Will we humans ever travel to other stars and search for new planets to colonize while ours is being barbequed on the suns increasing heat, because the sun is dying.

Will we save humanity in time?


That was a question from a friend, asking me to bring up some ideas about space travel for his report.
I believe most of you have inspiring ideas about space travel, so I will apricciate any response very much.
Here are more questions he came up with.

When will the first humans be able to set foot on another extrasolar planet?

How will humans travel?

Robots, best solution?

Light speed possible in 500 years?

Best way to travel?

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Always has time for the stars

Well, we've got about 500 million years before the Sun really starts to heat up the planet as it gets warmer and begin killing all life on Earth. But there are so many ways that humans can get wiped off the planet before then: asteroids, pollution, ice ages, volcanic explosions, disease, etc.

So, we've got time, but not too much time.

I suspect we're looking at hundreds of years before humans take a step on another planet. There are just so many complex challenges that need to be overcome.

The best travel method I've read about so far is using lightsails, surprisingly. Using a high-powered laser, you could accelerate a spacecraft to nearly the speed of light, and then use another technology called a magnetic sail to decelerate again. Very cool stuff.

Bob Zubrin covers this in his book, Entering Space. I highly recommend it.

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

Q. Will we humans ever travel to other stars and search for new planets to colonize while ours is being barbequed on the suns increasing heat, because the sun is dying.

A. Human descended or generated entities will probably be buzzing all around the galaxy (if other entities don't object) well before the sun is done.

Q. Will we save humanity in time?

A. We usually do, and can do so, so long as we remain worth saving. By the time the Sun expands to the size of Betelgeuse all the stuff in the Kuiper belt will have become prime real estate for a while, and by then we will have learned how to refuel stars if we really want to.

Q. When will the first humans be able to set foot on another extrasolar planet?

A. Before the youngest of us alive today is as old as the oldest of us alive today, if they really want to.

Q. How will humans travel?
A. In fleets of hollowed-out asteroids, maybe.

Q. Robots, best solution?

A. The best solution for robots, and for Robocorp, but not for us. Why should they have all the fun?

Q. Light speed possible in 500 years?

A. Yes, if the laws of physics change by then, or we can modernise them and bring in some new laws which we can persuade the rest of the universe to accept.

Q. Best way to travel?
A. Hopefully.

(Academic warning – the above answers are used at your risk and have been prepared using the rules of the discipline of Pure Speculation.)

Yes, assuming we don't b-b-q us first. In fact I think Star-trek is a reasonable expectation, assuming humans travel to different planets allowing for evolution to diversify our species. How else are they able to interbreed?
Couse that's more like 400,000 years in the future, not 400.

Maybe.

Once habital or nearly habital planets are found, the desire of some to go there to have complete freedom will push people to go at almost any cost. Figuring we find a couple in the next couple of decades, the first human extra-solar settlers could arrive within 200 years.
Think of the Mayflower.

I assume you mean "what propulsion will they use". Solar sails are a strong possibility, as are some form of ion drive, both of which can accelerate a craft to a significant fraction of the speed of light. Some form of nuclear power may also work, or more likely a combination of all of the above.

Absolutely, for the first arrivals, with the abiility to send back data and pictures. Of course the trip time will mean that the people who launched the craft will have the happy knowledge that their great grandchildren will benefit from the craft's arrival.

Not unless we REALLY missed the boat in our understanding of physics. Warping space? Wormholes? Folding space? There are tantalizing clues in some of the more obscure mathematics of relativity that suggest these things might be possible--and the "universal speed limit" would still be safe.

Fast! One of the interesting phenomina of relativity is that the closer you come to the speed of light, the more time is slowed for you, relative to the rest of the universe. So if you are able to reach, say, 80% of the speed of light, your 25 years may translate into 1000 years for us earthlings.

Makes you wonder if it might be better to just keep going!

Hope I helped some

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All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

I don't think anyone can truly make such predictions with any great accuracy. Humans setting foot on extrasolar planets is hundreds of years down the track I would estimate. According to current beliefs, faster than light speed travel isn't possible. As one travels closer and closer to the speed of light however, Einstein showed than time slows down for the traveller relative to the observer. If you were to set off in your spaceship at close to the speed of light, your journey to a distant extrasolar planet might seem to take 100 years to your tiwn brother standing on Earth, but you might only age 3-4 years due to your different experience of time. If you were to return, your brother would have long since passed away, but you may have only aged 6 or so years. This is known as the twins paradox. It could help humans explore the cosmos, but it would be frustrating to observers on planet Earth waiting for the spaceship to arrive, led alone to send a message back (which would travel at the speed of light and thus take many years to reach us).

Although faster than light travel is impossible according to current theory, there is small amount of hope evident in several phenomena. The quantum flucuations that allow radiation to be emitted from black holes technically allow faster than light speed travel for a very small number of particles, although the probability is low.

Quantum entanglement could allow faster than light speed communication (in fact scientists are already investigating the use of quantum entanglement in a new generation of "quantum computers" which unlike electronics based computers, are not slowed by the time it takes electrons to travel from A to B). Read this article for more information:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3043731.stm

Einstein called this phenomena "spooky action at a distance". Perhaps quantum entanglement holds the key to faster than light-speed, and indeed instantaneous interstellar and even intergalactic communication. This could aid our colonisation of other solar systems (or colonization if you speak American rather than English). Either way, it's a long long long way off.

Kashi

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Climate Change Australia

TO KASHI:
it's the 2nd time u come out with impressing information KASHI, this quantum entaglement surely pours some hope onto our rusted dreams of having instantaneous space communcation and transportation. by the way the bbc link didn't work, would u please try to mail me the article if u already have it saved on your comp or if u can access the page from your connection?
THANKS

done.

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Climate Change Australia

How about isolating one part of this big question and trying to consider it further?

I would like to look at just the part "Will we humans ever travel to other stars" and leave aside for the moment anything about planets or colonisation or possible reasons for leaving solar orbit. Also, I would for now like to avoid getting drawn in to making any sort of prediction.

I would just like to attempt to make a statement that is simple enough for anyone who wishes to do so to refute it, if they can. Here goes:

There is no reason in the laws of physics, currently generally accepted scientific theory, economics, engineering, human biology, psychology, sociology or any other intellectual discipline which could prevent there being a hundred thousand humans or more living out their lives in orbit around a nearby star within a hundred years from now if enough people were to want it enough to make it happen.

True statement - or not?

Philip Slater

UK-NISA

Anything is possible...
We just need to want it enough to make it so....
But, sadly, not enough people want it enough for this to happen...
With our current technologies increasing in speed and processing power, we could easily make it to the edge of our system and back if we REALLY wanted to...
It the steps factor... take a step, analyze, take another...
small steps, big ones, any steps at all!!
Just take them!!

I remember back when i was a kid, that our universe was a scary thing...
i though that we may be sucked into a black hole at anytime....
or that we may orbit into our own sun... silly things that we now know to be far from what will actually happen... far, like millions upon millions of years far...

But, if we could just simplify our way of life, combining all resources upon this planet, human, non human, biological, mechanical, cybernetic, whatever, we may just be able to take the steps needed to advance....
Our eyes are working finally... we can see billions of light years away, into the past in essence... so that step is almost complete... but, what then?
Will people WANT to leave this planet? Can we even get enough people to understand that there's more to life than just this one world?
I've tried to talk to friends of mine about life beyond here, about how vast our own galaxy is... billions upon billions of stars... but i get this... "..why do i need to knkow this? what would i do with this info?..."

Its hard to try to explain to people just what it is that makes us so... interested in what else may be out there... but i think that it would take a serious occurence to 'wake' the world up to whats actually outthere.... and a need for such exploration must be born from this... else it would seem to grand a task to accomplish, something not feasible within our lifetime, or our childrens.. so why even bother? It's the ignorance that is holding us back....

The need for material matter here on earth.. the need to collect monetary value just to survive... we can't even feed the population of our own world right now, so how could we possibly think of colonizing other worlds?

Combine... then overcome...

. ..-={Arramon}=-.. .

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. ..-={A}=-.. .

Hi, Arramon,
to pick up on just your last few points -
Fortunately, for those who want to go and get a life in orbit around a nearby star it isn't necessary to either wake up the world or educate its people into any single shared belief system.

If ignorance is bliss then the world can be left resting in peace if it so wishes whilst maybe as few as ten thousand people slip away from the Sun in fifty years time. Yes, they will be taking with them a lot of earth plants and animals but with careful husbandry the Earth gardeners and farmers will soon be able to restock using the free input of sunlight they get every day.

Yes, the voyagers will have to take stored energy with them, but there is plenty of that spare in the solar system. There will be ten thousand less pairs of hands to work producing food for Earth folk, but there will be ten thousand less mouths to feed.

Once in orbit around their new star, that will provide them with all the food they need, thanks to the Earth life forms they brought with them. I'm sure they or you won't forget to say "Thank You, Earth" every time you say grace. After a while Earth will start to get back messages and images and the investors in the project, owning all the media rights, will also remember to say thank you to "the folk out there on the new frontier" or whatever else the adscam people of the time come up with. No problemo. Everybody wins. And one of the messages says, “thanks for everything – but just don’t call us colonists”.

Philip

I don't think that we will colonise planets in other solar systems any time in the next 200 years, even if everyone was working towards this goal.

I reckon Mars in 100 years is extremely ambitious.

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Climate Change Australia

As mentioned earlier, I would for now like to avoid getting drawn in to making any sort of prediction.

But what can be done right now by anyone interested is to:

1) Put forward an outline of how people might one day live in different parts of the solar system

2) Work out what they would need from Earth to get set up and become self-sustaining

3) What would be the project set-up costs including travel expenses

4) Taking the above into account, develop a time scale and a project start date.

Of course, the same person doesn't have to take on all four tasks. Everyone has their own special gifts. Getting out and about in the solar system is a really good team building exercise. And, of course, everything learned can also be used to help out those who think there are still aspects of life on Earth that could be improved.

Philip

Thanks all for your replies, really apricciate them.



Gives me more ideas.

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Always has time for the stars

So, here's my thing... wormholes...

I was reading about this Dark Energy and Dark Matter that seem to have us encased within a void in the ISM (interstellar medium)....

So our galaxy is in a pocket of hot gas... surrounded by a shell (somewhat) of Dark Matter, and around the Dark Matter is Dark Energy + ISM...
So, then there little shafts of hot gasses and excremented medium puncturing through the Dark Matter and into the Dark Energy, which repulses the gasses and medium along the tunnel... shooting it out(faster than light?) through the ISM towards whatever other shafts may be interconnected with it, or if the other end leads to another pocket of hot gasses... or a singularity (a blackhole) or whatever other kind of formation there may be, keeping in mind the gravitatiomal forces of any other objects that may be undetected, as in singularities so small that you would have to be inside of them to know they exist... the bending and curving of such shafts could be because of unknown singularities, which in turn could help detect them.... anywayz....
with this shaft of hot gasses & etc being shot through the opening of our Dark Matter bubble and through the ISM, being repulsed to great speeds because of the manipulative effects of the Dark Energy, this could lead to interstellar highways that may enable us travel beyond any imagined distances... the Time and Space would be reletave to the individual, most likely, so meeting up with someone you left behind wouldn't hold true...

and so breaking this down even farther, our own solar system is within a hot gasseous bubble (around 1 million degrees hotter?), left behind by some supernova explosion of by-gone years possibly, and surrounded by a wall of colder gasses...there are breaks in the wall. Are there shafts of radiation and gasses shooting from our own system and through the IGM (intergalactic medium) to other systems?... being manipulated by Dark Matter & electromagnetic radiation, possibly faint or thin layers of Dark Energy, or the pull of other undetected local singularities or formations... (although Dark Energy may not be able to be present WITHIN a galaxy, because of the force it creates may push our galaxy apart, causing everything to be repulsed... the gravity within a galaxy seems to be at least fixed, in regards to the current galactic bulge, and the rate of increase of the size of the singularity at the center.)

this could lead to intergalactic roads of travel... maybe not faster than light, but as fast as the repulsive, pushing gravitational forces of the IGM may allow...

If we could only discover the nature of the IGM & ISM... and what other elements may be involved, we may find ways to use whats already there...

. ..-={A}=-.. .

(ok...time for some coffee....)

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. ..-={A}=-.. .

COMING SOON: ION DRIVES
NOW I, IT'S REAL "GROUND" WORK WE'RE TALKIN ABOUT HERE!


Nancy Lovato (818) 354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Dom Amatore (256) 544-0034
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

News Release: 2003-105 July 30, 2003

Ion Engine Records No Tuneups, No Problems

The future is here for spacecraft propulsion and the trouble-free engine performance that every vehicle operator would like, achieved by an ion engine running for a record 30,352 hours at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The engine is a spare of the Deep Space 1 ion engine used during a successful technology demonstration mission that featured a bonus visit to comet Borrelly. It had a design life of 8,000 hours, but researchers kept it running for almost five years, from Oct. 5, 1998, to June 26, 2003, in a rare opportunity to fully observe its performance and wear at different power levels throughout the test. This information is vital to future missions that will use ion propulsion, as well as to current research efforts to develop improved ion thrusters.

"Finding new means to explore our solar system - rapidly, safely and with the highest possible return on investment - is a key NASA mission," said Colleen Hartman, head of Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. "Robust in-space flight technologies such as ion propulsion are critical to this effort and will pioneer a new generation of discovery among our neighboring worlds."

While the engine had not yet reached the end of its life, the decision was made to terminate the test because near-term NASA missions using ion propulsion needed analysis data that required inspection of the different engine components. In particular, the inspection of the thruster's discharge chamber, where xenon gas is ionized, is critical for mission designers of the upcoming Dawn mission. Dawn, part of NASA's Discovery Program, will be launched in 2006 to orbit Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest asteroids in the solar system.

"The chamber was in good condition, " said John Brophy, JPL's project element manager for the Dawn ion propulsion system. "Most of the components showed wear, but nothing that would have caused near-term failure."

Marc Rayman, former Deep Space 1 project manager, said, "There are many exciting missions into the solar system that would be unaffordable or truly impossible without ion propulsion. This remarkable test shows that the thrusters have the staying power for long duration missions."

Ion engines use xenon, the same gas used in photo flash tubes, plasma televisions and some automobile headlights. Deep Space 1 featured the first use of an ion engine as the primary method of propulsion on a NASA spacecraft. That engine was operated for 16,265 hours, the record for operating any propulsion system in space. Ion propulsion systems can be very lightweight, since they can run on just a few grams of xenon gas a day. While the thrust exerted by the engine is quite gentle, its fuel efficiency can reduce trip times and lower launch vehicle costs. This makes it an attractive propulsion system choice for future deep space missions.

"The engine remained under vacuum for the entire test, setting a new record in ion engine endurance testing, a true testament to the tremendous effort and skill of the entire team," said Anita Sengupta, staff engineer in JPL's Advanced Propulsion Technology Group. "This unique scientific opportunity benefits current and potential programs."

"The dedicated work of NASA's Solar Electric Technology Application Readiness test team, led by JPL, continues to exemplify a commitment to engineering excellence," said Les Johnson, who leads the In-Space Propulsion Program at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. "This work, along with significant contributions from NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, will take NASA's space exploration to the next level."

NASA's next-generation ion propulsion efforts are led by the In-Space Propulsion Program, managed by the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters and implemented by the Marshall Center. The program seeks to develop advanced propulsion technologies that will help near and mid-term NASA science missions by significantly reducing cost, mass or travel times.

JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena for NASA.

An image showing the thruster being removed from the vacuum chamber is available at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04668 .

For more information on NASA and its programs, please see http://www.nasa.gov , http://www.jpl.nasa.gov , and http://www.msfc.nasa.gov .

- end -





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Pretty amazing story there. They just left the engine running for years and didn't have a problem. I'll be writing something about this tomorrow.

__________________
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

The only problem I have is the speed of light. The way I understand it, in order to travel at the speed of light, you would have to be broken down into pure energy, i.e; photons. Wouldn't it be impossible to re-assimilate back into the same form of matter? And if that speed is a constant, the voyage time would be extensive, generations.

Its cutting through the IGM that really matters... there are strands of gasses stretching through our IGM that could be used as 'river ways' to be repulsed through, if we had, say, a consistent repulsive force, opposite that of Dark Energy to kick us along... plus any anti-gravity components installed would help...
That's why we should be test flying space born craft by now within our own Earth orbit... or between here and the moon... all that room to play in, yet no vehicles!
enough satellites... and talk of astronauts dying... i'm sure there are millions down here waiting to be given a chance to fly...
oi!!

. ..-={A}=-.. .

...life... it thinks, therefor it is...

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. ..-={A}=-.. .