How fast can we humanly possibly go in space?

I was just reading the news about the launch of the probe to space heading to Pluto about 36,000 mph. Can we go faster if we can push the momentum to let say 100,000 or 1,000,000 mph? Can the humans withstand that type of speed in space? After all I see astronauts in earth's orbit doing spacewalk going about what 8,000 miles per hour? I forgot so anybody can help correct me.

It isn't the speed it's the acceleration. Humans can handle 3g ok (normal shuttle launch) and upwards of 6 to 9 for very short periods. Launch and accelerate at 3G for long enough and you would approach light speed but the fuel is the problem....

We are actually traveling thru the galaxy at close to light speed BTW - nifty....

Originally posted by UofCinLA
We are actually traveling thru the galaxy at close to light speed BTW - nifty....

Just a few quick figures......

Standing at the equater you are rotating with the earth at about 1042 MPH.

Standing anywhere on earth you are traveling around the sun at about 65,000 MPH.

Standing anywhere within our solar system you are traveling around Sagittarius A at about 640,000 MPH.

But the entire galaxy is moving through space at about 1,000,000 MPH.

The speed of light is 669,600,000 MPH.


I'm sure if any of the above are wrong someone will point it out, but we aren't traveling anywhere near the speed of light.

Helios 2 reached about 150k mph during part of its approch towards the sun. Humans, from what I can decipher of Einstein's relativity, can only infinitely accelarate closer to the speed of light.

Where theres a will theres a way, we CAN go faster than the speed of light but we dont know how.
For those who want to travel in space: Stop counting in MPH or you will go into numbers of unimaginable proportions.
IF you wanted to reach say, Alpha Centauri you would need to go over 20 AU/sec (Astronomical Units) and ALSO live through the radiation fields of space in the mean time.

I think the concern that the author of this topic was talking about is more of a "what the heck happens to our bodies when we hit speeds like that".

Personally I would guess as long as the human being is in a vessel of some sort that protects him from the environment, he should be ok.

I mean, stick your head out the window of a car doing 90mph. It would hurt wouldn't it?

But riding in the car doesn't hurt because we're protected from the wind. Same concept in a plane doing 400mph at 36,000 feet too right?

My guess (purely a guess) would be that if the materials the vessel is constructed from are strong enough to protect us, we should be ok, at 30,000 mph as well.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder

Originally posted by UofCinLA
We are actually traveling thru the galaxy at close to light speed BTW - nifty....

Just a few quick figures......

Standing at the equater you are rotating with the earth at about 1042 MPH.

Standing anywhere on earth you are traveling around the sun at about 65,000 MPH.

Standing anywhere within our solar system you are traveling around Sagittarius A at about 640,000 MPH.

But the entire galaxy is moving through space at about 1,000,000 MPH.

The speed of light is 669,600,000 MPH.


I'm sure if any of the above are wrong someone will point it out, but we aren't traveling anywhere near the speed of light.

Wanna bet - Expansion of the Universe ~.99999998 (and a bunch more) of Light speed and we are all expanding with it at that speed.... It's all a bit relative of course but it's pretty fast and we be on the train....

There actually is a way to travel FASTER than the speed or light via gravity. If a ship in a vacuum (space) were to travel in a circular motion, it would be possible to rip a hole in space-time. Its in the form of a slinky. As you approach "c", gravity would actually be strong enough to pull you the rest of the way. I have a video on my desktop explaining this but I dont know how to upload files in a thread. if someone can help me out, I will post it...

depends on the technology you use. in theory we can go instantanously.
like the stargate in stargate sg1 sf serie.

it just depends on how you are trying to gain the speed or how or which form of travel you use.

using a dempening system you could go much faster.
then current planes are going.

You can quite easily travel faster than the speed of light (well easily may not be the right word.) If you go to a place in space where there is no matter for say a couple of light yeasr where you are affected by no gravity or anyting else and then begin to accelerate then you would theoredically move faster and faster as long as there are no other forces acting on you you will continue to go unitl the speed of light and beyond (personally i believe there is nothing magical about the speed of light, its just the speed it travels at if we reached it we wouldnt accend or anything.)

You all I enjoyed reading this. With all these numbers and theories you all are throwing at each other, makes it fun. I think we should focus more on fact that true space travel will exist thru hyperspace. Worrying about how fast you can make your rocket go isn't going to get you out of the solar system.

One poster already mentioned, it isn’t the speed that affects a human body, its the acceleration or deceleration.

Its how fast a living organism reaches that speed that can be detrimental to its health, not the speed itself. Theoretically, so long as the acceleration didn’t kill you, you could travel at any speed without any adverse effects at all.

Except for that turning into energy nonsense...

so, what would happen if we go faster than the speed of light? would we not be able to see things ahead of us due to going faster than the light reflecting off of space objects?

or am i retarded?

pkpao

according to einstien, its impossible to achieve a velocity over that of the speed of light as the objects mass would need to be over infinite. so far his theory hasnt been disproven or proven 100% but its currently accepted in science. untill someone accelerates a particle to over the speed of light then we have to assume einstien is correct.

as you approach the speed of light the energy required to accelerate faster is exponentially more....take a proton which weighs something in the order 2.36x10'-23 (a bloody small amount).....it takes upwards of 160Mev (thats 160,000,000 volts per seconds) to get that to 99.96% the speed of light.....to get to 99.97% would require more than 10 times that amount of power...which todays particle accelerators do not have.

as far as what the human body could survive?

whatever it could be accelerated to and the mass is low enough, its not the velocity that effects us, its the acceleration.

eg, when you are in a aeroplane @ cruise speed, close your eyes, its impossible to tell you are moving, depite the fact you are travelling at 1000kph.

there is a limit though, as velocity increases, so does mass......those astronauts orbiting earth weighed about 1gram more than on earth, if your velocity was say 99% that of light, your would be well im not exactly sure, but it might be too much to handle, it might not. I plan on working it out though in my studies

If you don't have a way to accelerate you along with the ship, you end up a smear along the back wall. If we could develop some kind of inertial compensator then we could travel as fast as we wanted, as long as we don't suffer a compensator failure. Right now water is probably our best bet for dealing with the acceleration.

The limits of human space flight are acceleration, and reaction mass. Since the only way to get high acceleration with current technology is via reaction engines (rockets)

THen at high velocities we have to worry about friction and microasteroids that we run into. we have to figure out some form of Slag armor to protect us.

when we start reaching near light speeds we are going ot have a hard time figuring out where we are going, and often will only know where we have been... not the best way to travel IMHO

How can acceleration effect the human body in a weightless environment?

Pvinny

newtons 3rd law of motion

for every action there is a equal and opposite reaction

if you are in a space ship, but not tied down in a chair, and the rockets accelerates you will hit the back of the ship, as it moves and you dont.

weightless or not, acceleration is still happening compared to the point of origin (say earth orbit). acceleration is still acceleration, it still impacts the body.

Humans can travel faster than the speed of light we just dont know how, laws and rules in science are ment to be broken. The good thing about space is the lack of gravity so you can go faster without as much pull or as much pain from sharp fast movements in space. The trick is to get the ship going slow at first then pick up speed and not to just "fall out" of a high speed or else the persons guts would fly about. Unless we find a way to create a fake gravity and keep the organs and human body parts in place while the person is going so fast a person without the gravity system would die. We need a way to create a "bubble" around the person so they wont pop on us when they suddenly go fast then go to a dead standstill in space, also the ability to survive the radiation.

Thanx Viper....Hey I agree with Vekar. The trick would be to gradually approach c....How can I upload a video on here. I have a video from NASA explaining how one can actually get to c and beyond. I got it from another post on here months ago. Its very interesting. I think it would answer alot of questions....