Faster than light travel
Poll: Faster than light travel
Total Members Polled: 70
Discussion
'Coriolis effect'. Its best with very large diameter constructs but its better for humans to have some 'gravity' than none for long periods in space, and you would adapt to it I think .
As for stellar travel the distances are mind bogglingly huge.
The MW is ~ 100,000 light years across and 1,000 thick. To explore much of it you would need to go far faster than the speed of light, or have some worm hole/instant way of travelling.
Alpha Centauri is 'close' at 4.2. The fastest humans have travelled so far is about 25,000 miles an hour (Apollo 10), that would take about 120,000 years to get there
As for stellar travel the distances are mind bogglingly huge.
The MW is ~ 100,000 light years across and 1,000 thick. To explore much of it you would need to go far faster than the speed of light, or have some worm hole/instant way of travelling.
Alpha Centauri is 'close' at 4.2. The fastest humans have travelled so far is about 25,000 miles an hour (Apollo 10), that would take about 120,000 years to get there
ash73 said:
At speed c, distance contracts to zero, so t=0. No need to go any faster!
Well for the traveller yes. Not so nice to return home to earth to find its been incinerated by the sun...Fun fact we've discovered a photon only lasts 3-4 days.
But it travels so quickly and experiences time so slowly it will outlast the universe ( from our point of view).
RobDickinson said:
Well for the traveller yes. Not so nice to return home to earth to find its been incinerated by the sun...
Fun fact we've discovered a photon only lasts 3-4 days.
But it travels so quickly and experiences time so slowly it will outlast the universe ( from our point of view).
Fun "fact" indeed, but wrong, so not a fact. Lower limit of possible photon decay / life established as 3 years in its own frame of reference.Fun fact we've discovered a photon only lasts 3-4 days.
But it travels so quickly and experiences time so slowly it will outlast the universe ( from our point of view).
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/Phys...
This thread is absolutely hilarious! Where are the Scientologists?
caelite said:
The goofyness occurs when you try to use centrifugal forces in place of gravity, as is the basis for many sci-fi spaceships. This will create a feeling similar to gravity when you are stationary, however when moving through a rotating mass the effects of the centrifuge will be extremely disorientating unless the centre of rotation is a good mile or so away.
It's been said that the centrifuge in '2001' is far too small to comfortably produce any sort of useful gravity; Coriolis forces would induce all sorts of disorientation and Poole and Bowman probably spent a lot of time calling for ralph and huey. (And let's not go into the logistics of cramming the centrifuge, flight-deck, workshop, pod bay, airlock and Hal's memory core into the Discovery's habitation sphere...)Halmyre said:
It's been said that the centrifuge in '2001' is far too small to comfortably produce any sort of useful gravity; Coriolis forces would induce all sorts of disorientation and Poole and Bowman probably spent a lot of time calling for ralph and huey. (And let's not go into the logistics of cramming the centrifuge, flight-deck, workshop, pod bay, airlock and Hal's memory core into the Discovery's habitation sphere...)
There's a couple of calculators around on the web; a bit of perusing suggests something around 300m in diameter at just under 2 revs per min would be "comfortable" 1g.Think 2001 was based on Mars gravity level, so 40% smaller (I think) - not sure if film looks like this is right or not.
Nonetheless, nothing we're going to be capable of (engineering or finance wise) for hundreds of years.
JonChalk said:
There's a couple of calculators around on the web; a bit of perusing suggests something around 300m in diameter at just under 2 revs per min would be "comfortable" 1g.
Think 2001 was based on Mars gravity level, so 40% smaller (I think) - not sure if film looks like this is right or not.
[b]
Nonetheless, nothing we're going to be capable of (engineering or finance wise) for hundreds of years.[/b]
Hypothetically, where would we be in 50 years if the world's current military budget was split 50/50 between health and science?Think 2001 was based on Mars gravity level, so 40% smaller (I think) - not sure if film looks like this is right or not.
[b]
Nonetheless, nothing we're going to be capable of (engineering or finance wise) for hundreds of years.[/b]
And yes, it is assuming the lost military spending doesn't get us all killed or enslaved.
AW111 said:
Hypothetically, where would we be in 50 years if the world's current military budget was split 50/50 between health and science?
And yes, it is assuming the lost military spending doesn't get us all killed or enslaved.
About 1% further forward.And yes, it is assuming the lost military spending doesn't get us all killed or enslaved.
Elon Musk (well, Space X) has spent about $1bn (publicly declared anyway) so far, getting a semi-reliable, small satellite launch system up & running. But this is based on gaining a significant commercial return and market-leadership by launching satellites cheaply, not about allowing people to travel long distances in comfort (i.e. no muscle wastage, no radiation poisoning and a sensible diet) and with reliability and safety.
The U.S. pretty much threw every thing it had at the Moon over 10 years & nothing it did was safe or reliable (in the sense we, the rest of the risk-averse, litigious society, would understand). Look at what happened as soon as this turned into the Space Shuttle.
Unmanned, autonomous exploration is the only serious consideration for even near solar system exploration - Mars in the 2030's? Ha; see safe, reliable, etc. above.
It would take (IMHO) 10% of the world's total GDP (about $10 Trillion) over 30+ years invested in materials science, serious electromagnetic shielding, medical science, genetic engineering (radiation resistance, bone strength), propulsion systems, ............ to get anything close to something that actually looked like 2001 Space Odyssey - that is travelling around the solar system in a spaceship with normal-ish gravity, normal clothes, large comfortable rooms, heated, well-lit, etc, etc. Think about how inefficiently and bureaucratically EVERYTHING operates - what percentage of any given company / organisation is given over to lawyers, guidelines, processes, meetings, committees.... (US government, the EU, any large established company, etc).
At which point, which politician is seriously going to commit to this? Explain this to the sick and unhealthy individuals who won't have healthcare, explain this to the workshy as to why they won't get benefits, explain why your armed forces can't defend your country from your neighbour who is not interested in this space exploration, explain why your country's infrastructure has been in decline for those 30 years?
Who wins? Where's the profit?
As a race, we are now too narrow-minded and selfish.
Depressing isn't it?
(Sorry; Sci-Fi fan with a bit of a hobby-horse on this topic)
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I worked on a machine years ago that was designed to finfpd the Higgs (it did). We measured the speed of things that were going very fast, and a particle that was doing 0.999c that broke into tow particles, one forward, one backward, both doing 0.999c in that object's rest frame did not generate a particle doing 1.998c in the lab frame.
JonChalk said:
At which point, which politician is seriously going to commit to this? Explain this to the sick and unhealthy individuals who won't have healthcare, explain this to the workshy as to why they won't get benefits, explain why your armed forces can't defend your country from your neighbour who is not interested in this space exploration, explain why your country's infrastructure has been in decline for those 30 years?
Who wins? Where's the profit?
When you:Who wins? Where's the profit?
Use Sat Nav
Use any product designed with analysis software
Fly on a modern jet
Land on a safer runway in that jet
Use any kind of PC, laptop or phone
Install solar panels
Have teeth straightened with braces
Quite a lot of medical advances and equipment
Then thank the people that put money into space.
It really isn't hard to show someone everyday stuff that they use that came from it so correctly marketed it shouldn't be hard to convince people it's a good thing to spend money on again.
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