Starship pilots: speed kills, especially warp speed

http://www.newscientist.com ^ | February 17 2010 | Valerie Jamieson

[allmendream]

cheap and crappy sci fi. Stargate is sci fi for people who don't like to think.

[wally_bert]

[RightOnline]

One can only hope.

[paulycy]

You're all missing the easiest and obvious, if improbable, solution to this problem.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

They miss the obvious. Light speed isn’t diddly in space travel. Just to get to Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to Earth, at 4.243 light years, at the speed of light takes, obviously, 4.243 years.

Enter speed of light doubling. Round off the distance to 4 light years, and at twice the speed of light it takes 2 years, four times the speed of light just 1 year, eight times the speed of light, six months....

32,786 times the speed of light, 1 hr and 8 minutes. About. Just to get to a star that is “right next door.”

But now the good news. Welcome to the world of tachyons.

Tachyons are theoretical faster than light particles. Theoretical because they have never been observed, or observed interacting with slower than light particles. That is, nothing has ever been observed going faster than light.

But they may have some very interesting properties, if they do exist.

For example, to reach the speed of light, a particle must gain an amazing amount of energy. But as soon as it crosses to a faster than light speed, instead of being the fastest slower than light particle, it becomes the *slowest* tachyon.

It cannot take on any more energy, so theoretically again, to keep going even faster, it has to give up energy. It no longer needs energy to accelerate. It has to give up energy to accelerate. Thus the fastest tachyons have very little energy at all.

So once a spaceship is going faster than light, the more it brakes, the faster it goes. It only needs a huge amount of energy to slow down enough to go back to slower than light speeds.

[Jim Noble]

Huh? If it takes light 50,000 years to make this distance, how are people going to do it in 10?

You obviously don't understand warp drive physics.

You really need to read up on your Zefram Cochrane.

[Edward Watson]

Which is called GENERAL Theory of Relativity. The SPECIAL Theory of Relativity is in relation to velocity.

[hot4plasma]

Excellent, just excellent presentation of the facts. You are absolutely correct in your math... thanks for posting a really amazing synopsis of relativity fact.

[Edward Watson]

Lol!

[plinyelder]

WOW!
I’ll be damned!

Beam me up Scotty. lol

[KevinDavis]

Two words: Inertial Dampeners..



For other space news go to: http://www.spacetoday.net
For a list of Private Space Companies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies

[GeronL]

wormholes people!!

[Vaquero]

warp speed is not the speed of light now is it...

it is more like the Warp bubble of Alcubierre drive....if that is possible..

[MHGinTN]

Cavitation of spacetime ... inside the bubble remains stable.

[MHGinTN]

Excellent! ... And a photon remains in the present of where it was generated, never wavering into the future or into the past as a photon, thus it crosses the universe in no time lapse for the photon. Could we then say that the photon is ‘carrying’ a bit of time in itself thus it is in ‘cavitation’ to the universe around it?

[1010RD]

If you ever saw a human body after it has been hit by a train at 45 mph you wouldn't make comments like this: There were 'scientists' that said that trains traveling more than 45 miles per hour would kill because the human body would not hold up.

[1010RD]

She always reminded me of a praying mantis and I thought she liked girls only.

[1010RD]

I thought Tachyons were obscene. Aren’t they used by strippers?

[editor-surveyor]

"Am I missing something?"

Yes, the 'Trekkie's' understanding of what "Warp Five" meant :o)

[editor-surveyor]

"Actually the Enterprise didn’t travel at light speed."

Of course not, that was way too slow for the Federation's business!