Reaching for Interstellar Flight

space.com ^ | 12/17/03 | Leonard David

[KevinDavis]

When Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise hit the television screen in 1966, the science fiction series had trouble finding its own space and time slot.

Decades later, a similar visionary zeal to seek new worlds and new civilizations is a factual enterprise for a new generation of galactic explorers. They are taking on spacetime and hoping to boldly go where no spacecraft has gone before -- out to far-flung stars and the planets that circle them.

[boris]

"A long-ago acquaintence theorized that there is a "parallel world" where nothing goes slower than the speed of light."

Tachyons live there.

--Boris

[chronotrigger]

Sorry dude, but Babylon 5 was MUCH better than nerd-o-rama (star trek).

[boris]

"I am certain we will some day get around the speed of light and inertia issues and make star travel a reality."

We've gone around on this one before, I think. The good old Fermi Paradox is in the way. Ergo, if any of these schemes were feasible, they'd have been reduced to practice thousands of years ago by ultra-sophisticated ET civilizations. We do not observe them or their traffic. Ergo, either there are no ultra-sophisticated ETs or none of these schemes are feasible.

The idea that we are in some sort of "stay away" zone (don't feed the primates) is, IMHO, absurd, for several reasons.

Finally I have been completely disillusioned by Rare Earth which argues persuasively that we are more or less alone (< 10 technological civilizations in the galaxy).

There has been ample time--even at 0.05 c--for every star in the galaxy to be visited by self-reproducing robot probes ("Von Neumann robots"); there ought to be a traffic jam, and yet there is none. As Fermi famously asked, "Where are they?"

--Boris

[wireman]

Just don't run into anything.

I can hear the salesman answering questions... "What's the stopping distance on this baby from 200,000 miles per second?"

[Momaw Nadon]

The idea that we are in some sort of "stay away" zone (don't feed the primates) is, IMHO, absurd, for several reasons.

Could you elaborate on this point?

[chimera]

To the best of my knowledge, every single big jump in technology had previously been declared "impossible." One particularly delicious bit is the snot-nosed NY Times declaring in October, 1903, that powered flight would not be realized for at least another million years (these dildos have quite a track record, don't they?)

People in the late 19th century didn't think flight was possible because their point of reference was the big, heavy, steam-based power plants. Looking at a train locomotive of the 1880-1890 vintage, it was only reasonable to conclude that nothing like that would ever fly (Doc Brown and his hover-converted loco excluded). Development of a lightweight, powerful engine (the good old IC) was the necessary step. And large-scale commercialization of aviation was made possible by the development of high-strength, lightweight materials, and advanced flight control systems. Again, only dreamed of in the 1890s.

Even today's generations can relate to this. I grew up in the bad old days of the IBM 1130/1401/360, with batch processing and punch cards. I never thought I'd see computers for home use. But the development of LSI and photoetching changed the paradigm.

The moral of the story? One step at a time. Interstellar travel may be a ways off, but you keep forging ahead. For me, some of the things Kubrick envisioned in 2001 would be very sweet. A Clavius-style moonbase would be a very worth goal (maybe there's a monolith up there somewhere). A Discovery-type mission to Jupiter? Certainly feasible with today's technology. I am working now on a facet of the JIMO mission. It's a (nuclear) reactor-based system making use of an array of 30 cm ion engines. Now that's really the right stuff...

[hattend]

Sorry dude, but Babylon 5 was MUCH better than nerd-o-rama (star trek).

Which explains why the Star Trek franchise is still going strong almost 40 years later and B5 slipped into a black hole. < /sarcasm>

[PatrickHenry]

Could you elaborate on this point [The idea that we are in some sort of "stay away" zone (don't feed the primates) is, IMHO, absurd, for several reasons]?

Poachers. We can't protect the African elephants. Ergo, the "Enlightened League of Galactic Civilizations" can't protect us from rogue visitors and souvenir hunters.

[js1138]

I'm a rare earther also, and my opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it.

[Shryke]

I cannot argue completely against a conservative estimate of man's stellar travel limits - from what science has observed so far, we appear to have some serious limitations to deal with. However, another part of my brain (as was posted earlier in this thread by someone else) considers how incredibly quickly humanity has advanced in the last 200 years - and I cannot help but be convinced that such growth spurts will continue (with obvious peaks abd valleys). Thoughts on this?

[VadeRetro]

Poachers. We can't protect the African elephants. Ergo, the "Enlightened League of Galactic Civilizations" can't protect us from rogue visitors and souvenir hunters.

Honest-to-God, I've got an already-written, thus-far-unsold SF novel using this theme and sitting right now on my HD. So shhhhhhh!!!!!

[RussianConservative]

In 1920's Physicists say that nuclear power is fantasy dream and not ever reality. That nothing can gotten of splitting neutrons...so 1945 we have nuclear explosions...whoops.

[RussianConservative]

Interesting thing I once read: if FTL not possible then sun should only be 2/3 present mass. Why? Because that all particles that caught. Only passable explanation, about 1/3 tacions (faster than FTL).

[Jhensy]

Just don't run into anything.

That's always been my question on the subject of light-speed travel. How do you keep from crashing into something, even something as small as a micro-meteorite?

[KevinDavis]

I was talking about this Prometheus:

[RussianConservative]

Or maybe, life evolve not so rapidly or intelligent life equally rare and so not many if any civilizations have faster then light, we may be one of first venturing thus maybe that is reason none are here. To say this impossible because we see no one else doing so is straw man arguments.

[Malsua]

>>For once NASA is doing something right. I say in less then 100 years humans will be leaving the solar system.<<

Voyager already left. That should count for something.

[PatrickHenry]

So shhhhhhh!!!!!

Don't worry about basic plot concepts. Dime a dozen, and all re-used again and again for generations. It's the execution that counts. Oh, if you need another neat idea, try "boy meets girl." [But it's our secret, so don't let anyone steal it.]

[Professional Engineer]

Kevin, I've changed my screen name slightly. Would you update me on your ping list. Thanks

[VadeRetro]

Interesting thing I once read: if FTL not possible then sun should only be 2/3 present mass. Why? Because that all particles that caught. Only passable explanation, about 1/3 tacions (faster than FTL).

This sounds like the "missing neutrino" problem. It was solved without tachyons. Some of the mu-neutrinos the sun makes spontaneously turn into tau-neutrinos before they reach Earth. Because we weren't looking for that, we thought they were "missing."

I'm glad Russia is growing a new crop of conservatives, by the way. They lost quite a few in the last century. Vcego Khoroshevo!