The only way I see crossing inter-stellar distances is possible

Firsly, is resources, only a planet rich in combustable fuels would be valid to launch multiple rocket-propelled craft into space.

The second, is obviously a planet rich in natural resources.

Thirdly, is a planet united under military-rule.

To build a ship of collosal proportions would require the efforts of a united people, children trained since elementary school.

The project would take generations of hard work, your grandparents remembering the "ship" when it was still in scaffolds, the "ship" being something that has been there as if it were part of the furniture, or a landmark.

The ship has a "one shot" propelled unit, targeted at the nearest inhabitable world - e.t.a. 10 billion years.

The ship has a "waste recycling" system, and essentially also a food-bank, military supplies and very little if any space for habitation.

Those aboard the ship are connected into a mental-control-grid, and basically, it records and renders all sentient memories as being translated into null itself.

Each inhabitant is rendered into a complete state of "coma" much like hybernating animals, and visa-vis the "observer effect" "wake up" "on location" with practically no memory of thier "trip" - since no other phenomenon were "observed" - "time" appears to be only a "few years" relative to the "memory" of the occupants, the "distance travelled" interstellar.

reply to post by SystemResistor

Firsly, is resources, only a planet rich in combustable fuels would be valid to launch multiple rocket-propelled craft into space.

Firstly, a propulsion mechanism using chemical combustible fuels is not going to get you across interstellar distances in an acceptable time frame, even if the occupants are put into a state of hibernation.

reply to post by SystemResistor


I recommend leaving it to the scientists and engineers to decide what's possible.

For your enjoyment, you may have some fun reading about the Alcubierre drive that is currently being proof of concept tested by Nasa.

The way i see it possible is the ocupant be very small and able to live long periods of time frozen, like a virus or ADN

i think the way to do it as of todays tech, would be an ion booster rocket, set to initial speed via chemical break away boosters before the ion drives kick in and start the many years of acceleration. I would expect power to be given via a focused laser from the moon/earth before it has to start using its own reactor.

Pure chemical reaction thrusters just wouldnt get the speed with the time they have to burn.

You will not have to "cross interstellar distances" in a classic, Newtonian sense.

NOT if you can warp/bend the ST continuum. And there is evidence that this is possible, aka. Warp drive, manipulating S/T via electromagnetic fields. What is NOT possible is conventional, Newtonian speed at or near light speed. But with a warp-drive and the manipulation of S/T this is not even needed.

SystemResistor
Firsly, is resources, only a planet rich in combustable fuels would be valid to launch multiple rocket-propelled craft into space.

As others mentioned, combustible fuels simply won't take you to other solar systems in any reasonable amount of time.

But people who have studied the idea have come up with ideas that will work and they are mentioned in the National Geographic documentary "Evacuate Earth":



It's a long video but if for anyone interested in this topic, it's worth the watch.

If we faced a countdown to destruction, could we build a spacecraft to take us to new and habitable worlds? Can we Evacuate Earth? NGC's two-hour special examines this terrifying but scientifically plausible scenario by exploring how we could unite to ensure the survival of the human race.

It's a lot more scientifically more realistic than using combustible fuels, since it uses Project Orion (which is a technology well within reach but banned within Earth's atmosphere) for propulsion in one ship and antimatter (which is a hypothetical propulsion technology) in another.

What it propels is a modern day space version of Noah's Ark called an O'Neill cylinder, except it only contains plants and humans; no animals. This cylinder is huge though it still may not have space for all animals but the video didn't even show things like cows, pigs, or chickens, and I suspect if this really happened they'd bring breeding populations of popular food source animals along, if not for food along the way, to start food sources upon arrival. But when you can't get 2 of everything on a miles long craft, it makes you wonder how Noah did it on his tiny (in comparison) boat.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

It's a lot more scientifically more realistic than using combustible fuels, since it uses Project Orion (which is a technology well within reach but banned within Earth's atmosphere) for propulsion in one ship and antimatter (which is a hypothetical propulsion technology) in another.

If I was in charge of the space program I would have green lighted Orion and it would be on its way to Alpha Centuri by now…

Completely unrelated, my application to run the space program has been repeatedly denied.

I have watched evacuate Earth, and I don't remember ion drive being mentioned at all, which at the moment is the only practical interstellar drive we have at the moment.
As for food, the craft will be big enough for food to be grown inside, the cylinder of the craft rotating to give one g, might be a bit of a problem with the Coriolis effect, but, perhaps at one g constant, the cylinder would not rotate but have 'stories' same as a skyscraper?

Totally wrong in my opinion.
What you need to make a space ship:
a) Knowledge how to harness Solar Energy and energy from stars or from an approaching frequency / wave(s)
b) Knowledge to discover or create an element that can withstand the heat of sun / any other star.
c) Knowledge about worm holes (How to open, travel and close).
d) Knowledge to defeat what we call today as 'gravity' of heavenly bodies.

I believe:
a) You need not travel across space to go to another solar system. Just travel till that system's star, use that energy to create a portal and jump to the destination's star. Close it.
b) Travel as usual around the heavenly bodies in that system and to land, you need to understand and defeat gravity.

You don't need to learn it from school to build a space ship, try to increase a person's age limit (extend it to around 1000 years), you can build multiple crafts in your lifetime. (Yes, increasing person's age limit is possible when dependency on food consumption is avoided and if human can live on sun's energy).

In all, you need knowledge (spiritual / technical - which are the same) and you can't get it in it's true form, when 'You' refer to some one as a 'body'. Start referring 'You' to the soul using that body and then start realizing your inner self.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


This thing requires negative mass. And a ridiculous amount of it, too...

boncho
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

It's a lot more scientifically more realistic than using combustible fuels, since it uses Project Orion (which is a technology well within reach but banned within Earth's atmosphere) for propulsion in one ship and antimatter (which is a hypothetical propulsion technology) in another.

If I was in charge of the space program I would have green lighted Orion and it would be on its way to Alpha Centuri by now…

Completely unrelated, my application to run the space program has been repeatedly denied.

edit on 20-2-2014 by boncho because: (no reason given)

Same. We would have colonies round on moons of saturn by now and likley already getting signals back from the first intersteller probes,

But mankind decided to play with toy rockets instead

pikestaff
I have watched evacuate Earth, and I don't remember ion drive being mentioned at all, which at the moment is the only practical interstellar drive we have at the moment.
As for food, the craft will be big enough for food to be grown inside, the cylinder of the craft rotating to give one g, might be a bit of a problem with the Coriolis effect, but, perhaps at one g constant, the cylinder would not rotate but have 'stories' same as a skyscraper?

Iondrives produce very little thrust.

Nuclear pulse is far better.

reply to post by SystemResistor


Build a colony inside a very large ice/metal asteroid. Design engines to use the ice as fuel system preferably ionic or. plasma. I am talking huge engines built directly on the surface. Use the planets and sun to gain initial speed. On the way out deploy a huge Solar sail to increase speeds.

Fill the Asteroid with backup power with either a Fusion generator (currently in work) and or also nuclear power to supplement the use of hydrogen from the ice as power. This would give you 4 ways to gain energy and you could add solar panels and battery systems as well to store even more energy on your way out of the solar system.

If your real lucky you could find an asteroid with lots of water ice and lots of metal to include potentially resources for the nuclear plant operation. If not you could initially divert metal asteroids and other smaller asteroids into the one you plan on establishing colonies to provide it with most any resource you like. Lastly either create soil or deliver it from earth.

Now this would take several generations of humans on the colony to reach the closest stars but it is doable even now if we put our minds to it. If we can figure out how to harness antimatter from around planets or perhaps locally on the asteroid you could even build more powerful engines for the Asteroid ship.

I firmly believe the first alien mother ship we encounter that might visit earth will be a modified asteroid. It makes more sense to use resources in space to build ships rather than launching all that material into space to assemble in space. Much cheaper to just caputer and use asteroids once you have the infrastructure out there built you could use the asteroids as boats in space both within the solar system and to travel outside of it.

The water/ice of the asteroid would provide a nice protection against solar rays etc...additionally might be good idea to create an artificial magnetic field around the asteroid to provide even more protection.

We have the tech to do this now just need the will to do it.

Actually, there are other ways, and we even have a way that is technically possible for us to do now:

Project Orion

In order to improve on this performance while reducing size and cost, Dyson also considered an alternative momentum limited pusher plate design where an ablation coating of the exposed surface is substituted to get rid of the excess heat. The limitation is then set by the capacity of shock absorbers to transfer momentum from the impulsively accelerated pusher plate to the smoothly accelerated vehicle. Dyson calculated that the properties of available materials limited the velocity transferred by each explosion to ~30 meters per second independent of the size and nature of the explosion. If the vehicle is to be accelerated at 1 Earth gravity (9.81 m/s2) with this velocity transfer, then the pulse rate is one explosion every three seconds.

At 0.1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9.8 m/s2). At 0.1c, an Orion starship would require 100 years to travel 10 light years. The astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that this would be an excellent use for current stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Not possible using sub-light propulsion. The only way of travelling is to move at a speed that is nominally faster than light. This means technology we do not yet possess and more importantly, there are no laws of physics with which to base the technology on.

You will need stable large wormholes (none yet) or some kind of bubble in space , ie the warp drive of Star Trek. Both of which are theoretical fantasies.

I would keep my eye on the research into the Higgs field and/or the merging of quantum mechanics with relativity.

Crossing interstellar distances is not hard at all. It's actually very simple.

it just takes a very long time.

yorkshirelad
Not possible using sub-light propulsion.

Yes it is.

Usieng Nuclear pulse propulsion which we have the tec to do right here today you can get between 10%-30% speed of light, though 30% is pushing it. Thats puts our nearby stars 40-100 years away. This would be good fro probes.

With antimatter drives that can go up to 90% light speed. Thats puts our nearby stars in Human travel distance. We cant do that quite yet but it is a very very real possibility. Infact we could do it today its just the cost of Anti matter thats the problem.

I say we should make a BS drive.

Bascialy it runs on BS and lies.

Scientists say its a renewable source and there huge deposits in washington DC (USA), Westminster (UK), Brussels (Belgium) and North Korea is made of it.

There enough BS in 1 cubic ml of Washington DC air to power the world for a 100 years.

reply to post by SystemResistor

I see one major issue.

"Firsly, is resources, only a planet rich in combustable fuels would be valid to launch multiple rocket-propelled craft into space. The second, is obviously a planet rich in natural resources."

Youre limiting travel to old tech like rocket-propelled and combustion processes. Thats mid 20th century thinking.

On that alone, I believe any interstellar travel that way is NOT practicle. Its much too limited. Youre only addressing PROPELLING an object through space with rockets, when MAGNETICS can DRAW objects through space. And there are way more means of travel on the boards.

But, that Ill leave for the more scientifically knowledgable ATS'rs to explain further..