Easy Interstellar Travel

The path to the stars is far easier than I think most of us believe. In light of recent discoveries I think it is fair to assume that many if not most solar systems have planets and similar methods of planet formation.

Look at our solar system, beyond pluto we have the kupier belt, we have found several planetary/moon sized objects we know of, plus we have reason to believe something larger is disturbing the orbits of the outer planets.

Beyond that we have the Ooort cloud which is filled with debris, something large out that far is probably disturbing the comets which is why they tend to come flying at us, given the frequency of comets we can assume that as gravity goes, clumping or massing occours in this zone too and there is allot there (in cosmic terms) to clump

so we have landable bodies with water all the way out as far as we can see... water gives us hydrogen and oxygen for a journey...

now here's the leap of faith (which I strongly believe) we can gather that there should be more failed stars floating in our galaxy then stars, locations where mass was simply not enough for reaction. What I am saying is I have seen estimates that we could be looking at as many as 10x the number of Jupiters-Brown dwarf type bodies between the stars as Stars

With that said and having observed that so many stars have planets and things are consistant with out system at least galaxy wide... if we act conservative here and say 2x not 10 x as many Brown Dwarfs/free roaming Jupitars with moons etc...

Then what we have locally would be at least 2 large bodies somewhere between us and Alpha Centuri (the number could easilly be much higher)

That leaves us with, very small (in cosmic terms) distances to cross through which we could refuel pick up the elements we need and continue on our journey... stepping stones so to speak... If we assume that A centuri also has Kupierish and oort cloud like phenomena and remember the system has the gravity of 3 stars not 1 ... then we are looking at a max of 1 light year spans to cross at worst on this journey.

That number is doable with modern technology...provided the craft is built large enough and pilotable by a small crew that would of course be reproducing the whole way.

I believe that in essence just in our sytem alone we have all the room we need to expand...mars and venus being Terraformable, Europa being Terraformable maybe Titan and others as well... 4-5 planets to populate, an asteroid belt full of raw materials and places to set up bases all the way out as far as the first light year from the sun...

So the question I have is why is there any other movement other than the one to expand off this planet? why are we so ridiculously struggling for resources when we know the skies are teeming with planets and raw materials?

Should we not already have a global movement for immeadiate expansion?

Nasas Budget is under 20 Billion and we spend that a day in Iraq in the states... it all seems insane considering that we have so many resources available to us overall.

Why isn't a moon base and a mars landing th 2 single top priorities of our Nation or of the World...

Take Mars for example... Mars we know on the surface has allot of radiation (low atmosphere) but the planets core is almost dead, so the planet is assuredly solid to far greater depths than the Earth...as we descend, the pressure grows, it gets warmer, and there is a ton of water, so the bottom layers of the ice almost definitively melt and form rivers and lakes inside the planet...and of course air...

I would stake any bet practically that if we enter the Martian caverns, that is where we will find life or at the least a truely habitable zone and on a planet with an almost dead core, well the thing must be teeimng with giant caverns...

so home no 2 is right next door already, it's almost easy in a way...

Next would be Venus which would require changing the atmosphere... we could blow of some of that atmosphere, not sure how, but it's feasable, Terraforming Venus would not be impossible particularly once we had based the moon, and colonized Mars, with numbers come geniuses etc etc...

So what is actually stopping us but ourselvs?

So what is actually stopping us but ourselves?

Same thing that fueled the 80's....people want to see a return on their investment NOW, not in their children's lifetimes.

Companies and politicians are not likely to throw money into a project whose rate of return won't even be achieved in their lifetimes. They want more immediate profits (especially in today's lagging economy, i.e. the unstated "recession").

(my math may be a little off, but I think it's right here)

If we had a spacecraft going the speed of the Space Shuttle (about 17.600 mph), it'd take over 150,000 years to get to the nearest star system! Let's get gutsy, and say we had a craft that could go 100 times the speed of the Shuttle. Now we're only looking at 1,500 years! Even going quarter light speed, it'd still take us 16 years, so we're still looking at a pretty long term investment for interstellar travel.

Interstellar travel easy? Hardly.

Interplanetary travel? Now that's a different ballgame, and the problem there is more of a cost to profit ratio. The cost to use offworld resources is (with current tech) more than the potential profit to be gained from such resources. Until the scale tips the other way in this, you're not going to see a strong urge to go down that road.

Space travel in the past was fueled by only one thing. National pride. It was a fluke. Until there is another fueling factor for space travel, it will continue to be a back-burner concern for business and politics.

reply to post by Gazrok


I think you are dead right here. we just simply aren't exploring space as much as some of us would like too, simply because there just isn't enough "group interest" in the program to do something like that right now.

however i could say, if they needed volunteers to try and make the first manned trip to mars or something, i would be 1st in line

eventually we will start to explore deep space etc. but not until we can travel at the speed of light or faster

[edit on 6/23/08 by SRTkid86]

Originally posted by Gazrok

So what is actually stopping us but ourselves?

Same thing that fueled the 80's....people want to see a return on their investment NOW, not in their children's lifetimes.

Companies and politicians are not likely to throw money into a project whose rate of return won't even be achieved in their lifetimes. They want more immediate profits (especially in today's lagging economy, i.e. the unstated "recession").

(my math may be a little off, but I think it's right here)

If we had a spacecraft going the speed of the Space Shuttle (about 17.600 mph), it'd take over 150,000 years to get to the nearest star system! Let's get gutsy, and say we had a craft that could go 100 times the speed of the Shuttle. Now we're only looking at 1,500 years! Even going quarter light speed, it'd still take us 16 years, so we're still looking at a pretty long term investment for interstellar travel.

Interstellar travel easy? Hardly.

Interplanetary travel? Now that's a different ballgame, and the problem there is more of a cost to profit ratio. The cost to use offworld resources is (with current tech) more than the potential profit to be gained from such resources. Until the scale tips the other way in this, you're not going to see a strong urge to go down that road.

Space travel in the past was fueled by only one thing. National pride. It was a fluke. Until there is another fueling factor for space travel, it will continue to be a back-burner concern for business and politics.

Valid points but we could go allot faster than 100x the speed of the shuttle, shuttle is not in any way fast as space travel goes the shuttles top speed was 17,000 mph where as Helios 2 has achieved speeds of 150,000 mph around the sun by using it's gravity...

We have never actually tried to break these speeds... with existing technology, combinations of ram jet ideas via nuclear, solar gravity acceleration, and other technology I am sure we could surpass comfortably 100 x the speed of the shuttle.

And that's the point of this thread, because that's what we probably could do and do fast If... and I say If we lit a fire under the project...

so lets stick with 100x the speed of the shuttle, which I think we could outdo, but lets say that is our cap...

1,500 years, now divide that by 4 that's just under 400 years to each new dark jupiter... That's assuming there are only 2 between us and alpha Centauri and estimates say that number could be as high as 10 or more...

But certainly failed stars out number the stars we can see vastly...

each one would be a mini system, assuredly have many moons, nothing we have seen about the galaxy says that this is not a constant, in fact rdundancy of what we see absolutely seems to be th norm...

so we are talking about 400 years on a large ark to encounter a new system... that's If we have only 2 failed stars between here and a centauri and If we can Only achieve 100x the speed of the shuttle...

400 years is plenty of time for a crew of lets say 8, to breed a population large enough to colonize a planet... but not so long as to make it over blown.

You would need to build a craft the size of the island of manhattan realistically which with Global effort could absolutely be done...

Now lets be a bit optimistic lets say we can do 200x the speed of the shuttle... and there are 4 large jupiter sized or larger planetary bodies between us and Alpha centauri...

still possibly being conservative... that speed should be doable, and the number of planets is less then half possible estimates...

Now we are talking about, 750 years to A Centauri... divided by 4 is 100 years between dark systems...

judging by jupiter and saturn with over 30 moons each... if you assume 1/4 that number of moons because of distance from a real star that is still 30 or more worlds between us and a centauri...

If efort is made to set up the craft to colonize even barren worlds in the manner of the moon we could over the next 750 years at that speed, spread colonies albiet small ones maybe barren nes all the way to the next star...

The remainder of the project is having shuttles available and launching payloads of supplies to the coordinates for expansion as population grows... tools, drills, newer tech...

Further technology would be advancing this entire time bak on earth..wired via internet to the craft through the entire journey

Birth control could be used to assure the colonies don't overpopulate until such a time as supplies or new faster craft arrive...

now all this is theoretical... we could start simply with probes... Helios hit 150,00o mph, helios with a ram jet or other tech...could go faster... we wouldn't need to even send people first...

I picture skyscraper sized robotic craft being phase one, with telescopes and gravity sensors out to map the local region of space for large bodies and planets that could sustain life... The moon would be the test dummy for barren planet colonization... the satellites would then park in large orbit around any bodies we find, even ones the size of sedna... and establish photo taking and data transmission positions...

we would focus on setting up colonies outward in order of planets while extending ouir satellite reach to orbit our solar system and beyond...

Costs to start the process are minimal...

A single satellite, a large long lasting one, traveling at the speed of helios by using the sun as a sling... for a couple of Billion dollars... our weekly Iraq costs btw... could enter and take orbit with a major telescope i.e planetary finder, com relay system, extensive photographic equipment and even a docking bay for small craft pilots... and be in place in the Kupier belt in well under 10 years, the a second in orbit around the oort cloud...

Now lets say we dedicate the equal of the US military budget 1 Trillion a year to this purpose... small manned colonies, supply launching station, large craft orbital construction center long rage satellite production.

It wouldn't be very long at all... before we had the locations of all large bodies between us and neighbor stars and had colonies all over the solar system and realy points for com beyond the oort cloud... 30 years or less... my life time could see, a craft reach the first world truely beyond our solar system....

Think about the US spends 1 Trillion on war a year Nasa gets, under 20 billion to accomplish all it has...

Imagine 1 Trillion contributed by the entire world even, yearly how fast this would all go...

I once read that the shocking thing Jesus told Mary Magdalene that the apostles couldn't fathom was the words "amrmageddon is a choice man must choose to be at war on Earth or conquerer of the stars"

1 Trillion dedicated to, leaving the planet yearly

Imagine the whole worlds military budget spent... over 50,000 orbital capable rockets were built in the cold war to carry war heads... Imagine helios at 150,000 mph... all with satellites like voyager attached having gone up this last 40 years in different directions.

Imagine a fleet of 200,000 more space shuttle type craft flying useful payloads instead of Raptors flying bombs

Comprehend every warship on earth converted into floating sea colony starters

Every Tank a planetary lander

it is easy to envison that rather than kill people we would be sending just as many as are dying to the moon and to mars and into orbital colonies already, bringing back resources, creating weatlth rather than fighting for it.

This si why I believe that if we have aline contact this whole war is a ruse... that we build weapons in order to test them in hopes of fighting back, that we were told to stay put...

Because otherwise I have to believe we are all lunatics... because for a Multi Trillion dollar a year investment world wide and over the last 40 years of war... we could be opening already the New, New worlds

Originally posted by SRTkid86
reply to post by Gazrok

 

I think you are dead right here. we just simply aren't exploring space as much as some of us would like too, simply because there just isn't enough "group interest" in the program to do something like that right now.

however i could say, if they needed volunteers to try and make the first manned trip to mars or something, i would be 1st in line

eventually we will start to explore deep space etc. but not until we can travel at the speed of light or faster

[edit on 6/23/08 by SRTkid86]

I'll take that a step further!

I'd be willing to be droped off on mars with a single space shuttles capacity of supplies and go robinson curusoe on Mars with only that... seeds, light, power supply from craft, solar panels for duration, water purifiers, clothes a spaces suit or two for above ground, lights and seeds... and some basic tools...

I am 100% certain that Mars is extremely cavernous, that where the iceline reaches 10-20-30 feet under the surface it melts and liquid water flows in the caves... it would be physically impossible for this to not be happening... I'd need only the power cords long enough to extend from the panels into the caves...

Mars flys through the tail of the earth, organic material has dropped and survived underground over millions of years, where there is water there is air, underground there is pressure.... there is life under mars, or at the least the air pressure and water to survive... some dirt, some seeds some light and enough air in the suits and some preplanning to locate a large enough cave structure, and this would not be hard, the planet is almost dead at it's center, for all intents and purposes, it's probably cavernous 1/3 of the way to the core...

It's probably cavernous so deep that we could in theory re inject the core with fissionable material and restart the reaction and bring the planet back to life, lord knows we have enough radioactive material with no place to put it

I'd be willing to attempt a rough it mission to mars...