How might intergalactic travel be accomplished?

[acturisme]

Interestingly enough even with Star Trek style warp technology we still would not be able to effectively traverse between galaxies. Warp speeds in ST hover in single digits, getting as high as ten (if I recall right. it has been a while.). Our low end estimates of the size of the Milky Way galaxy hover around 100,000 light years from on end to the other, while the Closest galaxy is the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy that sits around 25,000 light years from our own. Rough estimates put earth around 25,000 light years from the 'edge' of our galaxy. So take that as about 50,000 light years to the nearest galaxy and travel at the "mythical" warp ten and you have a trip that takes 5,000 years. Remember, that is at ten times the speed of light.

I vote for not viable in a single generation's lifetime on account of basic math. Barring, of course, worm holes or other modes of instantaneous travel over massive distances.

I haven't read any of the ST mythology on exactly what "warp" means but from STV the system seemed to be more logarithmic where warp 1 was something like light speed and warp 10 was being at every point in the universe at the same time and therefore unattainable.

 

[Gatx]

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).

Well, it would at the very least help with any overpopulation situations in the future. So instead of having a war to reduce the number of people, you just take the extra people, and push them somewhere else.

 

[isometry]

Two words, Fold Space.

"Folding" the "fabric" of space-time is a bit of a simplification, but Lorentz Contraction is well documented.

This guy is the only who gets it (so far, in this thread). The theory of relativity allows for intergalactic travel, in arbitrarily short spans of time, without going faster than light.

For example, you could get to the andromeda galaxy (2 million light years away) in a single year by traveling at sub-light speeds. This happens because of length contraction.

Here is an article about a relativistic rocket [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/rocket.html] that accelerates at a rate of 1g (earth's gravity) until the midpoint of a trip, then decelerates at 1g so as to arrive at the destination at rest. Here are the travel times:

4.3 ly nearest star 3.6 years
27 ly Vega 6.6 years
30,000 ly Center of our galaxy 20 years
2,000,000 ly Andromeda galaxy 28 years

To make these times shorter, you only need to accelerate faster than 1g. The limit of the human body's ability to absorb acceleration is the only thing limiting out galactic exploration. That and the ability to power the ship.

Also, wormholes are totally speculative and not science at all. General Relativity does not allow for the creation of wormholes (if you put the wormholes in by hand, at the start of the universe, general relativity can describe them; GR can describe a lot of "universes" that don't exist, like ones with closed time-like curves, but the important thing is that GR doesn't allow us to make wormholes. To make wormholes you would need some strange type of physics that shows up on the scale of quantum gravity, which may be the case, but is widely speculative.

 

[Belaam]

Short of manipulating space, jumping to subspace, wormholes, tesseracts, etc., it looks like Generation Ships are the only even remotely feasible route.

 

[hyzaku]

Interestingly enough even with Star Trek style warp technology we still would not be able to effectively traverse between galaxies. Warp speeds in ST hover in single digits, getting as high as ten (if I recall right. it has been a while.). Our low end estimates of the size of the Milky Way galaxy hover around 100,000 light years from on end to the other, while the Closest galaxy is the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy that sits around 25,000 light years from our own. Rough estimates put earth around 25,000 light years from the 'edge' of our galaxy. So take that as about 50,000 light years to the nearest galaxy and travel at the "mythical" warp ten and you have a trip that takes 5,000 years. Remember, that is at ten times the speed of light.

I vote for not viable in a single generation's lifetime on account of basic math. Barring, of course, worm holes or other modes of instantaneous travel over massive distances.

I haven't read any of the ST mythology on exactly what "warp" means but from STV the system seemed to be more logarithmic where warp 1 was something like light speed and warp 10 was being at every point in the universe at the same time and therefore unattainable.

As I said, been a few years. Since you mentioned that, I went out and found this http://www.ussdragonstar.com/utilitycore/warpspeeds.asp

Other quick research indicates it should indeed be logarithmic. Totally my bad on that. Still at warp 9.975 (voyager's top speed) it would take over 16 years to traverse the 100,000 light years of the milky way. A far better time frame, but reaching out to farther galaxies like say andromeda would still take far longer than a human life span. Potentially viable for close galaxies, but not for total universe exploration.

However, I do seem to recal the Star trek warp drives making a "bubble" of normal space-time while 'warping' the space around the ship allowing for FTL travel. So even that involves more than a simple engine + fuel amount of science.

Of course, that is not even dealing with the nonsense of transwarp, which I don't recall being explained much at all, or the quantum slipstream silliness.

 

[Wintermoot]

breaking the light barrier or maybe warp.

 

[Ledan]

Ok, its very simple. See, we first have to discover free energy. Clean burning, low cost infinite energy. Thats our biggest hurdle at the moment.

After that, space travel becomes far easier. See, because the object in space is completely weightless, so once you get your initial momentum going, space travel becomes far cheaper. So you dont have to fund then entire trip with energy, but reaching the proper speed is the most expensive part.

Then, you plot the course ahead of time, getting 100+ years of information ahead of time. Steering at that speed is impossible, and your biggest risk isnt aging to death, but hitting something, or getting hit by something. So you have to computer do all the controlling. More plotting can be done along the way, with the ample amount of time you'll have. Once you have all the information and space charts ready, your nearly there!

Now the ship itself will have to be rather large. Because of the infinite energy though, creating, producing, and maintaining things will be much simpler. Growing crops will be far easier, because of the ample space you can have ((no pun intended)) and the unlimited amounts of proper lighting and clean water. Food wont truly be a problem, because you can plant the crops in a rotating cycle, meaning every month you'll harvest one of the crops, for sustainable food.
While you cant get all the vitamins and nutrients you need to survive long trips from just plants, the rest you can tightly pack into bullion cubes, to be melted and mixed into water. Fiber and such are easy to keep in space, because of vacuum packing. Literally putting it into an area open to space, keeping it frozen in time.

While traveling lightyears will still take a generation or two, possibly more depending on speed constraints, you can live a happy life in space because of your lack of worries ((kinda)) Though, you'll probably go crazy from boredom and have to get tied to the wall with duct tape, it could go alot worse!

Not sure if joking but.... you do know there is no such thing as free energy? Or limitless energy? And if we had that, there wouldn't be any other problems in the world. Matter is "stored" energy. With limitless energy comes... magic. You could make atoms, make food, makes suns, make planets, make universes.....

Well, no, its not truly "limitless energy". The idea is more or less, "large amounts of energy for little cost".

Like, with how gas is these days. Say your paying $3.50 a gallon. Thats not cheap. Some people will even say expensive. But what if gas prices were to drop to $1 a gal? Its over 3x cheaper.

The idea is to come up with an energy source that costs almost nothing, and takes up little space, so you can have more of it. The idea of "limitless energy" isnt so much, "infinite", as it is "nearly free". think of it like a.... nuclear biodiesel. <- thats what we would need for intergalactic travel.

Ah, so more like improving nuclear fission (or is it fusion?). Gotcha.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's possible, even probable, that humans will colonize other worlds.

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.

I agree that it's horribly impractical and that staying up would probably be preferable to coming down again, but it seems likely to me that, sooner or later, even people will want to do it. This might be much later, of course.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

In our universe, it would need to be done with some form of wormhole, or possibly a teleportation device using quantums. Bending two points of space so they are essentially closer together, and thus take less time to travel between, is the only way current physics would permit intergalactic travel. This is down to the effects travelling at or close to the speed of light has on time and mass. And with quantum teleportation, the idea is that matter on one side is reproduced on the other instantaneously.

Although it has been reported on this very site that scientists have successfully (more than once) moved matter faster than light, how that might apply to matter above the atomic/molecular scale is still in the unknown/impossible category until proven otherwise. The energy required to move a significant mass (eg. a human or a craft carrying humans) to the speed of light massive beyond our current abilities to create (we're still burning fossil fuels for crying out loud.).

 

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

We could try the mass effect style travel. SPACE MAGIC!!!

 

[Heronblade]

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).

Well, it would at the very least help with any overpopulation situations in the future. So instead of having a war to reduce the number of people, you just take the extra people, and push them somewhere else.

True, we could even come up with our own interstellar Australia. (referring to Britain's program while it was a colony, no offense to modern australians.) The dregs of humanity get a one way ticket to an entire planet that they can work together on, or rip to pieces. It'd be one hell of an interesting social experiment.

 

[Panorama]

We could try the mass effect style travel. SPACE MAGIC!!!

snip, i was just play mass effect 2, and exactly what i thought.

 

[Conza]

Any ideas, other than wormholes or hyperspace?

Have you heard of a Warp Drive?

It's a solid theory, that a ship using its nacelles bends the space in front and behind it, but the space inside the field remains at a 1:1 to the rest of the universe. All you need is a sufficient power source, and then the means to distort space in a controlled way, and you're golden, you remain 'virtually' stationary, but you manipulate space so that you may exceed the speed of light.

How's that for you?

 

[ThatPurpleGuy]

The amount of complexities involved in interstellar travel is just mind boggling, either if we are thinking of the 'wormhole' or folding spacetime method or the coventional method of launching a ship of some sort. Like alot of others have said, even at light speeds the distances are just way too vast and we are not even close to that sort of technology. It really is a nice thing to think about, but I really think that its something that if it ever is accomplished it will be thousands of years from now. I doubt its even possible to get to another galaxy. A nearby star and solar system may be more feasible but even still thats still a long way off.

People say we should land on Mars, and years ago I would have agreed, just for the amazing feat it would be, but really what would be the purpose? We know pretty much whats there through years of space probes and rover missions, it really would just seem like a more complex moon mission, that would net little new findings.

Our think our best bet for the forseeable future is telescopes like the James Webb. Even though this telescope won't be able to visualise planets of other solar systems, it will be able to get alot more imformations about them. As telescope technology advances, imagine seeing pictures of planets of other solar systems within our own galaxy with the sort of detail we view planets in our own solar system. I think this is probably the best we can hope for in our lifetimes. Remember Voyager1 left Earth in the 70's and is travelling at some mind blowing speed and has only just left the solar system. Distance in space is the biggest killer for actually having humans visit other solar systems.