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Thread: Is Interstellar Travel Impossible?

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  1. #11
    Hǫrðar Member Viking's Avatar
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    Default Re: Is Interstellar Travel Impossible?

    Quote Originally Posted by kamikhaan
    Hmm, now correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what they teach us in physics nowadays. Basically, when a person/thing/object travels at speeds up to/near the speed of light, they will actually age slower than a person who's stuck here on earth, and thus, traveling to a planet that is, say, 75 light years away, is actually not impossible, so long as we overcome other boundaries such as supply of food and water, actually getting a vessel which can survive and continue at such speeds for the needed time, creating artificial gravity(so the astrounauts don't suffer space depression of their blood vessels, muscles, etc... and, of course, finding a way to get the human body to withstand the g-forces that such speeds would inflict upon us.

    Remember that gravity is acceleration. Travelling at 99% of the speed of light inflicts 0 G upon you since the ship does not accelerate.
    The average surface gravity on Earth is 9.81 m/s² , so if the space ship had a constant acceleration of 9.81 m/s² the crew would at all times experience ~1 G. With this constant accelertaion however, you'd theoretically reach the speed of light within 354 days or so, so before you reached c, you'd need a constant deacceleration of 9.81 m/s² also in order to keep the gravity it constant. All this would of course require insane amounts of energy.


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    There was an interesting thread over at the Uplink Space forums regarding travel at the speed of light:

    http://uplink.space.com/showthreaded...&sb=5&o=0&vc=1

    (click Flat at upper left in order to see whole thread).



    Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec
    I don't think that it's the traveling (at a certain speed) itself that causes slower aging, but the acceleration. I could be wrong though.
    I think both high speeds and high acceleration causes watches to go slower.

    Edit: At least high speed does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Di...d_space_flight
    Last edited by Viking; 02-02-2008 at 18:20.
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