Thoughts about interstellar travel and ideas?

Ive been thinking about this topic a lot lately and its frustrating to say the least

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that unless some major yet "simple" obstacles are overcome that we are stuck here, within our immediate solar system for quite some time. I'd like to point out that Im no expert physicist, or mathematics wizard, but I do use both disciplines on a daily basis and have a deep interest in both.

Additionally, I'm going to be brief and withhold some thoughts regarding the obstacles until later in an attempt to get a good discussion going

So, the obstacles....

Energy - Whatever mode of transport will ultimatley get us to the stars, its going to require energy and lots of it. Candidates that I think are viable are nuclear and some form of quantum related energy, solar is no good IMO as once your are past Jupiter theres nothing in the "tank".

Ive some ideas, and questions regarding quantim field related inihalation, as from what I can understand, when an electron and positron collide, 2 gamma particles are released. These have energy, we have gamma detectors, thus can we harvest energy from those? If electrons and positrons are created and destroyed constantly in space, then isnt that an unlimited source of energy? (plus arent gamma particles lethal, if there are so many created from this ongoing process everywhere why arent we all dead? )

Propulsion - This one in particular is puzzling, if you have the energy, how do you use that energy to move. Ive no ideas at all on any propulsion devices, Im still dealing with energy

Speed/Time - Velocity as far as we know has an upper limit. Which is impossible to get to in the usual sense of movement, plus you then have the matter of time dialation to deal with.....you know the whole 1 year for you, 10000 for everyone else issue. Time is a killer problem as by the time you've got to where you are going, no ones around to care.

Safety - No not ejector seats but things such as cosmic radiation, obstacles in your path, forces upon the human body etc etc

Consequences - Punching a "worm hole" in space to get somewhere fast sounds great, but not at the cost of upsetting orbits and other objects in the near or far vicinity. Other issues Ive thought about is the concept of warping space, ie you stay still and everything else moves...similar concerns to worm holes, if you are warping space, then surely the objects within that space are going to be affected by this too...Gravity warps space and look at the havoc that can cause

A conumdrum....all the "obstacles" are seemingly interconnected and if you have an answer to one, it causes problems elsewhere.

Finally, anybody have any information to share on projects, research pertaining to any of the above?

reply to post by fuserleer

Yeah the best idea humanity has come up with is solar sails, where sunlight is captured in in a reflective filament and over time the sails will travel the speed of light, so will anything attached to them

www.youtube.com...

that link will get you started

reply to post by fuserleer


In the fourth dimension, not only is time travel possible and normal, so is space teleportation.

If beings are coming here from other star systems, this is how they are doing it. They are either technologically harnessing the fourth dimension, or they are fourth dimensional beings by their nature.

I am scared of the ones who are using technology to accomplish this feat because that means they probably haven't evolved to the fourth dimension, they just cheated their way there and are probably not very nice. They would probably be destructive like our species with bigger and badder toys and more advanced agendas.

Sorry for my lack of "scientific" information. Science would support the fourth dimensional part, but probably not the fourth dimensional being part. That is just speculation, which, personally, I believe in.

I believe you could warp space on a small scale without affecting too much else. If you were able to warp space just enough for a spaceship to move faster and faster towards another star system, that would not affect the orbits of planets and not much else unless it came close to hitting something. Gravity is a weak force and gravity really isn't even a force but the result of space being warped or bent around large masses or bodies in space. There has been a lot of speculation here on ATS that someone has already discovered ways to warp space by making objects lighter or the so called anti-gravity effect. I believe it's possible because the time delay between the public knowing what has been invented in the US skunk works and what's known to the public seemed to be about 50 years. That's just based on some past observations between US skunk works projects becoming publicly known and when they were first known in secret.

Something I once thought about is the idea that the entire human body could be transformed into energy and then that energy could be instantly teleported vast distances using some form of quantum manipulation and then rearranged back into the same material body. Even if the energy had to travel at the speed of light, it's possible if you were transported that way, it would be instantaneous for you due to traveling at light speed. However if light takes 15 years to get to a certain star system, a one way trip would take a long time for those not in transit.

With our current technology, we might be best off thinking of ways to colonize Mars and the Moons of Jupiter rather than attempting to journey to the stars.

Originally posted by fuserleer

Consequences - Punching a "worm hole" in space to get somewhere fast sounds great, but not at the cost of upsetting orbits and other objects in the near or far vicinity. Other issues Ive thought about is the concept of warping space, ie you stay still and everything else moves...similar concerns to worm holes, if you are warping space, then surely the objects within that space are going to be affected by this too...Gravity warps space and look at the havoc that can cause

A conumdrum....all the "obstacles" are seemingly interconnected and if you have an answer to one, it causes problems elsewhere

NAVIGATION, don't forget when we look at a star, we are seeing it where it was.

we need real time co ordinates to know what direction to point the ship to intercept the solar system we want to get to.

even through a worm hole, let alone the hard way!

reply to post by orionthehunter


Hmm small scale warp...I'll buy that as a possibility, kinda like a bubble surrounding the craft. If you are warping space, and "pulling" it past you, what about objects infront of you, as you will be "pulling" them too. If you are moving space fast enough, then how will you detect them coming. Colliding with a few grams of matter at an equivalent speed of 3FTL is gunna hurt

I've speculated that maybe, the very act of warping space itself deflects matter around you as it passes by, I guess a little like gravitational lensing in a way if that makes sense.

Teleportation I'm not a fan of per se (its damn cool, but never feasible), when you get into the math of it the amount of data to transmit, let alone the processing power to compute it and rearrange the particles in the correct way works out to the millions of times longer than the time taken to physically get there at even a snails pace. Then youve got the issue of data integrity....some packets got lost along the way "Sir you have 2 choices, wait a million years for us to send a reply and get the missing data, or, can you do without your pecker?"

reply to post by fooks


Good point, but I thought about navigation, but it didnt seem too much of an issue at least in terms of your "target".

Sure, when you start, you are lets say 100000 light years away, so the information you have is 100000 years old. But, the age of your location information decreases as you get closer, which you can do even if you head in the wrong direction initially, providing you are moving faster than your target, thus it increases in validity.

Its a moving point which you follow, updating your direction as newer, more accurate location information is collected.

Much like a heat seeking missle, its location information is always wrong as the object its after is moving, but eventually, the error in the information doesnt matter.

If worm holes are the way we use, then yes, then its an issue.