How might intergalactic travel be accomplished?
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You pretty much excluded the two major possibilities. The primary issue is the massive distances involved. With this in mind, the only way to effectively travel is by either bypassing the normal restrictions on acceleration and velocity via some kind of warp or hyperspace travel, or by effectively shortening the distance you need to go, most likely via some form of controllable wormhole.
There is always the possibility of an ARK ship. You would travel the full distance at sublight speeds, with each trip taking as long as several centuries. If we can't figure out some kind of safe stasis or cryo storage, it would likely be the descendants of the original voyagers that disembark. But this method does us little good. We might be able to establish colonies this way, but would not be able to trade with, assist, or even effectively communicate with them (imagine waiting 55 years on a request you sent in for a status update, or perhaps getting to listen to the screams of the dying colonists as a disaster that was long over several decades ago plays out).
There is always the possibility of an ARK ship. You would travel the full distance at sublight speeds, with each trip taking as long as several centuries. If we can't figure out some kind of safe stasis or cryo storage, it would likely be the descendants of the original voyagers that disembark. But this method does us little good. We might be able to establish colonies this way, but would not be able to trade with, assist, or even effectively communicate with them (imagine waiting 55 years on a request you sent in for a status update, or perhaps getting to listen to the screams of the dying colonists as a disaster that was long over several decades ago plays out).
Intergalactic travel involves distances of millions of lightyears. Even for post-singularity civilizations where just about anything is possible and everyone is immortal, nobody will bother with a five-million-year round trip to Andromeda and back. There will be Von Neumann probes to make sure our civilization continues in the event that life in this galaxy is exterminated, and maybe a few posthumans will be like "fuck this galaxy" and leave forever, but for the most part intergalactic travel just won't happen.
Here's what we do. We get ourselves a big-arse rubber band...
Honestly though we'd really need to master Q-axis movement for it to work.
Honestly though we'd really need to master Q-axis movement for it to work.
Best way possible would be to discover a way to be transferred through a wireless line in the sublayers of space itself. Though that in itself is like a miniwormhole.
Cryoships will most likely be the first ships to travel beyond the solar system. We are well on our way to discover what alien worlds are comprised of and if we are able to survive on them. Sooner or later we will try colonization of one.
Cryoships will most likely be the first ships to travel beyond the solar system. We are well on our way to discover what alien worlds are comprised of and if we are able to survive on them. Sooner or later we will try colonization of one.
I would guess assuming if the alien became friend with us (not invade and ensalve/ killed us off) they would already have the technology and share it with us and reverse engineer it to understand it more.
Humans have yet to reach the next planet, but it's theoretically possible.
Reaching other galaxies within a few centuries of travel is only "theoretically theoretically" possible. That is, the scientific theories explaining this might, in theory, be discovered some day.
It's possible, even probable, that humans will colonise other worlds. It might be possible that it might be possible for them to travel faster than light, but we can do little but guess as yet.
Reaching other galaxies within a few centuries of travel is only "theoretically theoretically" possible. That is, the scientific theories explaining this might, in theory, be discovered some day.
It's possible, even probable, that humans will colonise other worlds. It might be possible that it might be possible for them to travel faster than light, but we can do little but guess as yet.
There must lie some key in another dimension of the universe. Human science will discover a way to jump or shortcut between solar systems and eventually galaxies (though no doubt intergalactic travel will require immense power). If there is no discoverable way of travelling between solar systems and galaxies without generation ships then surely, that would be a great cruelty built into the very way the universe works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci_Fi_Science:_Physics_of_the_Impossible#Season_2_.282010.29
Episode 2: Intergalactic Colonisation.
Basically, it's moving the universe around your ship or some shit like that. Michio Kaku spends an entire series designing a spaceship to do this, plus weapons and forcefields.
And the science is/seems legit.
Episode 2: Intergalactic Colonisation.
Basically, it's moving the universe around your ship or some shit like that. Michio Kaku spends an entire series designing a spaceship to do this, plus weapons and forcefields.
And the science is/seems legit.
If you got close enough to the speed of light, you could make the trip in what seems a short amount of time even though you actually take millions of years to get there from an external reference point.
The amount of energy to do make that trip would be unimaginably huge though. And you'd have to find some way not to get splattered by the acceleration and deceleration.
The amount of energy to do make that trip would be unimaginably huge though. And you'd have to find some way not to get splattered by the acceleration and deceleration.
Actually colonizing other planets is hideously impractical, and nowhere near the effort. If humans were to spread into space it would most likely be in space stations. There are designs that exist that would be possible to build with present day technology. Any sort colonizing a planet is far further off, and terraforming a planet is pure science fiction and will probably never happen.thaluikhain said:
Travelling at relativistic speeds would make the journey seem sorter but it would still take a long time. Even going just to Proxima Centauri at 99% the speed of light would take over seven months, not included acceleration time, which would likely make it more on the order of two years to get there. As mentioned the power needed to do this is immense as your ship would get more massive the faster you go, so you would need progressively more energy. That sort of technology is decades, or even centuries beyond were we are now.
Well, according to theoretical physics, warp drive (as in, the Star Trek FTL drive) is actually possible, it just needs a /lot/ of energy to work. If we could come up with some way of generating roughly the amount of energy the sun does from an artificial and small enough source, we'd be in business. There's also the option, mentioned above, of an ark ship, but that would take centuries to get anywhere.
