What technology is most likely to take us to the stars??

[Grimlock]

Since the new Star Trek film is running its successive marathon through the worlds cinemas, i think it would an appropriate subject to debate what technology might actually take us to the stars.

Personally i believe that Star Treks Warp Drive is the most likely thing to happen, since it seems most plausible and it doesn,´t violate any laws of physics.
Yes we need the power equal to that of the sun to be able to pull it off and of course Inertial dampers to prevent the crew from being paste on the walls, the minuet the Warp drive engine is activated.

But other than that contracting space in front of you and expanding it behind you and as such move faster than light, is completely plausible within the realm of physics.
Where as the laws of physics prevent a spaceship from flying faster the light, there is nothing that prevents you from moving faster then light.

And in a sense its really one of the only possibilities if the human race is to stay united once they move to other planets beyond our solar system.

The problem with Wormhole travels is that it would most likely generate a HUGE amount of radiation plus it would be quite difficult to establish a stable wormhole (i,´m not into the whole creating a wormhole all i really know is that it is incredibly difficult to do such a thing).

Suspended animation, yes it is a possibility, but you are still left with the time it takes to reach another star and an inhabitable planet and if things go wrong during your travel your pretty much screwed because you,´re "sleeping" and if there isn,´t anything to wake you up, you will continue to do so forever unless some outside force happens to pick you up and wake you.

But that,´s my answer what do you think??

 

[Homunclus]

What about the whole "open a portal into hiperspace"? It's the most popular guess in sci-fi these days...

The suspended animation thing seems the most plausible one to me...and it would probably include a few automatic safeguards to wake the crew if something went wrong.

That said the most usefull (and awsome) possibility is stargate's wormhole. Intantaneous and no ship required.

 

[darthrender2010]

If you mean in reality, probably nothing in the next 600 years.

 

[GoodKat]

Suspended animation would be the easiest to make, but it would be boooriiiing.

Next would come the hyperdrive, then the wormhole, since both involve manipulation of space, but the latter is more complicated.

BTW, I don't think a hyperdrive would require any kind of inertial dampener, my understanding of it is that it moves the space around you, so you technically aren't moving.

 

[Penguin_Factory]

If any method of interstellar flight is going to work, it would probably be "generation ships", self-contained spaceships that humans live, breed and die on until it reaches another planet. There's nothing I can see that's inherently impossible about this as long as you've got enough fuel to start and stop, a method of growing food, and some way to combat the effects of long-term space travel. The main problem is why anyone would bother- short of avoiding the imminent destruction of Earth or the planet's biosphere (ie if we had no choice) I can't see many people getting enthusiastic about a project that they're never going to live to see the effects of. Even then, if we're just looking to get off Earth there'd be no actual reason to leave the solar system.

Suspended animation would probably be the second most likely.

As much as I hate to admit it, my money is on humans never getting as far as the Oort Cloud. I do, however, think that we'll eventually colonize other parts of the solar system.

 

[Josan]

As much as I hate to admit it, my money is on humans never getting as far as the Oort Cloud. I do, however, think that we'll eventually colonize other parts of the solar system.

You bet! When I retire I'm gonna have a beach house on mars! =D

 

[gwr3440]

Light sails. These will be multi-generation voyages. Navigation will be triicky because you need to aim where the star will be when you arrive and I'm not sure we can predict that yet.

 

[Grimlock]

If any method of interstellar flight is going to work, it would probably be "generation ships", self-contained spaceships that humans live, breed and die on until it reaches another planet. There's nothing I can see that's inherently impossible about this as long as you've got enough fuel to start and stop, a method of growing food, and some way to combat the effects of long-term space travel. The main problem is why anyone would bother- short of avoiding the imminent destruction of Earth or the planet's biosphere (ie if we had no choice) I can't see many people getting enthusiastic about a project that they're never going to live to see the effects of. Even then, if we're just looking to get off Earth there'd be no actual reason to leave the solar system.

Suspended animation would probably be the second most likely.

As much as I hate to admit it, my money is on humans never getting as far as the Oort Cloud. I do, however, think that we'll eventually colonize other parts of the solar system.

The problem in "generation ships" is that unless we can active artificial gravity we will be stuck in outer space.
Our bones slowly deteriorate when i weightless condition.
In fact it goes so fast that when we reach Jupiter with our fastest ship to date a simple, slap on the back would be enough to shatter the spine.
So unless we can somehow prevent bone deterioration and other side effects the next generation of humans would have an EXTREMELY difficult time in settling on anything other then low gravity planets and even that would be a challenge.

 

[edib0y]

Yeah, where is the Stargate hyperdrive? That seems the most plausible one to me, of course, after suspended animation. And wormholes are so cool too. But, as I don't live in US, I'm not really familiar with the Startrek technology, got nothin' t' say 'bout that...

 

[GoodKat]

The problem in "generation ships" is that unless we can active artificial gravity we will be stuck in outer space.
Our bones slowly deteriorate when i weightless condition.
In fact it goes so fast that when we reach Jupiter with our fastest ship to date a simple, slap on the back would be enough to shatter the spine.
So unless we can somehow prevent bone deterioration and other side effects the next generation of humans would have an EXTREMELY difficult time in settling on anything other then low gravity planets and even that would be a challenge.

I believe NASA has already solved this one with a bicycle powered centrifuge.

 

[JBeukema]

If we cannot overcome C, then we may go to the starts, but we will never communicate. We will be as two peoples on opposite ends of the world, never knowing of eachother. Eventually, we will diverge into different species- or stay firmly upon the Earth

 

[Brunks]

I think artificial gravity is attainable with currently existing technology, I think some experiments on mice are already planned.
But lets just focus on going to mars first, I want a beach house there aswell.

 

[Sparky]

Anti-matter engine?
Fusion ramjet engine?
Solar sails?
Laser sails?

The top two are aren't around but the latter two are currently possible. The only problem is - how do you slow them down? ^^

 

[JBeukema]

The only problem is - how do you slow them down? ^^

apply force in the opposite direction, same as we do with every other force while in space

 

[Sparky]

apply force in the opposite direction, same as we do with every other force while in space

I know. But it would be rather tricky using solar radiation don't you think? It would require a star or some other large energy source at the other end to give it enough energy to slow it down and there would be loads of calculations involved in getting exactly the right amount of energy onto it in order for it to be going slow enough that it wouldn't plow into its destination. And a laser sail would be even more difficult - where is the laser at the other end to provide the force to slow it down? ^^

 

[JBeukema]

In either case, you store fuel for braking at the end

 

[Sparky]

In either case, you store fuel for braking at the end

I guess that's possible. It would require an enormous amount of fuel though! A space elevator would be necessary too. There would be no other practical way of getting the required mass of fuel into space - well not that I can think of.

 

[JBeukema]

What, exactly, is a 'space elevator'?

 

[Trigshot]

Unfortunately, given our current knowledge of the fabric of space, I don't see warp drive or stargate happening any time soon. Maybe if we had a better understanding of how the multiple dimensions of spacetime work, then we could come up with a better alternative, similar to the warp drive, or slipstream space from the game Halo. Right now, the only "holes" in space that we know of are black holes, which we have at least 3 problems with.

1. Spaghetti effect. The massive gravitational pull from a black hole is so powerful it literally will pull the atoms in your spacecraft apart one by one. It would be a most painful way to die.

2. Size. In order for us to even travel through a wormhole without damage to our ship, the hole would have to be massive. Something like taking a planet the size of Jupiter and condensing it to the size of Earth in an instant would create such a wormhole.

3. Dimensionality. Traveling through a wormhole would possibly take you to another place, another time, and even another dimension, so it is likely that the true timeline you leave behind will never see you again, or cease to exist.

Sleeping for hundreds of years doesn't sound that bad now.

 

[Grimlock]

What, exactly, is a 'space elevator'?

Exactly what it says, an elevator going into space.

Think of an ENORMOUS cable one end attached to the earth the other end to the moon or a space station.

I know. But it would be rather tricky using solar radiation don't you think? It would require a star or some other large energy source at the other end to give it enough energy to slow it down and there would be loads of calculations involved in getting exactly the right amount of energy onto it in order for it to be going slow enough that it wouldn't plow into its destination.

The way you make it sound it seems like you expect us to stop like the ships in Star Wars and Star Trek does it.
Thats properly not what will happen, for as said it would require QUITE the force to suddenly stop after going with the speed of light.
However if we do it VERY slowly the amount of force needed wouldn,´t be as great.

Lets say you speed up to the speed of light then go (at the top most) a few light years maybe just one if not less (depends on the distance) then slowly start to reduce speed by applying force in the other end.
Sure we would need a lot of calculations to stop at the right time, but still slowly reducing speed is the way forward with that sort of speed.

As to why we should start rehearing into faster then light speed well think of it like this.
Lets take two bottles and fill them with water one bottle we put a screw top on and the other a capsule.
Now lets say that this water represent something vital for us.
Now imagine that the bottle with the screw top on is half empty.

Now we know how to open the bottle with the screw top on, BUT we don,´t know how to open the bottle with the capsule on it (yes i know that T.J used the same analogy, but hey its a good one). Now what would you do wait till the bottle with the screw top on is empty, before starting to do research into how to open the one with the capsule on it.
Or you could start doing research on it NOW so when the bottle with the screwtop is empty you KNOW how to open the one with the capsule on it.

As said before the earths time is finite and sooner or later, we WILL have to leave it.
Be it due to overpopulation or lack of resources it doesn,´t change the fact that we will have to leave it.
Same with Mars even though we somehow manage to colonize it and terraform it so that people can live on its surface, without a spacesuit or a special dome.

When the sun goes Bye bye, we will have to leave this solar system, do you want to wait till that time to start figuring out how the fuck are we gone escape this mess, or should we start now so that when the sun finally goes off we won,´t stand around looking like a bunch of loosers.