Our galaxy is due to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in 5 billion years. The important question remains, if a certain BT'er is alive then, whether he will wave at the inhabitants of another galaxy's planetary system as they fly by.

It’s important to the experiment to prevent cross contamination.

Let's assume this is possible.

A piece of rock the size of a grain of sand would destroy your spacecraft at those speeds due to the kinetic energy it would have.

Interstellar space is not empty. It is unrealistic to travel through it at high speed.

Realistically, humans might be able to settle on a few worlds in our solar system, but going to another star is currently hugely infeasible. It would take 1000s of years.

Further, if we find another Earth, a planet with an oxygen atmosphere, that means life already exists on that planet and that life will likely be extremely hostile to our own. I doubt we will get a warm welcome.

We are stuck in our solar system.

Mike C.

Let's assume this is possible.

A piece of rock the size of a grain of sand would destroy your spacecraft at those speeds due to the kinetic energy it would have.

Realistically, "we" still are.

While the two issues (warping spacetime and deflecting high energy particles) are hardly related from a physics perspective, it's not totally unreasonable to expect that both couldn't be solved in similar timeframes (e.g. thousands of years).



When supersonic flight was being contemplated the physics of the issues involved were pretty well known and the engineers/scientists working on the problem already knew it was theoretically possible given their understanding of aeronautics at the time. We also already had supersonic "bodies" in the form of rifle and artillery rounds.

The main issue was controlling an aircraft while shockwaves got near the flight control surfaces. IOW supersonic flight was theoretically but not necessarily practically feasible at the time due to technological limitations and this was an engineering problem not a scientific theory issue. The notion of a "sound barrier" really only existed in the minds of "lay people" who didn't understand the physics involved.

There's no realistic theory consistent with current knowledge that makes FTL travel (or even motion of inert bodies) theoretically possible let alone practically feasible. That's a big difference.

Let's assume this is possible.

A piece of rock the size of a grain of sand would destroy your spacecraft at those speeds due to the kinetic energy it would have.

Interstellar space is not empty. It is unrealistic to travel through it at high speed.

Realistically, humans might be able to settle on a few worlds in our solar system, but going to another star is currently hugely infeasible. It would take 1000s of years.

Further, if we find another Earth, a planet with an oxygen atmosphere, that means life already exists on that planet and that life will likely be extremely hostile to our own. I doubt we will get a warm welcome.

We are stuck in our solar system.

Mike C.

Unfortunately its very difficult to imagine any form of FTL travel that does not also allow you to create a time machine. That comes directly out of special relativity which has been tested under a huge range of conditions.


Note that wormholes, hyperspace, "going around space" and all those things don't help - if you start at point A and end at point B faster than light could get there (in vacuum) you can use that to build a time machine .

With time machines "causality" goes out the window - effects no longer happen after causes, and it becomes very difficult to imagine how that could make sense.

Obviously "never" is dangerous in science / technology, but FTL is as impossible as any technology that I can think of. It would let you violate all of the basic laws of physics we observe in the universe.

Maybe some day someone will recognize how its possible yet still consistent with what we observe, but its no how I'd bet.

AFaIK you don't need to go faster than light to get to a distant star system in a single human lifespan. I've read that as you approach C, time dilation reduces "your" time covering the distance. Get really close to C and you could get there having only aged a few days, ignoring the couple of years spent accelerating and decelerating at 1g.

Let's assume this is possible.

A piece of rock the size of a grain of sand would destroy your spacecraft at those speeds due to the kinetic energy it would have.

Interstellar space is not empty. It is unrealistic to travel through it at high speed.

Realistically, humans might be able to settle on a few worlds in our solar system, but going to another star is currently hugely infeasible. It would take 1000s of years.

Further, if we find another Earth, a planet with an oxygen atmosphere, that means life already exists on that planet and that life will likely be extremely hostile to our own. I doubt we will get a warm welcome.

We are stuck in our solar system.

Mike C.

So, many of you fellers are way more intelligent than I, so......riddle me this......what about a "generational" starship concept? Forget "stasis", "hypersleep", whatever......why not send people "no return to sender"? Obviously food/water/O2 would be issues to solve, as would "on the fly" repairs to said ship.......but would those not be easier problems to solve than FTL travel?

Curious to hear your thoughts.

Problem is where do you send them? They could go millions of years and not find anything. Alpha centauri is 4.3 light years away, and it's very unlikely there is anything there of interest to humans.

Other issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship

Have you ever been to an HOA meeting? That’s representative of what 20-50 ppl who live in proximity of each other behave like

Now imagine that combined with some form of prison- I just don’t understand how it would work

But we have people on BT that have done tours on ships abroad- maybe they have a longer contribution to the challenges or close quarters confinement for long durations

Problem is where do you send them? They could go millions of years and not find anything. Alpha centauri is 4.3 light years away, and it's very unlikely there is anything there of interest to humans.

Other issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship

Have you ever been to an HOA meeting? That’s representative of what 20-50 ppl who live in proximity of each other behave like

Now imagine that combined with some form of prison- I just don’t understand how it would work

But we have people on BT that have done tours on ships abroad- maybe they have a longer contribution to the challenges or close quarters confinement for long durations