• We Won't Have Enough Power For Interstellar Travel Until At Least 2211
    176 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Interstellar travel won’t be possible for at least 200 years, according to a former NASA propulsion scientist who has some new calculations. And by then, the spaceships we would design for the trip will be obsolete. Forget cost, political will and all the other variables — simply obtaining enough energy will take until 2196, according to Marc Millis, former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project and founder of the Tau Zero Foundation, which supports interstellar travel research. Millis did plenty of extrapolating to reach this conclusion, which he presented at an astronomy meeting in Prague last fall and posted to the physics archive this week. He crunched 27 years of data on energy trends, mission energy requirements, individual energy use and even societal priorities, and chose two possible trips: An aimless interstellar colony ship, and a 75-year-long mission to Alpha Centauri. Millis examined the energy required to launch the space shuttle during the past 30 years, which is a fraction of the nation’s total available energy. He assumes the same ratio will hold for interstellar flight, as Technology Review’s arXiv blog explains. For a 500-person ship on a one-way journey, Millis figures you would need at least an exajoule — that’s 10^18 joules — which is just a little bit less than all the energy consumed by the entire world in one year. For an unmanned ship destined for Alpha Centauri, you would actually need more energy, because you’d want to slow it down upon arrival at our nearest neighboring star. This would require 1019 joules. Even without accounting for fuel, the 500-passenger ship wouldn’t be able to launch until around 2200 at the earliest, and the A. Centauri probe won’t be ready until around 2500. Millis’ math is actually more optimistic than other studies, which have suggested you would need 100 times the world’s total energy output to cover that distance. Still, it means we all have to live vicariously through Voyager for at least the next few generations.[/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/interstellar-travel-wont-be-possible-least-200-years-according-new-calculations[/url] WELL FUCK. I wanted to colonize Alpha Centauri. :smith:
Makes me wish i was born around 2200 instead :smith:
Something can always come up before then, Maybe.
You never know though..
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;27294222]Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/interstellar-travel-wont-be-possible-least-200-years-according-new-calculations[/url] WELL FUCK. I wanted to colonize Alpha Centauri. :smith:[/QUOTE] You wanted to colonize a star? Gonna have to wait more than 200 years for that, bub.
Sounds like we're nearing the end of that golden window where interstellar travel is actually feasible. Once we pass that, we'll be doomed to this planet to slowly, but surely, die out.
Bah, technological predictions are rarely anywhere near right. Like landing on the moon in a couple of decades would be a completely laughable idea in the 1930s, and that guy who predicted that we might use about seven computers by the year 2000. There's no real telling what we might be up to in the future.
I will be a cyborg when that happens.
I'm OK with this, As long as we get some really kick-ass virtual reality gear being produced before I'm dead.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;27294299]Sounds like we're nearing the end of that golden window where interstellar travel is actually feasible. Once we pass that, we'll be doomed to this planet to slowly, but surely, die out.[/QUOTE] First of all, we have plenty of energy available on this planet. Second of all, we live in a solar system filled with giant balls of raw resources. The sheer amount of natural materials available just inside our solar system is nearly inconceivable in its vastness.
:unsmith:
[QUOTE=GunFox;27294408]First of all, we have plenty of energy available on this planet. Second of all, we live in a solar system filled with giant balls of raw resources. The sheer amount of natural materials available just inside our solar system is nearly inconceivable in its vastness.[/QUOTE] Not to mention, how our technology "doubles" each year.
It's ridiculous to even try to predict what happens in just 10 years, why is he even bothering with 200? Since 2000 things have been created that I couldn't have imagined.
And by then we'll all be dead.
At least until we find the mass relays.
We will achieve interstellar travel before that. We are humans. we are awesome. our technology rapidly grows. It will be here sooner than that prediction GO SPACE SCIENCE!
[QUOTE=Roof;27294506]Not to mention, how our technology "doubles" each year.[/QUOTE] Moores law is pretty much obsolete and dead.
saying it can't happen at all for that length of time is stupid. That's not foreseeing possible changes. This is only based on what they can assume, nothing too solid.
You were born too late to explore the World, And too early to explore the Stars. :smith:
[QUOTE=Soul-Chicken;27295241]You were born too late to explore the World, And too early to explore the Stars. :smith:[/QUOTE] Personally, I would of rather of explored the world, but all I have left is to hope to explore the stars.
Episode 3 will come from space then... challenge accepted, Valve
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;27295294]Personally, I would of rather of explored the world, but all I have left is to hope to explore the stars.[/QUOTE] 67% of the earth is water, some of that is so deep that we have no idea what can be going on down there. More people have been to the moon than to the bottom of our own planet. The fuck is this "no exploration" left attitude? We have so much our own planet can still tell us. We're ignorant to not look there.
[QUOTE=Rooster Assassin;27294266]Something can always come up before then, Maybe.[/QUOTE] This should be in the OP.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;27295331]67% of the earth is water, some of that is so deep that we have no idea what can be going on down there. More people have been to the moon than to the bottom of our own planet. The fuck is this "no exploration" left attitude? We have so much our own planet can still tell us. We're ignorant to not look there.[/QUOTE] We've been to the moon once. We've been to the bottom of the sea countless times.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;27295331]67% of the earth is water, some of that is so deep that we have no idea what can be going on down there. More people have been to the moon than to the bottom of our own planet. The fuck is this "no exploration" left attitude? We have so much our own planet can still tell us. We're ignorant to not look there.[/QUOTE] Except I hate swimming, being in boats, basically doing anything in a body of water larger than a bathtub. I don't even like going in pools. So this option is a bit out for me, sadly.
You know, with all this research being done at CERN and with the LHC, and other places where they're looking into dark matter and other 'ominous mysteries of the universe' hopefully something has to come of that.
But I want interstellar space travel nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :gonk:
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;27295377]Except I hate swimming, being in boats, basically doing anything in a body of water larger than a bathtub. I don't even like going in pools. So this option is a bit out for me, sadly.[/QUOTE] So stars, big hot balls of intense fire where no water could ever be found is the option for you then. Welcome aboard!
[img_thumb]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12875849/stairs.jpg[/img_thumb] Welp, that's a major setback for the talks between me and myself on reasons to continue living.
You might want to add a "^" between 10 and 18 in that article. 1018 joule is like half a Big Mac.
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