Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Hawking: Humans should ride a beam of light


Claire.

Recommended Posts

Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Ride a Beam of Light to Other Planets

Humanity should focus its efforts on exploring other worlds that we might inhabit, and to get there, Earthlings may need to ride on a beam of light, famed physicist Stephen Hawking says. Hawking made his remarks today (June 20) at Starmus, an arts and science festival in Norway whose advisory board he sits on. In his speech, he reiterated his belief that humans need to explore space to avoid the dangers of our own finite world. And then he described how humans could one day travel on a beam of light, harnessing the power of Einstein's theory of relativity to reach mind-bogglingly distant planets.

Read more: Live Science

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I've often thought about solar sails. If we set up millions of mirrors around the Sun can aimed them all at one location, and then collected then and refracted them into a single beam, it would be a power propellant to such a ship. I'm not sure if current materials science would have materials that could handle that level of energy though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, CeresExpo2000 said:

Alpha Centauri is not far away.

Only about 43,000,000,000,000 kilometers

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

Only about 43,000,000,000,000 kilometers

Maybe the ETs there could give us a quick ride back to the Sol Star System?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Taking pictures while flying by at the 1/5th of speed of light? Sounds unlikely, even if the same solar sail to be used to decelerate using the winds of Alpha and Proxima Centauri.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

YOu would still need a powerful engine to decelerate at the destination

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It says propelled by a laser beam from the surface of the Earth. I am a little confused how would they locked on with the rotation of the earth. Lol I have loved this site for years and this is my first published comment

Edited by Punkie1103
Added text
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you get to Centauri Prime, ask for "Londo."

Edited by Sundew
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
5 hours ago, Chaldon said:

Taking pictures while flying by at the 1/5th of speed of light? Sounds unlikely, even if the same solar sail to be used to decelerate using the winds of Alpha and Proxima Centauri.

Fast, I mean really fast, shutter speed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, The Russian Hare said:

YOu would still need a powerful engine to decelerate at the destination

Just throw a deep space anchor overboard. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Punkie1103 said:

It says propelled by a laser beam from the surface of the Earth. I am a little confused how would they locked on with the rotation of the earth. Lol I have loved this site for years and this is my first published comment

Telescopes track stars continuously without so much as a wiggle for entire nights so I would imagine the same tech would be used to aim a laser at a solar sail.  Probably setup a few stations around the globe so the a laser is always hitting the sail.

What would be funny is if the Star Chip, once there, actually flew into the star before being able to take any images of the planet, or even flew past the star on the opposite side of where the planet was.  I don't know how they'd target the craft to fly close to the planet after 20 years of travel at 1/5th the speed of light.

Edited by Noxasa
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Millennial great great great grandchildren will be rulers of the world when the data comes back.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is the same Stephen Hawking that can't make up his mind on whether we should stop looking for ET or keep exploring the new frontier?  This guy flips sides more often than Harvey Dent!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fun fact, the spacecraft will perceive itself arriving 165 days sooner than we observe (21 years, assumes 1/5 c over 4.37 light years). There's also the pesky problem of return data transmission. We won't get any images back for nearly 5 years after it arrives.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the main problem now is to build machine that can withstand 1/5 speed light .

bullet -> around 1,700 mph

speed of light -> 6.706e+8 mph

 

even bullet will melt travel at that speed

 

 

 

Edited by kobolds
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On June 24, 2017 at 2:49 AM, kobolds said:

I think the main problem now is to build machine that can withstand 1/5 speed light .

bullet -> around 1,700 mph

speed of light -> 6.706e+8 mph

 

even bullet will melt travel at that speed

 

Yes but we are talking about mostly "empty" space where only a few hydrogen atoms are scattered about over vast distances, I would be curious about the density of such space vs the speed of an object regarding the object's survivability. And it only takes one dust mote at high speed to destroy the entire device. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.