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Right now, the minds that conceive of any practical way of a spacecraft reaching the speed of light says we need the energy of multiple suns to be able to even

Right now, the minds that conceive of any practical way of a spacecraft reaching the speed of light says we need the energy of multiple suns to be able to even reach that speed, so who knows where humans are in 500 years…

ben_w 3y ago
Right now, most of the suggestions for going at actually the speed of light (rather than just very close) require a negative energy, which is much much harder than even a huge positive energy as nobody has any idea if it's even possible[0] let alone how. [0] no a Casimir cavity won't do that: https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/can-a-casimir-cavity-be-used-to-construct-true-negative-mass-metamaterials/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/can-a-casim...
RetroTechie 3y ago
Either some new physics is found enabling faster-than-light travel, which would break a good chunk of our current understanding of physics. So... doubtful (imho). Or the only thing achievable is travel at some fraction of the speed of light. Say, a few %. At which point the nearest stars are a few-centuries away (one way trip), making interstellar travel feasible at least in theory. But say, 99% or 99.99% of lightspeed? That's what's done with a few particles in huge projects like the LHC. So ehm.. no. Not unless (see above).
- nojvek 3y ago
  Suppose one could send a futuristic molecular assembly to another star system that can use resources of the planet to build anything from a bunch of bits. Then to send that equipment requires sub light speed - say 0.1C Once the equipment is on the other planet, then sending information is 1C. I think the assumption that we need to send humans to other planets is not true. Once we figure out how to build better space faring beings that we can stream our consciousness at light speed, that seems more feasible for space travel. Humans are squishy meat bags that need to eat multiple times a day, pee, poop, sleep, stable temperature and many other needs to survive. There’s a reason why humans have only made it to moon which is about 400,000km but for all other planets only rovers have touched down. I highly doubt Elon/SpaceX will have living humans on Mars in our lifetime, it’s much more likely they’ll have their Optimus robot or a descendant of it on mars receiving instructions from Earth. Human intelligence and consciousness isn’t that special. Just an algorithm running on biological hardware.

ben_w 3y ago

Right now, most of the suggestions for going at actually the speed of light (rather than just very close) require a negative energy, which is much much harder than even a huge positive energy as nobody has any idea if it's even possible[0] let alone how. [0] no a Casimir cavity won't do that: https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/can-a-casimir-cavity-be-used-to-construct-true-negative-mass-metamaterials/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/can-a-casim...

RetroTechie 3y ago

Either some new physics is found enabling faster-than-light travel, which would break a good chunk of our current understanding of physics. So... doubtful (imho). Or the only thing achievable is travel at some fraction of the speed of light. Say, a few %. At which point the nearest stars are a few-centuries away (one way trip), making interstellar travel feasible at least in theory. But say, 99% or 99.99% of lightspeed? That's what's done with a few particles in huge projects like the LHC. So ehm.. no. Not unless (see above).

nojvek 3y ago
Suppose one could send a futuristic molecular assembly to another star system that can use resources of the planet to build anything from a bunch of bits. Then to send that equipment requires sub light speed - say 0.1C Once the equipment is on the other planet, then sending information is 1C. I think the assumption that we need to send humans to other planets is not true. Once we figure out how to build better space faring beings that we can stream our consciousness at light speed, that seems more feasible for space travel. Humans are squishy meat bags that need to eat multiple times a day, pee, poop, sleep, stable temperature and many other needs to survive. There’s a reason why humans have only made it to moon which is about 400,000km but for all other planets only rovers have touched down. I highly doubt Elon/SpaceX will have living humans on Mars in our lifetime, it’s much more likely they’ll have their Optimus robot or a descendant of it on mars receiving instructions from Earth. Human intelligence and consciousness isn’t that special. Just an algorithm running on biological hardware.