Space travel, and the possibilities of interstellar migration

[Thundercrack85]

By definition, lightspeed is the absolute cosmic maximum. So if you want to speculate about far future/highly advanced tech, don't mention breaking the light barrier. Instead, talk "artificial space warps/worm holes." They effectively do the same thing as FTL travel - but they don’t violate any laws of physics.

Isn't that usually what people are referring to when the say FTL travel?

If not then... that's what I meant.

 

[KalMart]

That's all well and good. But what's impossible to you, must have seemed as impossible to someone imagining the sound barrier being broken in the Middle Ages... if they knew what it was. Wasn't meant to be a scientific analogy. I don't have a PhD in physics.

Breaking the universe though... that's interesting.

Still, you'd have a better chance of hitchhiking with some aliens than on one of these STL starships that takes an eon just to get to a planet.

What you have to realize that even by the time we did break the sound barrier, we knew theoretically and physically it wasn't unbreakable...just that so far we couldn't reach the speed. Just like we couldn't fly, but we knew flight was possible because we saw it in brides and insects. I.e....we were never defying or changing the laws of physics that said it couldn't be done by anything, we were simply meeting it. We can counteract the pull of gravity with aerodynamics and air, but we can't just turn gravity off. The speed of light is a completely different thing. Physics says that nothing with mass can travel the speed of light...just like nothing can just turn off gravity when they want to. That is why we will likely travel much faster than we do now, but it will very likely still be considerably slower than the speed of light, because it has to be if it we want to remain intact.

 

[KalMart]

Isn't that usually what people are referring to when the say FTL travel?

If not then... that's what I meant.

Warps/wormholes are also only theoretical, and in no way is it proposed to be practical or controllable. As for 'warps', the amount of gravity/energy needed to do that would require many times that of the sun. How do you propose that's harnessed, stored, administered, and reusable by something the size of a spaceship?

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

So, you're confident that we've reached the apex of knowledge in physics, and that we fully understand the limitations of the universe?

Good to know.

So are all those physicists, talking about bending time and space talking out of their ass, or what's that all about?

1. Everything bends space-time.

2. Who are "all those physicists"?

3. What they are talking about are infinite length 1 dimensional strings that fold the entire universe to a point where a small area of the universe is pressed together enough to allow something to pass through.

You see the word infinite. Means it's impossible to manipulate. Not to mention the fact that of you could bend space-time, there's no reason for the fold to close up at the touching point.

As an analogy, if you were to fold a piece of paper loosely, going along the surface, and not raising off it at all, not a single atom, you won't touch from one side of the surface to the other, despite it being pressed together, because you are bound by the medium in which you exist.

So the next hypothesis was curved, or loops. The problem with that conjecture is a need for it to be infinitely curved space-time (this time, it's deceptive, it just means circle) which would result in the whole area of space time falling into a singularity (black hole).

They're by no means talking out their arses, but not much of it is being taken all that seriously, it's very much the fringes of theoretical physics and even the fringes of String theory.

 

[NateHevens]

By definition, lightspeed is the absolute cosmic maximum. So if you want to speculate about far future/highly advanced tech, don't mention breaking the light barrier. Instead, talk "artificial space warps/worm holes." They effectively do the same thing as FTL travel - but they don’t violate any laws of physics.

Creating a wormhole in space is impossible. There are wormholes that exist, but they exist in the Quantum world, meaning they are smaller than atoms.

Theoretically we could expand one to a size a ship could fit through, but even if we could use Dark Energy and Dark Matter, we'd still have no way of stabilizing it, so chances are the wormhole would collapse on top of the ship, killing everyone inside and maybe creating an explosion rivaling a nova, which means if it happens anywhere near our solar system, it ain't surviving.

Artificial warping is what Star Trek used (warp-drive), and I already explained the problems with that.

Black Holes are out of the question. By entering a black hole, you would experience what's known as "spaghettification"; essentially, the nearly infinite amount of gravity at the center of the black hole would pull on you feet-first, tearing you apart at the subatomic level. You wouldn't feel much, if anything, but you wouldn't survive, either (actually... it'd be a pretty neat way to die, to be honest).

Any other ideas?

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Well with stellar mass black holes, you'd actually burn up during spagettification, with Supermassive, it's the same amount of force spread over a much larger volume, so if possible, that'd be the way to go, as it delays your death for a while to truly experience the horror.

 

[KalMart]

The idea of a 'warp drive' and gravity bubble is an intriguing one...but practically, it would require ridiculous energy.

 

[Dr.]

Warps/wormholes are also only theoretical, and in no way is it proposed to be practical or controllable. As for 'warps', the amount of gravity/energy needed to do that would require many times that of the sun. How do you propose that's harnessed, stored, administered, and reusable by something the size of a spaceship?

But even if it’s a thousand years away, it’s an engineering problem - not a violation of physics. I assume Tc85 is talking about (as we all are) some far future technology.

 

[KalMart]

But even if it’s a thousand years away, it’s an engineering problem - not a violation of physics. I assume Tc85 is talking about (as we all are) some far future technology.

Of course, actually getting there one way or another slower than light is not a problem of physics, which is why again we not only discuss the engineering, but also very likely a physiological commitment on our part to best endure that trip, considering the time needed as well as the possibility that we'll have to keep looking indefinitely.

 

[raybia]

The idea of a 'warp drive' and gravity bubble is an intriguing one...but practically, it would require ridiculous energy.

Lucklly the entire universe and everything in it is made of it...energy.

 

[NateHevens]

Well with stellar mass black holes, you'd actually burn up during spagettification, with Supermassive, it's the same amount of force spread over a much larger volume, so if possible, that'd be the way to go, as it delays your death for a while to truly experience the horror.

Good point. Also, you'd want a hibernating black hole, not an active one. I really wouldn't want to get close to a quasar...

But was I right about essentially not feeling it? From everything I've read, at most you'd feel a very slight pinch.

I wonder how long you'd stay conscious for? Long enough to actually catch a glimpse of the singularity, or would you be gone long before that point?

The idea of a 'warp drive' and gravity bubble is an intriguing one...but practically, it would require ridiculous energy.

Not to mention the heat problem...

But even if it’s a thousand years away, it’s an engineering problem - not a violation of physics. I assume Tc85 is talking about (as we all are) some far future technology.

Yes, but Tc85 is talking about it like it's something in the near future, which it simply isn't. We won't be there in a thousand years, or even a hundred thousand years. I'm thinking it's something we won't even know how to do for at least a million years... likely longer...

And that's assuming it's possible...

Lucklly the entire universe and everything in it is made of it...energy.

Wow...

It really isn't that simple.

 

[KalMart]

Lucklly the entire universe and everything in it is made of it...energy.

Supply's not the issue though. Storing, using and re-using is. Look at it this way...we would need to be able to warp space. What do we know of that does that? Gravity. What creates gravity? Mass. Our massive sun warps space a tiny little bit. No nearly as much and as rapidly as we would need to use a 'warp drive'. That's our sun....and we're looking to do it much more in a space craft not even as big as the Earth. The energy it would require to create this 'gravity' in lieu of such great mass is immense...and yes, energy is all around the universe...but it's out there in its forms, not here in our gas tanks. If we could just transfer the energy of a thousand stars, we could somehow do it...so let's go out and harvest those stars...all we need to get there is a war-.....




....oh.....

 

[raybia]

Good point. Also, you'd want a hibernating black hole, not an active one. I really wouldn't want to get close to a quasar...

But was I right about essentially not feeling it? From everything I've read, at most you'd feel a very slight pinch.

I wonder how long you'd stay conscious for? Long enough to actually catch a glimpse of the singularity, or would you be gone long before that point?



Not to mention the heat problem...



Yes, but Tc85 is talking about it like it's something in the near future, which it simply isn't. We won't be there in a thousand years, or even a hundred thousand years. I'm thinking it's something we won't even know how to do for at least a million years... likely longer...

And that's assuming it's possible...



Wow...

It really isn't that simple.

Of course not. Its just that the human spirit only needs to know something is possible even if its not probably. Necessity is the mother of invention.

We'll eventually figure it out...even if its a 100,000 years.

 

[Thundercrack85]

The thing is, humans won't be able to develop this technology until it stops spending most of its energy on self-destructive things like war.

Only a stable civilization can be an interstellar one. Putting aside the science for a moment. An unstable civilization could never build or maintain the infrastructure needed to build and supply starships.

 

[raybia]

The thing is, humans won't be able to develop this technology until it stops spending most of its energy on self-destructive things like war.

Only a stable civilization can be an interstellar one. Putting aside the science for a moment. An unstable civilization could never build or maintain the infrastructure needed to build and supply starships.

Of course. I've watched Star Trek.

 

[Iceman]

We've gone a long way in just the last 10,000 years. Give it another million (unless we get some global catastrophe before then) from today's accelerated methods of learning and many things that seem ridiculous will become possible. Try explaining that the earth is not flat to a caveman and he will chase and (deservedly) club you to death.

 

[KalMart]

Also, no-one's guaranteeing that everyone on Earth will make it off if the time comes.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Of course. I've watched Star Trek.

Nobody ever addressed how the Klingons managed to maintain a working interstellar... horde.

At least with some enemies like the Borg, it's believable. But it's hard to imagine the Klingons running a space program. Well, not really, it would be like North Korea's. The engineers would be eaten if the launch failed.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Also, no-one's guaranteeing that everyone on Earth will make it off if the time comes.

But that won't happen for... a few billion years. Can't imagine any species lasting that long.

 

[Iceman]

The thing is, humans won't be able to develop this technology until it stops spending most of its energy on self-destructive things like war.

Only a stable civilization can be an interstellar one. Putting aside the science for a moment. An unstable civilization could never build or maintain the infrastructure needed to build and supply starships.

War sends technological development through the roof. And it will be warlike tendencies and the need for resources that will send a species with sufficient intelligence further and further into space when local resources become too stretched. And also what would happen if one country actually won a future world war (eg China) and controlled the globe. This kind of stuff would become more likely I think.

 

[KalMart]

But that won't happen for... a few billion years. Can't imagine any species lasting that long.

But if we do....either we'll all be 'united' by the cause, or we won't and some will be left behind.

 

[Thundercrack85]

But if we do....either we'll all be 'united' by the cause, or we won't and some will be left behind.

Gotta say, by that point, I figure we'd be like the galaxy's Vorlons. Assuming we're not dead.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Truth be told, I can only see this species working on interstellar travel for two reasons. One, we're bored (I.e. Earth will experience more or less world peace, and we have nothing left to do), or aliens send us an invite.

And possibly a third, with Earth dying. Problem is, if Earth is dying, we won't have the stability to create the infrastructure needed to make the starships.

 

[KalMart]

Truth be told, I can only see this species working on interstellar travel for two reasons. One, we're bored (I.e. Earth will experience more or less world peace, and we have nothing left to do), or aliens send us an invite.

And possibly a third, with Earth dying. Problem is, if Earth is dying, we won't have the stability to create the infrastructure needed to make the starships.

That's why we've been discussing it as a long-term plan set in motion way before the time actually comes. We could very well vacate the earth a few million years before it's actually burned up, as it will have become inhabitable long before that. Just as an evolution to space-living beings with the help of genetic engineering could take many generations in and of itself before we actually set sail.

Waiting until 'the last minute' won't work.

 

[Dr.]

Creating a wormhole in space is impossible. There are wormholes that exist, but they exist in the Quantum world, meaning they are smaller than atoms.

Theoretically we could expand one to a size a ship could fit through, but even if we could use Dark Energy and Dark Matter, we'd still have no way of stabilizing it, so chances are the wormhole would collapse on top of the ship, killing everyone inside and maybe creating an explosion rivaling a nova, which means if it happens anywhere near our solar system, it ain't surviving.

Artificial warping is what Star Trek used (warp-drive), and I already explained the problems with that.

Black Holes are out of the question. By entering a black hole, you would experience what's known as "spaghettification"; essentially, the nearly infinite amount of gravity at the center of the black hole would pull on you feet-first, tearing you apart at the subatomic level. You wouldn't feel much, if anything, but you wouldn't survive, either (actually... it'd be a pretty neat way to die, to be honest).

Any other ideas?

At this point, traversable wormholes are still highly theoretical/speculative. (Obviously! ) But they're not violates-physics-impossible in the way that literal FTL is. Many wormhole models are known to be practically non-traversable for various reasons (high gravity differential [“spaghettification”], extreme radiation, inevitable wormhole throat collapse, inaccessibly concealed behind an event horizon, etc.). But other models address these obstacles (e.g. a naked “ring singularity”).

Now, constructing an artificial wormhole would represent engineering on a massive and highly advanced scale. But, again, it doesn’t appear to be scientifically impossible. See: traversable wormholes.