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Starship pilots: speed kills, especially warp speed
http://www.newscientist.com ^ | February 17 2010 | Valerie Jamieson

Posted on 02/18/2010 3:22:11 PM PST by Para-Ord.45

Star Trek fans, prepare to be disappointed. Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew would die within a second of the USS Enterprise approaching the speed of light.

The problem lies with Einstein's special theory of relativity. It transforms the thin wisp of hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space into an intense radiation beam that would kill humans within seconds and destroy the spacecraft's electronic instruments.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


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To: KevinDavis
Two words: Inertial Dampeners..

It took 111 posts before your mentioning of Inertial Dampeners on the thread?

And throw in the particle deflector shield to block space objects. The writer appears to not know about Star Trek.

121 posted on 02/18/2010 7:09:44 PM PST by Red Steel
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To: Edward Watson

Its not ‘velocity,’ but acceleration that dilates time. Thus for an object in free fall time advances more rapidly, while for an accelerated object time passes slower.


122 posted on 02/18/2010 7:13:39 PM PST by editor-surveyor (Democracy, the vilest form of government, pits the greed of an angry mob vs. the rights of a man)
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To: Red Steel
It took 111 posts before your mentioning of Inertial Dampeners on the thread

I mentioned them in #55. And I contend that the only correct term is 'dampers,' not 'dampeners.'

123 posted on 02/18/2010 8:12:02 PM PST by Sloth (Civil disobedience? I'm afraid only the uncivil kind is going to cut it this time.)
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To: Fiddlstix

That would be 10 years on board the spacecraft, ~60,000 years for the rest of us watching it go.


124 posted on 02/18/2010 8:49:05 PM PST by Squawk 8888 (TSA and DHS are jobs programs for people who are not smart enough to flip burgers)
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To: RightOnline
NewScientist
125 posted on 02/18/2010 9:03:00 PM PST by A.A. Cunningham (Barry Soetoro is a Kenyan communist)
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To: Squawk 8888

Kind of like the Obama Presidency


126 posted on 02/18/2010 9:40:52 PM PST by willyd (Reducing Taxes Reduces our Carbon Footprint)
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To: RightOnline

So where did this hypothesis come from?


127 posted on 02/18/2010 10:23:29 PM PST by wastedyears (The curtain has fallen, behold the messiah.)
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To: Bender2

Them’s the breaks...


128 posted on 02/19/2010 8:47:38 AM PST by blackie
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To: thesharkboy

Leave early?


129 posted on 02/19/2010 9:20:26 AM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: dmcnash
“A back of the envelope calculation, if you keep acceleration around 1Gs, it will take on the order of 10 years to get to light speed. Of course you have to start to slow down before you get there too.”

The slow down time, if Gs remain constant, will be another 10 years. Both the acceleration and slow down phases will be less than 20 years actual to the crew, however, they will take at least 20 years their time to arrive.

Then there is the slight problem (pointed out by a 10 year old as I recall) that it will take near infinite mass of propellant to achieve light speed, since mass increases as speed increases.

So it's back to the drawing board, unless a direct wormhole system a la Stargate, or an existing mode is made available a la The Culture (were effector fields solve the unwanted energy problem) which uses ships that gain traction above and below the energy grid (Plank Space?) and travel at speeds measured in hundreds of kilolights per second.

130 posted on 02/19/2010 9:51:33 AM PST by PIF
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To: PugetSoundSoldier

From the article:
“Whilst the invisible effect lasted for only an extremely brief period - an estimated 40 femtoseconds”


131 posted on 02/19/2010 9:56:43 AM PST by PIF
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To: wastedyears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJGvn5iOERM


132 posted on 02/20/2010 1:24:10 PM PST by wally_bert (It's sheer elegance in its simplicity! - The Middleman)
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To: wally_bert

That’s twisted


133 posted on 02/20/2010 10:04:28 PM PST by wastedyears (The curtain has fallen, behold the messiah.)
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To: wastedyears

It is that but so funny! I laughed so hard it hurt the first time I saw it.


134 posted on 02/21/2010 4:29:01 AM PST by wally_bert (It's sheer elegance in its simplicity! - The Middleman)
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