Space Travel

[Teri Luketic 0]

As for viewing other planets outside our solar system, that is already being done with the technology we have, we just haven't gone out there to visit them. But we know what they are made out of and they are looking for planets more like Earth to see which planets can support life.

Which is the point being made. I do have to say, it is pretty neat to know what these things are mad of and all, but I would love to be able to visit these places myself (somehow, even those that we would not be able to live on with out specific altercations to the facilities we would live in without breathing toxic whatevers).

Financially it will be impossible to, like you mention tractor people are spending millions or even billions just to get to fly into outer space or some cases were gravity no longer exsist in the earth atmosphere.
Of course makes you think their won't be problems on the moon, heck the biggest terrorist threat someone could pull is, damage the the gravity system, air supply or the plastic bubble that would surround the moon colonies.

Of course once we figure out how to make thinks a hell of lot cheaper then they are now then maybe the financial problems will go away. Again the crime that could happen is immeasurable.

You know, the whole crime thing is something I do not think a lot of people actually look at. Sure, things like Star Trek and whatever other shows out there have such things in them, but that is not a topic you hear a lot about. But would not that be what security and military people would be for. Have enough up there to assure that something would not go wrong, and if it did that's what the smart people who know how to run the thing would be there for. You have people who can maintain and keep the thing going. One would hope they would be smart enough to fix something a terrorist could come up with.

If you want to worry about terrorist type actions though, we have that down here, and they are just as bad, look at 911.

Finally! An inter-stellar propulsion/impulsion system that does not rely on the warp drive that seems to be the shallow talk of the town nowadays. Nothing like the basics
I think Solar Sails could only do so much, I guess, while we're "near" the sun, that is, within the Heliosphere. I've once read a fiction book on this back in high school and the main problem seemed to be objects eclipsing parts of the sail. It is very much the same as an uneven (and turbulent) wind blowing on a ship's sails. The part shrouded in shadow will exert a lesser "pull" on the craft, veering it laterally into that very direction.

I suppose, however, that the sails, once the craft exits the heliosphere, might be retracted, to be unfurled once more in the presence of another nearby star. The main problem, though, is ensuring that the craft remains moving through interstellar space. Inertia can only do so much in a medium continuously battered by turbulent winds from different stellar sources.

. . .

The main problem I see, though, is actually entering another star's heliosphere. See, if the craft remains stuck or drifting in interstellar space, it will not be long before the ship eventually loses energy. As far as I know, interstellar space has temperatures that reach quite near absolute zero. True. we could travel to the edge of the solar system in pretty much the same way ancient mariners did, but for interstellar space, we need a propulsion/impulsion system far faster than solar sails.

I have a friend talking about different propulsion ideas for space travel. One thing he'd come up with was that of some kind of "beam" that could be set up to sent a vessel with enough equipment to make a structure like the first wherever they were sent from to send them back, and to another planet as well. I'm not the technical brain on this though, so perhaps you could all hash out what he's talking about.

In terms of the sails, would someone like to explain how space can be looked at like an ocean if you are surrounded by space, not having one substance you're floating on and another above you? Sails have to do with wind, if you're going to be pushed by whatever you are talking about with this space winds, you are surrounded by them they aren't just going to attack the sails right?

While I've grown up with the idea of warp drive, I have to agree with doing something basic. What exactly is it we are using now though with the shuttles and such. Isn't it just fuel? Perhaps something basic is what's needed. Then again, those have probably already been tested. There's obviously something else out there. . .on this world. . .that could be used for better space travel. More distance in shorter periods of time.

Then I'm brought to another question. I could just ask my friend, but that seems to be something we talk about a lot already, and I'm trying to branch conversations into other realms of communication. When he's talking about traveling and time, he ends up saying things about time being slower for those actually traveling, and those "watching" not even seeing them and all. But when the ship or whatever would return from their voyage, they may still be whatever age they should be to them, while their friends and loved ones could have aged many years and/or even died in the time they should have in their time. Anyone have any idea what he's going on about there? How would one fix that problem even, past taking everyone with you. . .which is a massive amount of people when you think about how people are all connected and all?

[salamangkero 0]

In terms of the sails, would someone like to explain how space can be looked at like an ocean if you are surrounded by space, not having one substance you're floating on and another above you? Sails have to do with wind, if you're going to be pushed by whatever you are talking about with this space winds, you are surrounded by them they aren't just going to attack the sails right?

While it is true that space is mostly empty, our local space, that is, within the neighborhood of the solar system, is not exactly as empty as the vacuum people think it is. As a matter of fact, our local space is just something extremely thinner than air. Very light but hardly empty at all. The particles comprising this "air" are mostly from the sun. The sun, our own local star, continuously "shoots" out millions of these particles. The reason we (or the planets) don't get blown away is because the planets are dense enough to withstand this constant bombardment and that the sun has sufficient gravitational pull to keep them in place. Fact is that Mercury and, it is also thought, Mars have had their atmosphere blown off by the solar wind. The Venusian atmosphere too has been discovered to be slowly eroding, like comets do when they near the sun. The reason Earth retained it's atmosphere is because of the magnetosphere shielding us from these winds.

For something less dense with a large surface area, like properly taut sails, this solar wind might be enough to carry it as far as the heliopause. For more info on this wind, see this Wikipedia entry.

Then I'm brought to another question. I could just ask my friend, but that seems to be something we talk about a lot already, and I'm trying to branch conversations into other realms of communication. When he's talking about traveling and time, he ends up saying things about time being slower for those actually traveling, and those "watching" not even seeing them and all. But when the ship or whatever would return from their voyage, they may still be whatever age they should be to them, while their friends and loved ones could have aged many years and/or even died in the time they should have in their time. Anyone have any idea what he's going on about there? How would one fix that problem even, past taking everyone with you. . .which is a massive amount of people when you think about how people are all connected and all?

It is a phenomenon known as Time Dilation, where, simply put, the faster an object moves through space, the slower it's own "clock" ticks. It's is not hypothetical; it's quite real. For example, we have a lot of particles in the universe that, within split-nanoseconds, decay into other particles, equally swift in their decay. However, sensors at ground level pick up these particles from cosmic showers with relative ease. The reason is that these particles travel through space at speeds near that of light. Time Dilation slows down time for them such that, in our point of view, instead of decaying quickly, the decay process is slowed down. Note, however, that in the point of view of the particle, it is just decaying at the normal, quick rate.

It can't be solved, really. Separation and death is something we often gamble on whenever we travel. Workers sent overseas run the risk of losing contact with their families. Sometimes, natural calamities finish off some of our relatives on the other side of the globe. I don't think Time Dilation is something that needs to be "fixed". If I were to travel to Proxima Centauri, take a few snapshots of extraterrestrial scenery and a few shots of extraterrestrial liquor, then return, I could hardly expect you guys to still be alive and cheering for me

[Spyda 0]

I do too just not anytime soon, First the world needs to be at an end then to start thinking about living on the moon. First lets make a machine that allows the whole atmospehre able for us to breath, then there may be a way, but with the constant meteors in the moon that would be a prnlem and not gravity is a bproblem as well so maybe in 100s of years, but not anytime soon!!!

[SNiped 0]

I think going into space would be the ultimate experience but spending a week floating around really does not float my boat. I am clumsy as it is floating would not really help that cause. I agree with Saint Michael on the 2 4 man crew's but the amount of supplies needed for that long of journey with that many men would be outrageous.I think the only feasable way to travel to mars would be to put liek truck stops in space with stocked up food then you move up to the next station on your journey. It's hard to explain if you need more explanation just ask.

[hitmanblood 0]

Well of course I agree with the space travel and we will be able to do it sooner then anyone else expects because space has become commercial in the last several years and more and more tourists are going to the space to the ISS(international space station). So when something develops as commercial activity in our world it starts developing really fast.I know that few American companies are working on the development of the space craft which could take people in the space like space shuttle for few hours and that would include no gravity environment and special look on the earth. However it won't be available to the general public but rather to the higher paid people. Approximate pricing they suggested is around some 5000 till 10,000 dollars flight so it might be nice wedding or so and such things or one time life experience. But the point is when we start develiping something into commercial sector it tends to develop itself and starts funding it self this is only reason why space will become so popular in the next ten till twenty years. We could have develop technology in the 70's but there was no profit and interest and till the beginning of the XXI's century space was mostly funded trough state funding in every country so to say.This thing has changed since that time every year russian space agency sends few tourists to the space station and so on. So the thing is that this sector is now developing and soon enough when more and more people see space as tourist destination we will develop the technology and even conquer moon once more. And probably start utilizing it with some other things also maybe for harvesting solar power energy and minerals extraction which chine has in plan already and is saying that in next 20 or so years will be able to develop refining stations on the moon and that it will transport minerals all the way to the earth with profitable costs. Which would increase with increase in extraction. Because it is easier to travel from the moon to the earth then from the earth towards moon. As moon gravitation is some 6 time lower then earths and that's why you need less power to leave the moon surface then you need to leave earth other thing is that earth has atmosphere, which slowers the space ship and space ship has to have more protection if it intends to leave earth.OK and now few my futuristic views how will space travel work. Firstly we will develop technology to build fast and safe in the space and we will see increase in the space stations of very different kind tourism research medical then mineral processing and so on. We will conquer the moon surface and moon underground firstly we will use nuclear energy then we will jump to the sun powered power plants and then mineral extraction will begin from moons surface. Because of the constant damage to the sun's powered powerplants we will develop shielding technology which will protect the moon from the asteroids and so on every space body which might infect or destroy artificial buildings on the moon. Also we will start reaching in the other parts of the sun's system. Firstly there is Mars space station then actual buildings and population will start growing on the mars. However after while we will reach europe sattelite. And then we will start researching different ways of propulsion which would shorten the traveeling time. We are doing some experiments with solar wind and so on. After while we will conquer most of our system and generation space ships will start leaving earth and other outposts to reach otehr systems and to colonize them. Our new propulsion has made sun's system traveling local thing however reaching other far away planets is still generation buisness. A lot of new developed corporations has been developed and so on. So you see we have new way of propulsion. We are developing some sort of gates which will bring us to the other systems however other systems still have to be reached out by generation star ships. After a while human race is getting over several star systems. And all have star gates trough which we can almost instantly enter other system. They work on bending space and time so to make this travelling almost instantenious although in fact it is not. Everything stops around while they travel. However we don't have still technology to implement this technology to the space ships nor we are able to make good navigational usage if installed in our high tech space ships. I would like to see others opinion on this and I would like that everyone could add something to this. However please don't just add like we encounter superior intelligence and then they assimilate all of us .