Space travel

[TMA_1]

How many of you think it is possible to do the same kind of travel as say, star trek? Not in the meaning of how they get to the stars, or anything of that sort, but how far out we can get into space?

personally, I see it as relatively impossible. Our generation is gullable, and is highly prone to accepting info they might here from an introductory class or from the tv as absolute truth. Frankly though, I have large doubts that we will even fare well in this solar system. Technically it is very possible to reach the outer planets of our solar system, and if we actually placed large amounts of man power and resources it could be done, but how would we do that? I see humanity as extremely uncoordinated. They cannot and will not work together in leaps and bounds, and if they get close to it, something always shoots it down.

Reasons why I feel the way I do about this stuff.

1: The stars are very far away, duh.lol It will take much technology to actually find ways to travel very fast. Even if we got near to the point of light speed, it would take many many years. Also, theories of folding space and warp drive are still extremely fanciful. The best possible way in my opinion would be huge colony ships, I mean ones that hold thousands upon thousands of people. Ones that would hold multipule generations. Still though it seems really difficult to believe.

2: We as humans have a hard time working together, and with things the way they are, it will be a hell of a long time till we have things stable enough to actually fund large space ventures.

3: People just dont have their heart set on it, and as a whole, humanity doesnt seem educated enough to follow through. We are also still working on figuring out how to solve issues of peace between arguing tribes and small cultures, it will take awhile till we can actually think in one direction.

4: Even traveling in our solar system is hard to believe right now for awhile. Again the lack of unification, of materials and man power, but mainly the will to do this.

5: How can space ventures be a viable source for economy? Sure there are potential valuable materials on other "rocks" in this solar system. Even certain gasses could be harvested. Still, what would be the purpose behind it economically? There are things that need to be grown or made in space even now, as well as various tests, but that can be accomplished with space stations and the like.

6: Are we fully knowledgable in the various aspects of space travel and what the vast mysteries of space could do to us?

7: Many misconceptions are filled in people's minds about space travel. Not saying I dont have them, I just try to cool my thinking and keep it as far away from science fiction as possible.

There are many other problems other than this. I am not saying we shouldnt focus on space, that is not what I am getting at at all. I wish we would do more for it. People say we have conquered all mysteries of earth, thats a load of crap, a vast majority of earth is yet to be studied and explored, look at the deep ocean areas. Still though it is important that we venture into this unknown and try to find what is out there. Not only for economic reasons but also for knowledge, for the human drive to know what isnt known, and even spiritual reasons. I am just saying that people seem to have the wrong idea of space travel, and that it probably wont happen like sci fi books predict. I highly doubt that the standard model of what we see. An earth of the 23rd century, unified globally without any wars and pure peace, working together for the common good and making technologies to travel to stars hundreds of lightyears away. I am afraid that I see this as false. I think it will take hundreds upon hundreds of years, even thousands to actually slowly develope out of the simple nature we have now. Of course out of spiritual reasons, I dont think we will be around for that long, but just for the sake of this thread, it seems like that.

does anybody agree? does anybody disagree? and why so? do you hold to the typical model that sci fi books so love to use? or do you have ideas much different then the norm?

[Andrew]

Maybe you should note how much technology has increased over the last 100 years (or 20 for computers). If it keeps increasing at that rate, give another 1000 years and it will be possible if we get over the worlds' problems.

Of course there will be fold space. ;)

[Egeides]

I think that getting over our interior problems will be much more a trouble. To say this, I have the same reasons as Andrew. We even have some hypothesis on how to get further enough (like anti-matter) and in science the more you study, the more you find new hypothesis...

If it takes too long, we can work over autonomous spaceship so that it can recycle everything and be an ecosystem in itself. Alot of time later it would be at destination and a signal could be sent. Of course, this is if it takes too long shooting a fast enough crew.

[Nyarlathotep]

I due time, yes it will be possible.

[Babylon]

In theory there are a few engines that can make travelling to the nearest star possible. An anti-matter engine is designed (we need 5 kilo anti-matter (1 microgram anti-matter costs us 5 billion $ to create and is stable for 1 micro second :))). But a lot more duable is an Nuke engine, we have a design for contained nuclear explosions for propulsion which will get a space ship to the nearest star within 30 years. But due to international conventions, no nuclear weapons (any weapon for that matter), isn't allowed in space. But as Andrew said, look at the technological advance over the last 100 years and where we stand here. As long as we want to, we will be able to. Over population and interstellar/planitaire war are 2 very good reasons to start developing. As allways war is a perfect way to increase technology.

[SpiceGuid]

I agree with you Beyond the infinite is a bit too far as a reasonable objective :)

[Anathema]

Maybe we will send largish colony ships (or actually more like moving cities) to neigbouring systems, but we'd never see them again or have contact with them again, seeing as how it would take years for any message to return.

About the way it happens in Star Trek, impossible. The closer you get to the light speed the more energy it will take to accelerate. Reaching light speed (let alone crossing it) is impossible.

[Dunenewt]

Space Travel and the exploration of space is an excellent way to increase nationalism as China has demonstrated. I agree with everything babylon has said. Nuke engines are the way forward (Ion drives too). And also War would greatly further the space technology.

I hope Britain catches up soon but the Goverment needs to invest more money into it as so far only private corporations have taken steps towards space vehicles (and a great job they're doing so far as well!).

[IxianMace]

How many of you think it is possible to do the same kind of travel as say, star trek? Not in the meaning of how they get to the stars, or anything of that sort, but how far out we can get into space?

I think that would depend on the resources, and the technology that we have available when the times comes for exploring the stars. If we continue to use rockets like we're doing now (and which won't be possible soon, due to the rapidly declining reserves of fossil fuels around the world from consumption heavily outweighing production rates), it will take us a great deal of time to even reach the nearest neighboring star. Of course, if time isn't a concern, then it would be logical to say that if you just sent something on a trajectory that would take it out of the solar system (like the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 data gathering craft, which are probably still travelling out into deep space even as I type this post), provided that it doesn't hit anything or doesn't have some sort of gravitational force applied on it from a planet or asteroid, etc etc, then it could go on drifting out forever, meaning the distance (as far as how 'far out' into space we could go), would only be limited by the size of the universe.

personally, I see it as relatively impossible. Our generation is gullable, and is highly prone to accepting info they might here from an introductory class or from the tv as absolute truth. Frankly though, I have large doubts that we will even fare well in this solar system. Technically it is very possible to reach the outer planets of our solar system, and if we actually placed large amounts of man power and resources it could be done, but how would we do that? I see humanity as extremely uncoordinated. They cannot and will not work together in leaps and bounds, and if they get close to it, something always shoots it down.

Reasons why I feel the way I do about this stuff.

1: The stars are very far away, duh.lol It will take much technology to actually find ways to travel very fast. Even if we got near to the point of light speed, it would take many many years. Also, theories of folding space and warp drive are still extremely fanciful. The best possible way in my opinion would be huge colony ships, I mean ones that hold thousands upon thousands of people. Ones that would hold multipule generations. Still though it seems really difficult to believe.

I would only see the necessity of building a large colony ship of such capability if we as a species needed to find a new planet to colonize, and/or Earth got so polluted up to the point where it could no longer sustain human life. Otherwise, I don't see why we couldn't just create a smaller type of spacecraft manned by and containing a fewer number of people for exploration purposes.

2: We as humans have a hard time working together, and with things the way they are, it will be a hell of a long time till we have things stable enough to actually fund large space ventures.

Sadly, I have to agree. In order to really get anywhere quickly as far as space exploration is concerned, more resources will be required to make more progress in less time, and as long as 'trivial' quarrels and a lack of co-operation are present, we're just not going to see the global effort involved in maintaining such a project.

3: People just dont have their heart set on it, and as a whole, humanity doesnt seem educated enough to follow through. We are also still working on figuring out how to solve issues of peace between arguing tribes and small cultures, it will take awhile till we can actually think in one direction.

Same as above.

4: Even traveling in our solar system is hard to believe right now for awhile. Again the lack of unification, of materials and man power, but mainly the will to do this.

People may start to see the necessity when Earth starts to become unstable, as far as climate and sustaining life is concerned. Right now, I'm under the impression that very few people out of the majority of the human race even care or are educated enough to understand what kind of effect human activities are having on the climate of the planet, on a global scale, and to try to minimize the effects of ecological damage. Then again, I guess I can't blame them, since our way of living is just about based on exploiting our surrounding environment to benefit ourselves, which often involves damaging or altering it in some way or another.

5: How can space ventures be a viable source for economy? Sure there are potential valuable materials on other "rocks" in this solar system. Even certain gasses could be harvested. Still, what would be the purpose behind it economically? There are things that need to be grown or made in space even now, as well as various tests, but that can be accomplished with space stations and the like.

If the time comes when space exploration on a large and rapid scale actually becomes a reality, then I doubt it will be motivated by economy. It's good to get something back from all the work required to make such ventures possible, as far as resources and materials are concerned, however the rewards of space travel will likely come in other forms, perhaps like in finding new planets to colonize that have suitable or similar conditions to Earth, discovering new elements, etc etc. Knowledge, rather than economic growth, would be the main fruits of space exploration IMHO. Who knows? Maybe a new type of fuel could be created from new substances/materials discovered in space somewhere, that would be more efficient, and cleaner than the type(s) of fuels used previously. You have to give things a go to have any chance of getting something back. If you do get something back of great value, then great. If not, then I would suggest not to lose heart and give up, better luck next time. Economic growth shouldn't really be a focus in space exploration, if you ask me. Besides, by the time we're ready to explore the stars on a wide scale, the population should be globally unified right? Therefore, resources should be used far more efficiently, and we shouldn't really need an economy, if everyone is pitching in and helping out.

6: Are we fully knowledgable in the various aspects of space travel and what the vast mysteries of space could do to us?

At this stage, I would say we're only just scratching the surface in this area. But how can you gain knowledge in the various aspects of space travel if space travel isn't given a go in the first place?

7: Many misconceptions are filled in people's minds about space travel. Not saying I dont have them, I just try to cool my thinking and keep it as far away from science fiction as possible.

People will believe what they want to believe. So long as people can accept the facts, (even if it's what they don't want to hear) rather than what they want to believe as true, then I don't see a problem here.

There are many other problems other than this. I am not saying we shouldnt focus on space, that is not what I am getting at at all. I wish we would do more for it. People say we have conquered all mysteries of earth, thats a load of crap, a vast majority of earth is yet to be studied and explored, look at the deep ocean areas. Still though it is important that we venture into this unknown and try to find what is out there. Not only for economic reasons but also for knowledge, for the human drive to know what isnt known, and even spiritual reasons. I am just saying that people seem to have the wrong idea of space travel, and that it probably wont happen like sci fi books predict. I highly doubt that the standard model of what we see. An earth of the 23rd century, unified globally without any wars and pure peace, working together for the common good and making technologies to travel to stars hundreds of lightyears away. I am afraid that I see this as false. I think it will take hundreds upon hundreds of years, even thousands to actually slowly develope out of the simple nature we have now. Of course out of spiritual reasons, I dont think we will be around for that long, but just for the sake of this thread, it seems like that.

As I said earlier, I don't believe , that space exploration (if it finally becomes real on the scale discussed in this thread) should be based mainly on economic reasons. The reasons have already been detailed. I would hope that the potential knowledge to be gained from such a venture would be enough motivation, although given our current state of thinking as a species in general, that would be pushing it.

As for the image that science-fiction presents in space travel, it was never meant to be a reality (at least not in the way that sci-fi presents it). That's why they call it 'fiction'. People just develop creative ideas, some or most of which aren't feasible in the near future, and depending on the idea, and the opinions of others, people either adopt or reject the idea. No one said anything about actually giving it a go, or whether or not it could really be done. I wasn't even aware that this image of space travel depicted from science-fiction was the 'standard model'. If the majority of people think along this track, then I guess that would make the idea the 'standard model', but if people really think anything of the like could be done in the near future, then I'd have to conclude that, given our present situation, the idea is more than a bit far fetched.

[Wolf]

Well, there are a few ways I see human space travel going.

FIRST (20-100 years from now) - Humanity establishes stations in orbit around Earth, or creates habitats on the moon. Realize, however, that these lunar habitats will exist for the sole purpose of mining and manufacturing things that are too big to launch from Earth. Lunar gravity is 1/8 Earth, and in order for human beings who work on the moon to be able to walk again, crews will need to be shifted regularly, biannually at the least.

These stations and lunar bases can establish a framework from which to establish high-speed Earth-Mars transportation. Large magnetic launching ramps built on the moon can be used to launch very large objects, ships containing hundreds, for example, at relatively high-speeds. Also, less energy is wasted achieving the power to break lunar orbit as opposed to terran orbit.

SECOND (100-500 years from now)- The terraformation of Mars. Best achieved with extremely hardly plants, such as alge, that can live in Martian atmosphere and can live on ice. By placing this alge on the ice, the ice will melt. Water will be created as well as heat, and the restart process will begin. However, other operations, such as O2-CO2 converters, plantlife in less hospitable areas, and domed-terraformers, should be used and coordinated as well.

Towards the later end of the SECOND era, mankind may also wish to build large, rotating stations. Stations with the capacity to carry 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 people at stationary lagrange points around Earth. These stations, which rotate to simulate 1G, could act as either research posts, or simply as colonies with which to place an ever-growing human population.

THIRD (500-5,000 years) - This is the long-term portion of my plan. Using materials found in the Sol system, mankind can construct migration vessels. Now, since hiberation as depicted in sci-fi is, for lack of a better term, crap, these vessels will need to be large enough to carry not only several hundred to several thousand individuals, but will also need to carry food/fuel. People will live on these vessels for generations as they are en route to an Earth-habitable, or Earth-terraformable world. Breeding on board the vessel will be controlled, as will all other aspects. This is similar to the "mothership" in homeworld; your people live on the ship. In order for it get to its destination in a reasonable amount of time (60 years at the minimum) it will need to be continually accelerating. This can be accomplished with either a large enough atomic drive, or an even further refined atomic drive that we have today. The great-great-grandchildren of the launching colonists will arrive at their destination world, and settle it. This can be done repeatedly for the many worlds in the universe that we might inhabit. Contact can be kept with Earth through constant communications updates sent every year. Though the messages are one-way, and will take years for the initial message to reach Earth, or perhaps nearby colonies, there will only be a gap of 1 to 100 years (the mean is 43.7) for most messages that originate from colonies within 100 light years to Earth. It's out of step, but not badly out of step.

Other options;

The moons of Jupiter are large, and by large, I mean-Mars size. There's another 9 inner-planet-sized bodies should humanity ever grow that large.

If all else fails;

Dyson sphere it, baby.

[Tio_Holtzmann]

kinda related to what someone said earlier.....why aren't nuclear weapons allowed in space? is that cos if they're blown up too near our atmosphere we get EMP and aurorae and weird shtuff like that happening?

[Andrew]

It would undoubtedly cause massive space garbage that would harm future projects. (unless you mean detonate a bomb near venus)

[Tio_Holtzmann]

and to be quite fair, i would kill to have a little house of my own on callisto. most beautiful thing in the solar system IMHO.....

[alchemi2]

I think eventually we will move into space either peaceably or not if one nation establishes a base on moon then suddenly everyone will want then funding will appear.

Funny you should mention Star trek i remember adocumentary on science of star trek many say they work towards idea seen in program body scanners. hyperdermic etc, a lot of scienist say fiction inspire them to search for solutions or explore ideas. if you think of what we had in 1900 to what we have now in 2000 just a mere 100 years you cant help but think yes one day we'll be out there. ;D

Unless of cause we move into another dark age due to conflict. :'(

[Babylon]

kinda related to what someone said earlier.....why aren't nuclear weapons allowed in space? is that cos if they're blown up too near our atmosphere we get EMP and aurorae and weird shtuff like that happening?

I guess you've seen Armageddon. In the movy the captain?? gets a gun out of a locker, everybody is amazed. Weapons are not allowed in space due to strict regulations. Men doesn't trust men :)

[lowzeewee]

Anything is possible as long as the world is not destroyed. :)

[TMA_1]

About the advancements in the last hundred years...

see, I think there is a huge flaw in the idea that this advancement will keep on going. I have a feeling it will peter out and flatten for awhile. It usually works this way.

Ixian Mace: I agree with a lot of what you say, but you have to admit that the driving force behind most of what we do is economic. I believe that the area of space will soon lose power governmentally, and will become more a commercial thing, more of a private industry. Because of this it will largely be funded by interest groups who wish only to gain money from the venture. Dont get me wrong, when I say soon, I mean hundreds of years in scale.

Also, I dont think you would want a home on callisto, it isnt exactly habitable.lol

[Tio_Holtzmann]

meh, as long as its heated and airtight and got an anti meteorite "LAS-ER" on it, ill be grand. oh and a spacesuit. either callisto, or our moon, or miranda around planet uranus. or titan or triton.

but seriously i dont get the big deal about weapons not being allowed in space. am i being really thick? <answer: probably but anyway> could someone please help me on this one?

[Seal89999]

I think eventually we will get there. I can only dream about a world like star trek. That would be all to cool......

And I believe eventually we will get there....

I wish we would put more effort into space travel. So many secrets lay yet undiscovered, so many answers to questions are out there...

Who knows what is out there, there could be anything, there could be nothing....who knows......

What disapoints me is that most likely none of this will happen in my life. We might get to mars in my life but nothing as advanced as star trek.

I just wish I could see the stars, get to space....look down on the earth from orbit.....Chances are that that will never happen but anything is possible and who knows what the future holds....

I can only hope that we gain the knowledge to venture far into space.

I atleast want to get into space, if I could only go to the moon that would be enough. Just that experience would be enough for me....if more than that that would be amazing...

Only time will tell what is to happen, we will see......

[Emperor Harkonnen]

if there are more wars now space travel will probably go to a halt due to the cost.

If we are to have more advanced space travel technology we probably have only EU to rely on.

[alchemi2]

Aint there some sort of traety that stops weapons in space? :-[

Inertia is probably the reason hand weapons aint allowed.

plus lack of friction would mean extreme range etc also is u punched your ship or suit then bye all. :P