one way trip.

Apparently the hard part of space travel, is the returning to earth part. Do you think we would be more successful colonizing other planets if people were aloud to go on one way trips, kind of like a pilgramage.

We could send them periodical supplies until they learned to use the planets resources and point a satelite at them for comunication. I will volunteer to go except I am not smart enough to plot a lunar orbital space trajectory landing. I can't even spell trajectory.

My point is; If someone were willing to go and not worry about coming back, why not do that?

[edit on 14-3-2009 by president]

We don't have the technology yet. We can't reach high enough speeds and we can't provide enough fuel.

Assuming that it was possible to travel at or close to the speed of light though, it would be a possibility to do a one way trip where you end up in the future, sorta like a planet of the apes scenario.

A fun thing to consider is that if you would send an astronaut to a planet a few thousand light years away at the speed of light, the astronaut would arrive said thousand years into the future, and at that point of time there will probably be an alternative way to travel faster than light, such as going through wormholes or warp-tunnels, so when the astronaut arrives on the planet, it might well enough already be populated by humans. He would be well surprised, considering the trip was instant according to him (time dilation).

[edit on 14-3-2009 by Deran]

reply to post by Deran


WOW Deran, i've never thought about that before.
It kind of boggles the mind a little bit, doesn't it?
Just imagine being the poor schmuck who travels that far, only to find that your destination has already been colonized. Quite a thought there!

That Is A Very Interesting Concept.. But The Technology Isn't Quite There Yet.. And, In Reality, You Wouldn't Be So Much "Time Traveling".. You Would Just Be In A Reality Farther From The "Time" Of Earth.. Just Like Travelling To Mars Would Make Us See The Earth In An Older Day.

Although, I Am Probably Wrong.

-TSR

i'd probably volunteer also.

Actually I can see myself volunteering for this as well.

Then again, I'm sitting at a computer posting this on a forum while listening to music and drinking a beer.

I'd go, where do we sign up at?

Really, though (theoretically typing) if a crew left and went on their journey to colonize at or near lightspeed, they would arrive at their destination in a matter of years to them (depending on where the destination was located). The destination, however, would have aged at regular speed, leaving the possibility for all types of different time lines. If it were indeed colonized at that point by a more advanced race that now (in the future) knows how to travel faster, it would indeed be time travel into the future, becaus so many events happened at normal speed as opposed to the astronauts light speed journey.

I think it would be pretty neat to sacrifice a couple of years of traveling at light speed to end the mission on a planet that is colonized, possibly thriving, and possibly thousands of years into the future. Though, I have to think, it could be very scary if the outcome were different. The place could be inhabited by a different species of beings, could be hostile, could be us, but evolved to where the astronauts are obsolete. Even worse, when they slow and start to find their destination, it could be gone altogether, as in destroyed by a meteor or solar flare or a multitude of other events. Fascinating to think about none-the-less.

Also, just a thought, but how would someone determine the speed of absolute zero? As in the fact that all things in the universe are moving, how would one determine how fast they are actually going? It sould be that we are actually moving at or near the speed of light right now, and everything in advance of that is just that much faster. Very doubtful, but I find myself wondering that when I think of this type of subject. Also if you left Earth and traveled into space and then stopped, would you be going slower than when you were stopped on Earth?

I was just thinking of going to the moon or mars, I really don't want to go so far I can't see my home planet.

I think an unknown cicilazition would be scary to meet. but it would be more terrifing to land on a planet that is trully desolate and barren of life.
If there were not a single weed or bug on the entire planet, that would be the scary part.

I wonder how long a tanker load of water would stay useable on the face of mars.