Interstellar Travel

[hobbesy]

As I mentioned (verbatim I'm afraid) on another thread:-

I'm increasing coming to the conclusion that we won't be doing much in the way of long-distance exploring until we can perhaps crack the problem of either proper functional AI, or uploading minds\personalities\whatever you want to call it into electronic form. If we ever manage to get to that point (after working out the hellish ethical and technical issues involved) then the majority of the problems go away, even the time it takes to cross the voids.

It's all very science fiction I know, but I suppose so was a viable space station or a man on the moon 100 years ago.

[Trickystar1]

Cold fusion technology could be a good and very possible concept. But how would support say a crew of 6 for 26 years with food. Food would be the biggest problem by far, the same reason why navy submarines can only last a maximum of 60 to 90 days under the sea.. When nuclear propulsion could keep going almost indefinitely.

[Space Bat]

If you were setting off for that length of time you would need to have some means of growing food - and possibly breeding food such as chickens - fish etc. So any spacecraft would need to incorporate that in its design -

[Frank the Troll]

We wont be going anywhere for quite some time

AI's will be making the trips for us, we just dont have the needed resourses or tech to make it and survive

[Lancashire Astroguy]

Speed wouldn't be any problem at all - unless the bombardment of your spacecraft by - what would appear to you as - high-energy hydrogen atoms which make up most of the interstellar medium, could lead to a problem.

You have actually hit upon what might be the biggest problem with interstellar travel. Even sedate hydrogen atoms in interstellar space would bombard you at incredible energies if you are travelling near the speed of light. I've read that at 99% of the speed of light, you would receive a fatal dose of radiation in less than a minute. Even electronic components on an unmanned ship would not survive this onslaught. A few billion tonnes of lead at the front of the ship might help, but then the ship will barely accelerate! Ultimately, some sort of deflection technology would be required. At these speeds however, that seems really unfeasible. You would have to start moving the hydrogen atoms out of your path a few million km ahead of the starship!

Regards,

James

[Trickystar1]

You have actually hit upon what might be the biggest problem with interstellar travel. Even sedate hydrogen atoms in interstellar space would bombard you at incredible energies if you are travelling near the speed of light. I've read that at 99% of the speed of light, you would receive a fatal dose of radiation in less than a minute. Even electronic components on an unmanned ship would not survive this onslaught. A few billion tonnes of lead at the front of the ship might help, but then the ship will barely accelerate! Ultimately, some sort of deflection technology would be required. At these speeds however, that seems really unfeasible. You would have to start moving the hydrogen atoms out of your path a few million km ahead of the starship!

Regards,

James

Ever watched Star Trek by any chance?