, both the cosmic rays and gamma rays, and besides, the energy we can gain from them would be quite negligible compared to the energy required for propulsion. We also need to consider the amount of mass added on to add this exotic converter, which would probably be extremely large.

I beg to differ. For as much as we love our home, it's a galactic question of whether we should put all our eggs in one basket. Yes, we may become more efficient, but what stops us from being more efficient everywhere? Your notion of money is actually irrelevant in the view of humanity, as money is merely our way of putting a value of things. I believe if we somehow encounter aliens, they'd be bamboozled with our concept of money.


This post has been edited by ThanatosSwiftfire: Jun 15 2009, 06:41 PM

Converting it into electricity not because we need the energy. It's just to convert the energy to a less harmful form. But then again, if we are able to harvest energy from gamma rays efficiently, wouldn't it generate a lot of energy, since gamma rays are high energy rays?

This post has been edited by Thinkingfox: Jun 15 2009, 06:48 PM

Yes that's the first step towards any useful spaceship, but the issues with radiation in space have not been solved yet by any means. Propulsion is the next problem, we have nothing that's remotely efficient when it comes to propulsion (ion ones are nice and everything but they're slow...... not much acceleration at all, and you can dream on when it comes to antimatter, we only make less than a nanogram of antimatter each year, and nothing much's going to change on that front either)

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Added on June 15, 2009, 6:49 pmBloody hell. I'm saying that it is highly unlikely methods will be found to convert it due to their penetrating power, and that their main mode of losing energy is from ionisation, which is extremely, extremely hard to actually get any useful energy out of.

We're going to have to get to much more exotic forms of materials before it'll even be possible.

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 06:49 PM

Blame me for being a madmen, but honestly, if we actually had a population problem, i'd send these peoples out on space travel anyway regardless of the radiation issues. If they make it, we get a new colony. If they don't, we get rid of some people on our planet.

On a side note.

Also, if we could build a big enough spaceship, whether it's slow or not would be irrelevant, because in a big enough spaceship where we can develop a self-sustaining ecosystem, with corresponding birth rates to meet the death rates in space, mankind will reach where they are meant to reach anyway. Though the people who reach our said potential colony won't be the same as the person we send up, but so long as somebody gets there, humankind gets a point.

if we could, i'd probably sent all the prisoners there

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Added on June 15, 2009, 6:53 pmwho knows, they use money too?

This post has been edited by IcyDarling: Jun 15 2009, 06:53 PM

hahaha, if they do, i'd be damned as hell interested. Honestly, had we encountered a peaceful alien civilization and initiated trading systems, and IF we ever go as far as integrating our financial systems, I'd think that in itself would be a very interesting problem to solve.

No, at the timescales, and extremely slow velocities we're talking about, it'll be in the millions of years before a spaceship even reaches anything close. And here's a question if you think propulsion isn't important: How exactly do you stop your spaceship from zooming past if you find a habitable planet?

I would assume that 'bloody hell' is something you use frequently. I did not say it's feasible, I just say it would be useful if we could do that. It might seem unlikely now, but maybe not in future, just like how humans in the 19th century could not imagine what computing and the internet can do for us today.

Good point. Maybe we'd crash into it. Or send drop-pods like in C&C.

Perhaps something like the sort of a solar parachute? (i've read about some concepts about using sails to slow down spaceships, as space, whilst gravity-less, has some stray atoms and other stuffs that may provide some 'friction') Space isn't exactly.. a void of nothing. There's something there, just very much less of anything. So a big sail could be used?

Too frequently in fact.

Yes, but that's the realm of science fiction, assume some miraculous solution to fix problem xyz. There's none right now, unless some exotic form of matter is found, and what is the range of this converter? Can it take in 10^20eV rays or will it just let it through? Does it fix the cosmic ray issue?

And at the same time, would it really generate enough useful energy? Doubtful. The shielding's there to prevent us from getting fried, but you'd be surprised at how little energy in total is really needed to irradiate us.


Any crash would kill everyone in the spaceship, and the drop pods have the same problem that they have the same velocity of that mothership and you still need to fix that propulsion problem, because the drop pod's not going to be able to communicate ever again with the mothership.

And if we are to even approach interstellar travel speeds, solar parachutes will not be good enough to slow us down at all.


addendum: Look, I don't mean to rain on your parade. It's a nice idea, but we're really that far behind technologically speaking before we even have a remote chance of getting a useful working spaceship that is self sustaining and can provide enough shielding from the high radiation especially in the timescales we're talking about. There is a place for science fiction, but as of right now, and afaik, for quite a while more (decades perhaps), it simply isn't possible, unless some really big breakthrough occurs.

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 07:24 PM

10^20eV is just 16J. Anyway, I get your point that there's tremendous energy from gamma radiation. I do not have much knowledge of nuclear fission but since fission produces a great amount of energy through chain reaction , wouldn't there a method of reversing the process ie. reverse chain reaction?

If we know how to accelerate to that speed, can't we use the same type of propulsion in the reverse direction to brake?

Thinkingfox: Try that, but from a single proton (and yes, they have been observed - cosmic rays of that energy). For comparison's sakes, 1 gram of protons [rest mass] with that energy would have approximately 10^25J. Anything above 1MeV is usually deemed as dangerous to us, so yeah imagine 10^20eV

No the concept wouldn't work for reverse propulsion unfortunately (afaik)

Accelerating to that speed isn't much of a problem because we have plenty of millennia to accelerate. It's a question of how to actually slow down if we see something promising, in say a matter of a century or less? And even that's highly inefficient because plenty of energy is lost and you need to accelerate again, and also a quick deceleration might impose strains on the spaceship's body, so that's again another engineering problem

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 07:46 PM

Why will reverse propulsion not work?

Note, so actually, what is the question we are asking about space travel right here?

A general discussion of the idea on colonising other planets

Erm, I was merely thinking about colonizing as far as erm.. mars. LOL. I actually didn't go as far as other solar systems yet, or maybe, just as far as pluto, and having mining networks across the asteroids to fuel our greed, which I think would be the short term goal, aka -moon-mars-mining colonies across the solar system.

This in itself would probably take 100 years, by which hopefully, travel to further star systems would come into consideration.

--

Do any of you think we're racing against the clock?

Each passing day our resources diminish, which I would feel equates to less available for scientific pursuits to colonize say... mars.

Sorry, included it in the edit above.

Also I confused your above post. Well, I thought you were trying to apply some idea of reverse chain reaction to reverse propulsion, which was a mistake I made. Sorry about that. Well my question would be what would reverse chain reaction do then?

And yes, I do think that this topic isn't really suited to this forum, because it sounds more fictional than real applied science?

Thanatos: Read the above posts on why terraforming Mars will be a much tougher adventure than any of us care to think

My personal POV: Frankly, as a wannabe scientist, I can't be bothered about human exploration in space, I'm more interested in robotic exploration because they're much cheaper, and thus more missions can be sent to gather more information than sending one hugely expensive human mission. I understand it helps to stir the human imagination, and it helps with funding too, but I honestly wish it was spent more on robotic explorations until there is the available technology for humans to explore cheaply.

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 08:03 PM

I think this is a very interesting thread albeit full of fictional theories.
At least, we share what we thought about it.

For myself, I think spare travel/exploration could happen someday.
As it is a century ago when everyone thought going to the moon is something impossible.
With the never-ending R&D our scientists are doing, someday, it could very well happen.

And I'm thinking of Star Trek or maybe Star Wars. =D

Yes, I apologise for introducing a lot of strange ideas to this forum. Well, as I said, I am not very well versed on the topic of nuclear fission, so I do not know. I was just wondering if it's possible.

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Added on June 15, 2009, 8:25 pmWhen we see something promising, we could stop the thing at the same magnitude with acceleration. Then we can move to the site at a much lower speed. The ship could surely be designed to take the same magnitude deceleration as acceleration. On inefficiency, I was just addressing the problem of whether it is possible to brake as stated in your post (quoted below). Energy lost due to acceleration and deceleration is unavoidable, in my opinion, because it happens even in normal jet and rocket travel.



This post has been edited by Thinkingfox: Jun 15 2009, 08:27 PM

Yes but if you take hundreds to thousands of years to accelerate to anything resembling the speed of light (which will be needed if we're to do any useful interstellar travels, let alone intergalactic ones), you'd need an equally long time assuming the same deceleration rate to do it, i.e. you need to know long in advance, and by that I mean very very long in advance. And what about the fuel issue? There's no more refuelling once you leave the Earth. And even then, we're supposing space is empty. How do you avoid objects in your path, if you travel at say 0.01c, given that we clearly cannot see them until we're relatively close? One collision and there goes the spaceship.

Currently for planet - planet transitions (Earth - Mars, Earth Venus), we rely very strongly on atmospheric braking to land on the planet. This will not be possible at the speeds we're talking about for interstellar travel, and heck landing's probably not even an option, just plain old orbiting

Ok..now I understand your concerns better.

What about the Earth's moon? even though its not considered a planet, it will be pretty good altogether.

That's very possible now, but the Moon will probably not be able to support an atmosphere containing oxygen at a temperature comfortable to us.

I dont see why we shouldnt do so,as curiousity is a human nature that cause us to explore to other planets.

If we could transport the resource from Mars to Earth,i dont see why we cant actually send someone there.

Do you mean someone actually manage to generate antimatter? How do they do that?

Isnt it some sort of theoretical material?

To be honest,we are talking about science,not those fantasy-like kind of science from games.

Most,if not all of them doesnt make any sense.

IIRC, if you create matter out of pure energy, anti matter will appear, since they're like twins of each other, evil one that is.

Nuclear fission produces a tiny amount of anti-matter too but it's so little that, bgeh's mentioned 'nanogram' sounds like a few megatons in perspective

Space exploration is possible if we can achieve a self-sustained ecosystem on the ship or so. Energy will be important as everything solid can be recycled into their original state with the proper amount of energy. Can't rely on solar, no sun no juice. Fusion is good but there aren't proper working generator and it also require fuel.

You will also need to have enough material in cycle to sustain life. If say an entire ship will depend on grain as food, you'll need to have enough of grain to feed the human while newer grain grow and so on.

After all that, you have to handle the ravage human instinct. Munity is just too stupid if you're on a mission to save human race.

Headache

Yes we 'make' antimatter everyday really, in particle accelerators pretty much everywhere. Heck there are 'natural' sources of antimatter emitters (positrons to be exact, or beta+ particles), and I believe they're used in medicine (google positron emission tomography)

I think in one of those proton colliders if I remember correctly. Got one that just open in Europe? One of the largest spanning kilometres underground. Some people are worried they might generate tiny blackholes
Of course it only exists for a short span of time being being consumed in the same process or something like that, can't remember.

I think human instinct would still be the biggest problem,unless you could put them on a long temporary coma state or something.If im not wrong,the russians actually did some tests on confining human beings in a space.The results arent good at all.

I do agree we cant rely on solar and solar sail is out then.

That's a different concept. We've been producing antimatter regularly for say, 30+ years now, and they're stored using magnetic 'bottles' to separate them from matter.

Black holes being produced at the LHC are an entirely different matter though.

This post has been edited by bgeh: Jun 15 2009, 11:38 PM

I still think those who say the LHC will destroy the world is bullshit.

I guess i have to study a bit on all these quantum physics then.

I cant really understand some of the terms here.

antimatter is used in PETscans. and no the LHC will not create a blackhole... i wish it would tho.. i wanna see one up close.

Your concern is the most acceptable and most of all, Logical. As of course, we can't bear to just stay in the space ship without our basic human necessities. So, most important issue to be solved is to design a self-sustainable environment within a ship.
If we can like convert every of human waste(yes even feces I am talking about) to useful material again. Then, we can solve huge amount of problem, including problem of waste management on our Planet. Secondly, If we can harness antimatter energy it would be very useful too. Maybe we can bring soil in the ship and bring along farmers to grow grains on the deck? And next thing we're talking we can use waste solids to generate energy.

Oh ya, we can even forget of building the ship on earth as it would take huge amount of cost just to propel it to outer space. So, my idea is build the ship in the outer space. Then again, transporting materials from earth to space is already huge problem

Propulsion...I don't think nuclear explosion can even reach light speed don't they? Even if we can reach light speed it'll take years because space distance is Lightyears. Only if we can use something called "hyperspace", allows us to jump to far distances. Anyway this thread is about shipbuilding and colonizing other planets.

This post has been edited by Winston LYN: Jun 16 2009, 01:10 PM

I think it's still cheaper to build in on earth and propelling to space, than to build in space itself because apart from propelling the materials, you have to use resources to propel the transporters and the workers back and forth. Then you need to think of outerspace lodging and food for the workers.

There are several advantage building in space.

Building in space meaning the ship do not have to cope with gravity, only the force of the ship's acceleration/deceleration, thus saving material.

Modular configuration, the world's most expensive lego set. Like the ISS

Design doesn't need to be aerodynamic since there aren't air resistance, sure there's space dust but that's a small amount unless you're zooming across space really fast.

Ya true, I think the way of building the ship should be this: We design the ship here on Earth, then build small sets just like lego to be attached altogether later on Space. Then, those Materials are transported from here to the Space Station. Those stuffs, of course assembled on Space.

So, build and design on Earth, diassemble and take to space to be reassembled.

I recently found myself reading the classic novel Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, and I was struck by how absurd and improbable its vision of the 22nd century looks from a transhumanist perspective. The interplanetary civilization envisioned in the book, like so many futures in classic science fiction, essentially takes 20th century human beings and projects them forward a century or two without human modification — no advanced AI’s, no genetic engineering, no cybernetic enhancements. This results in the kind of "monkeys in space" fantasy that has plagued the popular consciousness, from Buck Rogers to Star Trek. With all due respect to Mr. Clarke, whom I revere as one of the 20th century’s great scientific visionaries, the future almost certainly won’t look anything like the "United Planets" of Rendezvous With Rama.

Our current biological substrates are products of millions of years of evolution on only one planet: Earth. To think that this is the biological form that will colonize the solar system and beyond is short sighted and naïve. Almost by definition, human beings aren’t designed for space travel or life on other planets. The costs and risks of attempting to do so are not only excessive but unnecessary. Without some overwhelming motivation (imminent extinction, discovery of extraterrestrial life, vast wealth potential, etc.), it is difficult to imagine human primates in their current form colonizing other planets in a serious way.

When it comes to interstellar exploration, the situation is even bleaker for homo sapiens. The energy requirements for getting any spacecraft to the nearest stars are enormous, particularly if the craft is constrained by the needs of fragile human passengers. Barring revolutionary breakthroughs in physics, we’re looking at either multi-millenial missions or energy requirements in excess of total current global energy output. Neither option seems very feasible for obvious biological, economic and philosophical reasons.

Given these limitations, I would suggest that the best hope for making the physical exploration and colonization of space a reality (while awaiting breakthroughs in physics) is to focus our collective resources on modifying human beings themselves, and on abstracting and increasing our intelligence into more flexible forms. My guess is that the first earthlings to visit the outer solar system, and certainly the nearby stars, will not be humans at all but artificially intelligent probes capable of totally autonomous, adaptive behavior.

Speculating further into the future, even if the energy can be found and suitable propulsion systems designed to send spacecraft to the stars in a reasonable period of time, it’s not clear that they would be necessary for long. Since the most efficient means of information transfer on astronomical scales is electromagnetic energy travelling at the speed of light, it’s conceivable that space travel will be replaced by the transmission of consciousness itself as pure information. If intelligence is ultimately reducible to patterns of information, as most AI theorists believe, then it isn’t difficult to envision a network of "consciousness transceivers" being established by advanced probes across interstellar space. These transceivers would "download" minds directly into some kind of robotic bodies established at various locations of interest, allowing light speed "teleportation" of human minds across the galaxy. Obviously this is all highly speculative, but to my way of thinking it is much more believable than the thought of glorified chimpanzees rocketing across the galaxy in giant tin cans.

The Earth is round and is not the center of the universe, just get over it

This post has been edited by transhumanist92: Jun 18 2009, 04:23 PM

I think just fix our own planet first lah...we want stay in moon also cannot dy.. apatah lagi nak build colonies on outer space... summore how can we tahan the solar radiation woh..

when i'm playing a web based game and flashback of an anime that i've watched before not long ago.

but then, something came in my mind, combine with the other information that i've get from other sources, including TV, books and other...

here is some problem.
1. human health problem, we cant live in space for a long time without the presence of gravity, our muscle will start to swell, until now, astronauts only can stay in ISS for half a year and they have to went back to earth, they have to do exercise regularly while in space to keep their muscle working and prevent swelling, this is what i heard from discovery channel some time ago

2. so we might need the presence of gravity in order to survive, so how do we get gravity in a colony ship? artificial gravity?

3. plants and organism need sunlight, when we were in deep space, how do we get sunlight?

4. oxygen, water, temperature, and food, without sunlight there will be no plants, even if there is, the plant will withered or very weak due to lack of sunlights, the water will surely run out no matter how we save it and recycled it.

5. political, racism, and religious issues, i doubt we will have a peaceful life in the colony ship, unless every human beings has the same mindset.

6. death rate, birth rate and education, how can we control the death rate and birth rate? and every adults and children need education, we need a totally new and unify education, but how can we unite people with different believe and mindset?

the fastest way to travel from A to B in space is by wormhole, with wormhole, you can travel from earth to the other planet far way in just a very short time without reaching the speed of light.

the another method is by our conventional propulsion drive, or maybe some more advance propulsion drive like the impulse drive in star trek?

furthermore, i dont think we are able to travel faster than light, imagine you are cruising at a speed faster than light where you overtake the speed of light, no light can reach you, what can you see?

make sense?

1,2 rotating drums would provide enough artificial gravity
3,4 hibernation would be a popular solution. geospheres with artificial sunlight has been suggested
5,6 the source of many sci-fi dramas - again hibernation is a easy way out

ftl speed would break many many paradox. but even a significant %age of light speed would be a great achievement in interstellar exploration. although i am pessimistic about any interstellar travels (even to alpha centauri) in at least 10 generations or more.

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Added on June 22, 2009, 2:43 ambreaking technological barriers (like terraforming hostile environment/radioactive protection) is a piece of cake compared to breaking moral barriers.

This post has been edited by lin00b: Jun 22 2009, 02:43 AM

hibernate? so you are going to say that everyone will be in hibernate mode during the whole journey?

IMO
what space traveling impossible is due to tremendous amount of time is needed with the current technology and the universe is huge.. If our earth is as huge as the universe, i think i could buy a piece of land for a few cents.

HAHAHAHA..If Earth is as big as the universe they have to pay u to make u own a land...
U have to remember, Earth is part of our Sun's solar system, our solar system is just a tiny microscopic part of our galaxy which is the Milky Way and the Universe contains millions, perhaps billions of other galaxies...
So if u ask me, space travel is impossible using conventional method..even if we manage to go as fast as light it would still take us millions of years to get to the nearest galaxy..we need space warp..or space fold..or something else.....

then 1 question arise, how do we communicate?

if we use laser, which is at the speed of light, it would take million of years just to send a message

that's true....
i think we need a far more advanced way of communicating with ppl in different planets/universe

This post has been edited by vivienne85: Jun 30 2009, 09:48 AM

I HAVE NO IDEA!!!!!
Speed of light is so slow, or maybe the universe is too big...oh, if we're going to figure out how to do inter-galaxy travel we have to do it fast cause the universe is GROWING!!!!

if extra solar space travel happens, i think what would be likely is that each colony would be cut off from each other. and that its basically a 1 way trip.

How about wormhole? Like in Stargate? If space travel is possible, I like to travel to the end of universe. I'm always curious if the universe ever had an end, and if so, how does it really look or feel like.

Traveling through wormhole is still a theory. We are having difficulty proving wormhole's existence let alone manipulate it to travel through

Even such technology exist, you still need to physically travel to your destination to build the 'gate', so it's still back to the good old rocket riding.

This post has been edited by SeaGates: Jul 4 2009, 08:08 PM

At least the possibility to travel within ones life-cycle is possible with wormhole. Who say we need to travel to destination to build the 'gate'? You watch too many stargate already.

Natural wormholes that have been theorized with eccentric characteristic. They appear and disappear at their own will, having random exits, and maybe it even takes you to nowhere. It's like playing Russian roulette with a semi automatic weapon.

So the best way to travel is probably through one that is being artificially sustained/created.

There are many other way we can produce faster than light speed? I don't really think there's only light speed that is the fastest theoretical speed we could achieve. There could be like hyperspace, spacejump,... spaceflip or etc.

Even scientists are inspired by the science-fiction films to actually thought of something new for their research. Like Star Wars it inspired scientist to thought of Hyperspace.

There's something faster than the speed of light alright. Thats the speed of God.

Sorry dude, this is "The Science Lab" Thread. Read the bold word. This thread concerns science here..no God involved.

I wonder, has there been anything out there they are working on right now, even a hint of trying to research on hyperspace or hyper jumping? Or maybe its possible they need to make a ship first that large enough to do trial runs like this, like in star trek or something of the sort.