Space Travel: Where Will It Go?

[Shaun]

First: Andy, if you think maybe this would be best in literary discussion, please move it. It just didn't seem to fit there to me.

Alright, so the Mars mission, in its current state, is hoping to send folks to the little red planet in the next ten years or so. In all honesty I think we could have gone a long time ago, but so be it. One of the problems, it seems, is that zero gravity has extreme effects on the health of living things, particularly humans. The immune system shuts down (sort of like having AIDS, only because the environment is sterile you don't contract any viruses, and this, from the trips we've already seen, is only temporary, which is unlike AIDS), the bones and muscles can actually weaken, and recovery time for astronauts is about the same as the amount of time spend in zero g.

Given that a trip to Mars could take anyway from 4-12 months (depending on when we send them out and how close Mars is at the time), folks at NASA and other scientific institutions have been trying to figure out ways to create artificial gravity that would allow the astronauts to have some normal function. Other things being worked on are medicines and enhancements to the body that force certain aspects of our body to work harder on things--such as thinning the blood so the heart doesn't have to pump too hard or simply beefing up the heart so it doesn't strain.

Two things that are being discussed are "centrifuges" and "graviton anti-grav machines". The first is more reality, the second is pretty much impossible at this point.

So, what do you all think about this? What are you thoughts? What do you think could happen if this is done?

Think of this as a discussion of the future of space travel. What ideas do you think are possible in the future? What would you like to see implemented? What sort of genetic enhancements--we're actually fiddling with genes and such right now--do you think will be used soon? Or what would you like to see? What about politics?

Actually, this is like an open doorway to discussion elements of the future. So talk about all of them! Anything that seems to really take off we can start a separate discussion for if needed!

So...yeah!

[Rafael Domination]

I think space travel will never extend past our solar system if the nations keep on bickering with each other. We might have enough resources in this solar system for galactic travel, but that's probably waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the road - if we manage to unify first. America, Japan or Russia won't manageon their own.

Other than that...yay, space travel!

[Shaun]

I would general agree with you here. We may still develop new technologies, though. The only way mankind will be united, unfortunately, is if we all have a common enemy. So, aliens would have to attack us for that.

[Rafael Domination]

That's true.

They say what has was accomplished? It forces people to pick a side. Good or evil. Survival or extinction.

Ya, aliens you make nice Human-Uniters! :D

[jordanisonfire]

Unless a UFO lands on Earth and the Aliens on board are captured or killed and the humans can figure out how to use it safely, I don't think we'll get beyond our galaxy either. Unfortunately, because light takes so many light years to travel across galaxies, we can only see a place like Andromeda as it was some millions of years ago. So, if we're coming under human invasion from there, we'll never be warned. :D

[Rafael Domination]

Woooo for extinction!

Maybe we might no need ships. If we could make some sort of stargate device, we would be a lot better off!

[Shaun]

Yeah, but the problem with using stargates is knowing where the hell to land and being prepared for where you might end up. We'd never know if a gate like that would drop you into the black of space, or if you'd end up on a planet of molten lava, etc.

[Andy]

I don't think space travel will go very far at all. The resources and money needed are tremendous, and there are so many things that can go wrong, especially as journeys become longer and longer.

Plus, things are so far away. Traveling a single light-year will take a year, assuming we ever manage to get things to travel that fast. And since most of the stuff seen through telescopes is hundreds or more light-years away, I highly doubt we'll ever get to study them up close.

[Rafael Domination]

Ooh! Ooh! Maybe an alliance with an alien race would be better than war! And then, they can help us progress as well! I mean, if we won't go invading any planets, would we, if we had the technology and found races living on them? I mean, we've progressed past that kind of stuff centuries ago, why should a powerful alien race be interested in conquering our puny little world, when moulding it would be so much more fun?

[jordanisonfire]

Well, Rafael, I think we can establish that a war between us and aliens would be bad, as we can see from War of the Worlds. :rolleyes:

[Rafael Domination]

Yup! So instead of war, if we push for peace, we can traverse the universe together! :D

[jordanisonfire]

Well, if humans can't solve racism between themselves, I heavily doubt they could between them and aliens. :rolleyes:

[Shaun]

I don't think space travel will go very far at all. The resources and money needed are tremendous, and there are so many things that can go wrong, especially as journeys become longer and longer.

Plus, things are so far away. Traveling a single light-year will take a year, assuming we ever manage to get things to travel that fast. And since most of the stuff seen through telescopes is hundreds or more light-years away, I highly doubt we'll ever get to study them up close.

Well, yes and no on the first part. Currently it would cost a lot of money to plan long trips. Right now the best, most effective, and light engines we have are ion engines. They do have a good acceleration rate, and already we have probes that will easily overtake the Voyager and other such probes in a few years. Mostly our interests are in exploration of the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, which lie outside our solar system. The Oort Cloud is of special interest because it is the place where a lot of our comets come from, and so seeing how things move and function in that area will give us a lot of insight into the makeup of our solar system and could very well answer some of the questions of 'where did we come from' (I present this last part as a suggestion that some of the thinking that the initial proteins and materials that eventually made up life may have come to Earth from an impact with a comet).
But you also have to remember that right now we're not really trying a lot of more extreme methods of space travel. Nuclear engines would be an option because they would provide quicker travel, though this would still take many, many, many years to get to any other star. But, it could cut down trips to Mars and the many moons of Jupiter and Saturn, or the outermost planets, down considerably. Mars could be reached in a matter of two months, which is a lot less than it takes anything else we've sent out there (which often don't arrive for eight months to a year).
You also have to consider that we may not have to actually use straight forward propulsion to get us to the stars. There is a LOT of research being poured into the idea of wormholes and manipulation space. Einstein's theory of relativity intentionally leaves room for such technologies to exist and function, since Einstein himself believed that if one could cultivate the energy and materials to open and traverse wormholes it wouldn't violate the light barrier. (Remember, it is believe that if someone were capable of reaching the speed of light in normal space they would cease to be matter as we traditionally know it, but would instead become energy, much like light).
Would it be possible to open wormholes or bend space in the next fifty years? You bet. We already have learned how to actually stop light. Yes, we can freeze light everyone. Put that into your head. Imagine actually stopping light, making it stick in one place. Now imagine what someone could do with that technology in the future. There are scientists that are theorizing that it might be possible to use the properties of light to devise new methods of space travel. We're on the frontier right now of space travel. We're not doing a lot of stuff as far as real space-based stuff, but we are developing technologies that could take us to the stars as we speak. A long time ago we didn't have a functioning, efficient ion engine. Now we do at it has proven to be reliable for probes. Ion engines would probably be the only reason to maintain a presence on the moon as I believe the engines use helium-3 for the combustion, which isn't very common on Earth but is abundant on the moon (which adds considerable evidence to suggest that the moon fell into orbit after it--presumably as a proto-planet or dwarf-planet--collided with Earth). In 1950, only 57 years ago, we never would have really thought that our skies would be filled with satellites that can be used for television, communication, and surfing this bizarre thing we call the Internet. Who would have thought that Arthur C. Clarke, a science fiction writer and who had predicted geosynchronous orbits, would be right? That's 50 years! In 50 years we've seen man to the moon several times. We've seen probes go to the outer planets and send back pictures. We've seen probes reach outside our solar system. Voyager is out there flying off into nowhere, taking with it a message from an older Earth. In another 50 years...technology could explode and we could see things that science fiction writers have been telling us about for decades.

And even if the nearest start is a few light years away, if we can send a probe there in a few years what would it matter? We all would be eager little bees to see another star system up close. It could take decades to get back anything useful, but can you imagine how we would react to having real, close-up pictures of another star and its planets? Can you imagine? It'll happen. It will. If not in my lifetime, then the next. It will happen.

[Rafael Domination]

Well, if humans can't solve racism between themselves, I heavily doubt they could between them and aliens


Well, those alienss won't each us if they bicker for an eternity. They would probably be a superior race that will teach us their ways.

Or, they could obliterate us.

and as for Shaun's point, well, it's highly plausible, but who's to say nothing else is going on during those decades we're waiting for advancements. It could work, but only if everything turns out smoothly.

[Shaun]

It just requires risks Rafael. That's all. If nobody is willing to take risks like they used to in the 50s and 60s, then what's the point of doing anything at all?

[Rafael Domination]

I seewhat you mean...

With risk comes either great advancement...or an ugly fate.

Do I think it's worth it.?..a little...

[Shaun]

The only risk that we would have to take is risking failure. That's it. When we started the space race, the risk was failing to devise a craft that could get to the moon and back safely (and before the Russians). The worst that could have happened is that the mission could have failed and a few lives would have been lost. Yes, death is bad, but we're not talking the end of civilization here.
Today we're not taking ANY risks anymore. Everything is planned out to the T, so much so that all the interesting and exciting bits about space travel are pretty much gone. All those hokey TV shows in the 50s are sort of lost in the wake of all-too-serious parental figures in NASA and similar organizations. I think if the US, UK, and Japan don't get together and start working together on projects we can expect to see China overtake all of us in space, if their economy holds out.