What If We Can't Travel Faster Than Light - Space Colonization Theory

a reply to: nullafides

Chemical reactions are processes, they take a certain amount of time, have a reaction rate. Any processes on a spaceship moving at relativistic speeds relative to us will happen at slower rate due to time dilation.

a reply to: JadeStar

Sorry about the belated reply, as you know our periodic table is incomplete and there may be heavier element's and also isotopes with unique property's produced in far more abundance and more readily available deeper with in the galactic core, it is also less likely that life as we know could exist there as the ambient radiation is higher toward the galactic core.
Some elements we even with a fusion reactor (if we are ever able to make it a financial possibility to allow them to be produced) will be beyond our ability to synthesise.

Of course new materials have new property's be they isotopic - elemental or even molecular in nature and then another reason is simply this, do we cull our population and live like fools with our head's buried in the sand or do we seize our destiny and learn to first terra form our own terrestrial worlds then find a way to reach the far distant stars and do so there ensuring our race or rather it's descendants continue to survive and even when life here is extinguished, in between 2.5 to 5 billion years as the earth first undergoes solar climactic alteration and warming then exists as a uninhabitable ball of rock until the sun finally dies, that our children whatever there form or nature will continue and extend our legacy into the more distant future.

Some new elements will have immense energy production possibility's, then there remains the whole inter-dimensional physics which is currently in it's infancy but offers the possibility of not only dimensional spectrums (making the usual radio spectrum look flat and linear) but also other dimensional states of matter along with a whole new inter-dimensional periodic table possibly consisting of trillions of different elements and states of matter beyond the normal scope or linear existence and offering so many potential applications they are beyond the scope not only of this thread but the entirety of the human awareness.

And of course Dimensional bridges may also exist in areas of dense gravitational chaos like the core of the galaxy at the very least offering potential access to localized altered states of the law's of physics as dimensions bleed into one another at such locality's and these also offer potential both dangerous and beneficial application's.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Thoughtful reply, but you're using a 'read too many hard sci-fi books' approach. 'Going there' is over-rated and is full of hazards, including Xenobiological ones.

We have two future needs. One is to obtain knowledge and the other is to create backup worlds so we are not made extinct by the first, next, catastrophic event.

IF we had, already in place, a 'map' of all the worlds of the M-W galaxy on a Galactic WWW, then we could quickly and efficiently look for a habitable world that is not 'xeno-biologically' infested (an oft forgotten quality) and start to make a back-up Earth. But we don't. What is your plan, search the vast M-W galaxy in chemical rockets or even advanced jump ships with 'crew'? That could take millions of years and even end up with a mission-ending setback (like bringing home a plague!).

No. We need the information (using Von-Neumann probes with limits so they don't run out of control), and then with the information carefully pick and start to craft backup Earths which are near enough to get to, but not so near that a GRB could take us both out (the folly with trying to make a back up Earth within our solar system. A catastrophe to our Sun kills the whole system, for example).

If we had constructed such craft to simultaneously go out and probe and send back information as soon as we could have gotten into space instead of spending vast sums trying to blow each other to bits, we'd be a bit further on by now. But alas, we are actually doomed, because we have squandered our limited resources and will run out of money and resources by about the 2200s.

a reply to: Maverick7

Why do you think we will run out of our limited resources by the 2200s? I understand the world may reach its maximum population by then. That does not mean the resources are gone, only that the limit has been reached.

a reply to: JadeStar

Google Project Daedalus and Project Longshot. More recently there have been studies of laser propelled light-sails which could get up to 20% the speed of light. Google "Robert Forward" and "Starwisp"

I am interested in these technologies as well. As I understand the situation, the concepts have been proved that they should work. But, the practical application could be many years away. There are a lot of things that have to happen to make interstellar flight feasible. Be able to build a ship that can carry a significant sized crew and supplies. With the higher speeds have the technology to make sure the g forces don't kill everyone on board. We also need a way to either land a landing module on a planet that may have huge gravity or even better, be able to create mobile space elevators from the ship. We will also need the technology to grow food once we reach the destination. Finally, we have to identify with certainty where we should go. I am thinking with a concerted effort this could be accomplished within 100 years. It is also why it is important to be able to get to Mars with humans. There need to be a lot of practice runs on making this work. Also, going to a place like Europa which has water and is very inhospitable might be a good idea to see if humans could survive there for some period of time. If we are going to send astronauts on these types of missions, the probability of success will only be sufficient if the crew can survive in many varied situations. But, this is going to take many years to work out the issues.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I dunno the one I saw up close in Texas (it was supposed to be a peepee slappin for insulting an ex Nasa employee) Little did they know I knew exactly who was behind it and what it was.

Anyways when it dropped stealth by turning on a single strobe light it raced at warp speed off 100 ft over the tree tops and descended into the trees the single strobe light leaving a tracer and it pulled this maneuver in well under 1 second.
The other detail I did not mention earlier was that it did not appear to created intense wind or any disturbance to the trees at all so I don't understand the physics material or otherwise that would allow for that.
I do know that unless the momentum is nulled a human pilot would be mush so I figured that the AI and anti-collision is extremely sophisticated.
Bull #e we cant travel faster than light or at least close enough.

I tripped them out a bit by pointing to the tree it was hovering over stealthed out and thats why it dropped stealth and got away from me likely thinking I was about to fire a round into the meta material. Christ I need to rewrite that story up again so you guys can understand what the heck I am talking about cause it sounds nutty.

I still don't understand why they reacted by sending people to harass me randomly for about a year culminating in them sending a craft to shoot a blue laser into the old junked out minivan window to get my attention.

Bet they pissed themselves when they realized I knew what was projecting the beam and where it was.