QM EP8: How long would it take us to journey to an alien planet ?

[Saru]

Episode 8 of our YouTube series 'Quite Mysterious' is now available to watch!

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/videos/378647/how-long-would-it-take-us-to-journey-to-an-alien-planet

You can also visit the channel directly here:

https://www.youtube.com/@QuiteMysterious

Don't forget to like and subscribe!

[josellama2000]

The beauty about reality is that it seem like it was made for space faring as the relativity shows.
On the other hand, it is all about energy that technology will allow us to manage if we survive the nuclear war that probably will happen during the next 5 years.

[Grim Reaper 6]

3 hours ago, Saru said:

Episode 8 of our YouTube series 'Quite Mysterious' is now available to watch!

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/videos/378647/how-long-would-it-take-us-to-journey-to-an-alien-planet

You can also visit the channel directly here:

https://www.youtube.com/@QuiteMysterious

Don't forget to like and subscribe!

At 4.2 light-years from Earth, Proxima Centauriis the closest star to our planet other than the sun. Since Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years from Earth, it would take approximately 6300 years to travel there using our current technology..

 

[Saru]

4 minutes ago, Grim Reaper 6 said:

At 4.2 light-years from Earth, Proxima Centauriis the closest star to our planet other than the sun. Since Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years from Earth, it would take approximately 6300 years to travel there using our current technology..

How did you calculate that figure ? You'd need to be going at 450,000mph which is far beyond the 24,791mph achieved by Apollo 10.

[Grim Reaper 6]

Just now, Saru said:

How did you calculate that figure ? You'd need to be going at 450,000mph which is far beyond the 24,791mph achieved by Apollo 10.

Here is the source from MIT that I referenced.

This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives: https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light,Earth or its exoplanet counterpart.

[Saru]

4 minutes ago, Grim Reaper 6 said:

Here is the source from MIT that I referenced.

This is how many people we’d have to send to Proxima Centauri to make sure someone actually arrives: https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/#:~:text=Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light,Earth or its exoplanet counterpart.

You need to cite a source when quoting offsite, there was no indication that your post was copied and pasted from elsewhere.

The same source also says:

Quote

Apollo 11 travelled at around 40,000 kilometers per hour, a speed that would take it to Proxima Centauri in over 100,000 years. 

Which is consistent with my calculations in the video. 

The 6,300 years figure they've come up with is based on non-specific "state-of-the-art space technology".

No current manned space vehicle travels at anywhere remotely near these speeds.

[Grim Reaper 6]

20 minutes ago, Saru said:

You need to cite a source when quoting offsite, there was no indication that your post was copied and pasted from elsewhere.

The same source also says:

Which is consistent with my calculations in the video. 

The 6,300 years figure they've come up with is based on non-specific "state-of-the-art space technology".

No current manned space vehicle travels at anywhere remotely near these speeds.

Sorry about that I will quote a source when I answer your posts in the future. In any rate with our current technology it would require a generational ship to travel the distance to our nearest star. Even in this case our current technology would not be able to over come many issues that allow one to be built. I personally don’t believe that our species will ever acquire the ability to travel at the speed of light, in my opinion the Einstein-Rosen bridge ( Wormhole) hypothesis is much more likely in our future because the mathematics bears it out.

JIMHO

Edited July 11, 2024 by Grim Reaper 6

[Duke Wellington]

4 hours ago, Saru said:

Episode 8 of our YouTube series 'Quite Mysterious' is now available to watch!

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/videos/378647/how-long-would-it-take-us-to-journey-to-an-alien-planet

You can also visit the channel directly here:

https://www.youtube.com/@QuiteMysterious

Don't forget to like and subscribe!

Well, with our existing physics it is based on what we have been able to test and verify.

Lets take dark matter. Galaxies rotate too fast for their gravity to keep them together according to general relativity. But does it really exist? Maybe our understanding of gravity is wrong. Or maybe, just maybe, our understanding of mass is wrong and the outer arms of galaxies doesn`t weigh as much as we think they do.

I`ll go with that one and point out something completely unverified in physics - the idea that the Higgs Field (which gives atoms a lot of their mass) is the same strength at all points in the universe. Maybe, just maybe, it is a field that radiates from stars. If so the declining strength of the Higgs Field as we head out from a galaxy means things don`t way as much.

Easy to test, and in fact we already might have the evidence as the Voyager probes aren`t where they are supposed to be. If mass decreases as we head out from the solar system then instead of it taking 4.2 years to get to Alpha Centurai B, for all we know it might be possible in a fast enough spaceship to get there in a few weeks. Of course, that means light (aka photons) are not impacted in any weight by the Higgs Field to explain why it still takes it 4.2 years to cross the void of space.

[L.A.T.1961]

The time it takes at non Sci FI speeds to travel interstellar distances poses another question for me.

How big a ship would I want to be on for the trip out.

After thinking about it I am quite surprised at my own answer, which is about 250 square miles of usable space.

Anything less and I would worry about getting cabin fever. 🤪

 

 

[Ell]

The question is what is the most efficient way to colonize a part of the galaxy?

We must assume that there will be no worlds to colonize. People wil have to live in ecology spacehabitats and ought to have the capability and capacity to build new ones. How large can those feasibly be?

Interstellar travel will have to be in smaller ecology habitats. How small can those feasibly be? At what velocity ought they to travel? For each one that travels at 1 % of lightspeed, might we send out four that travel at 0.5 % of lightspeed?

This requires a lot of mathematics that is beyond my ken.

[Abramelin]

On 7/11/2024 at 7:05 PM, Saru said:

Episode 8 of our YouTube series 'Quite Mysterious' is now available to watch!

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/videos/378647/how-long-would-it-take-us-to-journey-to-an-alien-planet

You can also visit the channel directly here:

https://www.youtube.com/@QuiteMysterious

Don't forget to like and subscribe!

Even if we will ever be able to reach lightspeed or a higher velocity there will be a problem I've never seen addressed before, not even in the Star Trek series.

If we are at one time in the distant future able to travel to Proxima Centauri at several times the speed of light, how do we avoid lethal collisions with comets and asteroids? We'll have to have something of a radar-like system to give us a chance to avoid these small space rocks.

Whatever that radar-like system uses, it can't be ordinary radar waves.

Edited November 2, 2024 by Abramelin

[Grey Area]

1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

Even if we will ever be able to reach lightspeed or a higher velocity there will be a problem I've never seen addressed before, not even in the Star Trek series.

If we are at one time in the distant future able to travel to Proxima Centauri at several times the speed of light, how do we avoid lethal collisions with comets and asteroids? We'll have to have something of a radar-like system to give us a chance to avoid these small space rocks.

Whatever that radar-like system uses, it can't be ordinary radar waves.

Yeah sorry Star Trek beat you to it with the deflector dish:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Navigational_deflector

But it is an issue that would need solving.

 

[Abramelin]

20 minutes ago, Grey Area said:

Yeah sorry Star Trek beat you to it with the deflector dish:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Navigational_deflector

But it is an issue that would need solving.

 

Can you show me an episode of Star Trek where they used this deflector dish?

And what kind of radiation was used to scan for debris, comets, asteroids and such?

Edited November 2, 2024 by Abramelin

[Grey Area]

1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

Can you show me an episode of Star Trek where they used this deflector dish?

And what kind of radiation was used to scan for debris, comets, asteroids and such?

I’m not a Trekkie but here you go fast forward to 3min 30s

Not sure what you mean about the radiation.

[Hawken]

copy/paste from google. 

The Voyager spacecraft are traveling at speeds of over 35,000 miles per hour (mph), with Voyager 1 currently being the faster of the two, reaching speeds around 38,000 mph. 

[Abramelin]

On 11/3/2024 at 1:29 AM, Grey Area said:

Not sure what you mean about the radiation.

Radar waves or 'radiation'.

Sound waves are also a form of 'radiation', but very slow, using air molecules as carrier.

Some kind of wave form that radiates outwards from its source, and bounces back to a receiver.

My point: if you travel at light speed or beyond, you'll have to have some sort of detection system that is able to detect smaller objects.

You may have set your vessel on a course to some star or planet, but you'll have to be prepared for much, much smaller objects crossing your path.

At light speed or beyond that could be a problem.

 

Edited November 12, 2024 by Abramelin

[Grey Area]

2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

Radar waves or 'radiation'.

Sound waves are also a form of 'radiation', but very slow, using air molecules as carrier.

Some kind of wave form that radiates outwards from its source, and bounces back to a receiver.

My point: if you travel at light speed or beyond, you'll have to have some sort of detection system that is able to detect smaller objects.

You may have set your vessel on a course to some star or planet, but you'll have to be prepared for much, much smaller objects crossing your path.

At light speed or beyond that could be a problem.

 

Yes the problem you have highlighted is very real.  

I have no idea what sensors star trek ships use.

[Ell]

On 11/2/2024 at 9:35 PM, Abramelin said:

If we are at one time in the distant future able to travel to Proxima Centauri at several times the speed of light, how do we avoid lethal collisions with comets and asteroids? We'll have to have something of a radar-like system to give us a chance to avoid these small space rocks.

Whatever that radar-like system uses, it can't be ordinary radar waves.

In scifi books slower than light spaceships sometimes have a mountain of ice as a meteorite shield. These spaceship do not avoid collisions - as that would be impractical. Either the ice endures smaller collisions, or it does not and the spaceship is destroyed.

The plus point is that the ice may serve multiple purposes.

The minus point is that it adds a huge amount of mass to the spaceship - and for that reason in my opinion it is impractical.

[Mr.UFO]

Assuming there's either no wormholes or humans don't know how to find or use them, the trip would take much longer than human lifespans. The astronauts would have to put themselves in suspended animation for many decades, like they did on the first episode of "Lost In Space".

[dream jo]

good question how long would it take us well if the bus trip going on that one I would not mind giving it a go

[Saru]

18 minutes ago, dream jo said:

good question how long would it take us well if the bus trip going on that one I would not mind giving it a go

Given the average speed of a bus, it would likely take longer than the entire lifespan of the universe to even reach the edge of our own galaxy.