Does anyone here think that interstellar travel will ever be possible? And by that I mean in a short amount of time, down to a human lifespan or less. Obviously, this will require somehow moving faster than light, but does anyone think that the interdimensional type theories could ever work?

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"Does anyone here think that interstellar travel will ever be possible?"
Yes, confess that I do. Dunno that we, humanity, will have the will to do it, thou.

"And by that I mean in a short amount of time, down to a human lifespan or less."
Hmmm.., well this part is a little more difficult. Me little noodle bucket says no, although me faith says that if there's a way, given enough time, humanity will find it.
8-[

You asked a very good question.

I don't think interstellar travel within time spans of a lifetime are possible because the distances between the stars are simply enourmous. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star from the sun, is almost 6,000 times the distance from the earth to pluto. seeing how the voyage spacecraft reached that distance in 20 years or so, it would take it 120,000 years to get to Proxima. The voyager is traveling extremely fast too-probably somewhere around 20 mi/s. Travel at the speed of light would certainly help, but even at that speed, it would take longer than a human lifetime to reach most stars. And at that speed, a dust particle the size of a sand grain can have the explosive force of a nuclear weapon. Unless a breakthrough in physics happens anytime soon, humans are probably going to be stuck on the sun and at most the nearest stars. That's just my opinion though. People's ideas range from not even getting to mars to colonizing the entire universe!! 8)

I don't know if it will ever come to pass, but I hope it will;

two pages of speculation;
http://www.orionsarm.com/ships/Dyaush.html
http://www.orionsarm.com/ships/Bussard_Ramscoop.html

the rest of the OA site assumes that interstellar colonisation is feasible, and describes the consequences...

it is perhaps a little optimistic, but who knows.

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Well, we can always talk about wormholes (or something equally as sci-fi), but as for the idea of being able to travel to star and back in terms of earth years/lifetimes, I doubt it, unless of course there are crazy wormholes and things. Oddly enough if we can travel close to light speed, it wouldn't be so bad for the travellers because of relativistic effects, but it would still take many years for an earth-bound observer.

Yes, I think so. Not through faster than light or even relativistic tavel, but through extended lifespan. I am fairly certain that aging will be defeated long before it becomes possible to accelerate a 1,000 ton mass to relativistic speed. And for the people who do not age, a journey of 10,000 years may not be such a big deal.

But then what do we do about over-population? It's tough enough NOW. That is my main problem with extended lifespan.

So do we search for habitable planets or mandate 1 child families?

It'll happen. If you let what people think is possible stop you, you'll never even try and maybe learn something in the process.

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Science--can't live without it, but it makes everything so much more boring.

People who have the chance to live 10,000 years are probably going to want to avoid risk like the plague and that trip is about as risky as you cold hope for. And actually I have my doubts on 10,000 year lifespans since accidents will be hard to avoid for that long even in safe enviroments. Well assuming that we don't invent humanoids a la Jack Williamson with a "Prime Directive" to keep us humans perfectly safe. So they lock us in our homes to keep us safe and change our personalities to keep us happy in that state.

Getting back to the subject at hand, the number one problem of interstellar travel is not technological. In the end the tech part of it will be trivial next to economic concerns. I really have no doubt that any techological problem could be solved.

The explorations of centuries past were funded for purposes of financial gain with a bit of a security/military aspect. Why would an investor, a government, a society want to pay for the ship and the R&D needed to develop the ship in the first place? What is the payoff? When will the this payoff happen. If it is when the great grand kids are dead then I seriously doubt that anyone would spend the resources for it. I don't think that the colonists will be fleeing tyrany since I don't think that a tyranical system could or would produce the ship in the first place.

Good point; I understand that if accidental death were the main cause of mortality then we could expect to live a little more than a thousand years.
The long-lived ones will be very cautious.You have highlighted the main reason interstellar civilisations will be rare; once a civilisation is advanced enough to build starships it doesn't want or need to.
A high-tech civilisation based in a single solar system, or even on a single world, could build a paradise of virtual entertainment and infinite contemplation; if you want to go to Andromeda; fine; we will build a perfect simulation of the trip for a fraction of the price.

Every planet could be covered with net-linked hypercomputers happily chatting away to each other, and all without building a single expensive starship.
Perhaps the most convincing explanation of the Fermi Paradox.

Of course the cheapest option for interstellar exploration is the Von Neumann machine; send out cheap, small, unmanned self-replicating probes; once there is a replicated infrastucture in place on your target planet you are more likely to want to go there.

Still no evidence of this ever happening in our galaxy so far...

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10,000 years of "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? "

*Shudder*

On the question of wormholes. Anybody serious working on this? Or is it just fringe.

Has anyone seen the film "Event Horizon"? Is this remotely possible?
Apart from the ripping out your own eyeballs bit.

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I was always personally a fan of potential suspended animation on an interstellar voyage myself.
Of course, this implies that you have no problems whatsoever with the fact that by the time you get there Earth will be completely different. So it'd be all or nothing because you could never go back to the life you knew. Colonists on Earth had to deal with this all the time a few centuries ago but in an age where near-instantaneous communication is possible anyplace on the globe I think we've gotten a bit spoiled.

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Yes, I have a life. It's quite different from yours.

Actually, overpopulation is not a problem in the developed world - all First World countries have birthrates below replacement rate, and those whose population is increasing (such as US) do so via immigration. Rich people want and have fewer children, and that trend is remarkably constant across cultures.

We have a very high built-in value placed on personal survival. In a primitive environment this is consistent with eventually giving place to one's children because no matter how careful one is about one's life, eventually he will grow old and die. In a civilization sufficiently developed to reverse aging process, the impetus to stay alive will be overwhelming. We accept growing up, having children, then growing old and dying as a natural order of things, but that's only because we were brought up that way. To the people raised with knowledge that they have a chance, however small, of living forever, death would be an intolerable concept. And perpetuation of families is a byproduct of inclinations+environment rather than an inclination in itself, would take a back seat. I can easily see a basically static future society of near-immortals where very few new people are born.

As for such society being unwilling to take the risks of interstellar travel, I think that's entirely true. They would only place their lives in danger in order to avoid a greater danger. And in fact I find eburacum45's vision of virtual paradise the most likely eventual end of human civilization. Think of Star Trek where all material wants are satisfied by the replicators - in such society 0.01% of the population would traipse the Galaxy in Starfleet, while the rest would spend their lives in holodeck fantasies. Remove potentially threatening (or even interesting) alien civilizations, add indefinite lifespan, and no more Starfleet either.

But Kebsis originally asked whether I think interstellar travel within human lifespan will be possible. Not whether anyone would actually want to do it...

They suggested stargates on Cosmic Safari. They were used by the cybernetic race who built a Dyson Sphere around their solar system to contain the heat from their dying star.

Hardly. With enough virtual reality adventures taken along, the trip will not be any more (or any less) boring than staying on Earth. Indeed, when the ship reaches its destination, the passengers may legitimately wonder whether they actually ever went anywhere, or whether "the spaceship" and "the destination" are just another layer of VR. But that's a different topic, and will always be a dilemma if VR gets good enough.

"I guess reality is what you make of it!" -- Bender, Futurama episode Obsoletely Fabulous

4 Light Years to Alpha Centauri; Thats 6 trillion miles away. And that is a star without planets. In order to achieve interplanetary space travel to other solar systems you would not necessarily need a faster than light spacecraft, but a way to slow aging. Cryogenic Freezing will be probably the only answer to achive space travel to other planets outside of our solar system. Either that or another type of medical break through. By the way you can't fly faster than light, the only theory around that would be bending spacetime and creating a dimensional gateway(Wormhole). Which is a black hole connected to a white hole, which Stephen Hawkings theorized to be impossible to travel through. So there are the answers to the first questions.

4 Light Years to Alpha Centauri; Thats 6 trillion miles away. And that is a star without planets.
Alpha Cen certainly has no gas giants, but there may be a small number of rocky planets in orbit around either, or both, stars.

In order to achieve interplanetary space travel to other solar systems you would not necessarily need a faster than light spacecraft, but a way to slow aging. Cryogenic Freezing will be probably the only answer to achive space travel to other planets outside of our solar system. Either that or another type of medical break through.
Suspended animation might be achieved more comfortably using biostasis, where your tissues are maintained by nanaotechnology; it may be that such a process is most effective at normal body temperatures.

By the way you can't fly faster than light, the only theory around that would be bending spacetime and creating a dimensional gateway(Wormhole). Which is a black hole connected to a white hole, which Stephen Hawkings theorized to be impossible to travel through.
So he did, but other physicists have described different types of wormholes, which are slightly less difficult to traverse; so don't give up on them yet.

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As was stated, overpopulation might not be too much of a problem, as industrialized nations, especially the richer parts of those (who would definately be the first to receive life-extention tech) rarely reproduce fast enough to replace themselves, much less grow. Another point, once humans can live upwards of 10,000 years or so, they will no longer have the luxury of being short-sighted. They begin thinking, if the Earth gets overpopulated, if humans run out of fuel, if an asteroid is on its way, etc., etc., that is now *my* problem and *I* need to make sure something is done about it. This is an entirely new way for societies to think and would be rather hard to predict accurately.

As for the accidental death of long-lived humans, I'm not sure if that would be a problem. Most of the realistic aspects of extended-life involve basically repairing physical damage to the body. If this is advanced enough to repair age-related damage, why would this not extend to repairing other forms of damage? Just something to think about.

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So, would you say that things like wormholes and other such methods of 'bypassing' the universal speed limit instead of pushing it are unlikely?

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*in little child whiny voice* "Are we there yet daaaaaaddy?"

Seems though that as far as I understand it, faster than light or near relativistic speeds wouldn't be possible. At least fast enough to shorten the transit time.
But, it would be fantastic if some type of interstellar flight was possible or would be possible in the future.
Exploration, colonies, and --- ohmy --- seeing the Pillars of the Eagle Nebula.

Rc

EDIT: Forgot to make link. ooops

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