interstellar travel

not exactly related to everyday observing i know, but bearing in mind how
man has gone faster in the last couple of hundred years or so... does anyone
think a major discovery will appear in the next couple of hundred years that
will enable us to travel much faster,making interplanetary travel or even
interstellar much faster..or are any future gains going to be much more hard
won in the centuries to come?
i have had a few 'stella's' as i type this!

"aj" wrote in message
...
not exactly related to everyday observing i know, but bearing in mind how
man has gone faster in the last couple of hundred years or so... does
anyone
think a major discovery will appear in the next couple of hundred years
that
will enable us to travel much faster,making interplanetary travel or even
interstellar much faster..or are any future gains going to be much more
hard
won in the centuries to come?
i have had a few 'stella's' as i type this!



If you mean some sort of warp drive then I would doubt it, at least based on
the current understanding of physics. We haven't really advanced in terms of
propulsion systems for space vehicles in the 50 years or so of Rockets. In
fact some people might argue we're going backwards with NASA dumping the
Shuttle and going back to some form of capsule based vehicle. And of course
the Russians are still using 40 year old (which does the job) technology.

Inter planetary travel for Humans is not just an issue of propulsion, but
many other issues, like radiation protection, effects of gravity on the
body, carrying enough food, space emergencies (like someone needing a major
operation) and so on. And in many cases the fact it might take a probe
several years to reach a planet doesn't seem to make much odds these days as
they can do software upgrades along the way.

Martin

aj wrote:
not exactly related to everyday observing i know, but bearing in mind how
man has gone faster in the last couple of hundred years or so... does anyone
think a major discovery will appear in the next couple of hundred years that
will enable us to travel much faster,making interplanetary travel or even
interstellar much faster..or are any future gains going to be much more hard
won in the centuries to come?
i have had a few 'stella's' as i type this!


Ah! Stella,

I remember her well...

What about some sort of deep sleep cryo-something-or-other only drawback of
course is that if this was possible and you did manage to get to pluto (nice
place at this time of year I hear) chances are by the time you'd got back
YOU would be the relic and studied - an earlier form of homo sapiens...

Until some sort of shortcut arrives for the greater distances ie anything
further than the moon; time would defeat you - may be artificially generated
wormholes or similar

Mago


"Martin" wrote in message
...

"aj" wrote in message
...
not exactly related to everyday observing i know, but bearing in mind how
man has gone faster in the last couple of hundred years or so... does
anyone
think a major discovery will appear in the next couple of hundred years
that
will enable us to travel much faster,making interplanetary travel or even
interstellar much faster..or are any future gains going to be much more
hard
won in the centuries to come?
i have had a few 'stella's' as i type this!



If you mean some sort of warp drive then I would doubt it, at least based
on the current understanding of physics. We haven't really advanced in
terms of propulsion systems for space vehicles in the 50 years or so of
Rockets. In fact some people might argue we're going backwards with NASA
dumping the Shuttle and going back to some form of capsule based vehicle.
And of course the Russians are still using 40 year old (which does the
job) technology.

Inter planetary travel for Humans is not just an issue of propulsion, but
many other issues, like radiation protection, effects of gravity on the
body, carrying enough food, space emergencies (like someone needing a
major operation) and so on. And in many cases the fact it might take a
probe several years to reach a planet doesn't seem to make much odds these
days as they can do software upgrades along the way.

Martin

"Mago" wrote in message
...
What about some sort of deep sleep cryo-something-or-other only drawback
of course is that if this was possible and you did manage to get to pluto
(nice place at this time of year I hear) chances are by the time you'd got
back YOU would be the relic and studied - an earlier form of homo
sapiens...

Until some sort of shortcut arrives for the greater distances ie anything
further than the moon; time would defeat you - may be artificially
generated wormholes or similar

Mago


Problem with hibernation (assuming it worked) is it doesn't stop the body
getting dosed with high levels of radiation.

Martin

Technology will indeed advance to greater & greater levels (if we don't all
blow each other to bits first) but it will advance in different directions
to any you can think of right now


"aj" wrote in message
...
not exactly related to everyday observing i know, but bearing in mind how
man has gone faster in the last couple of hundred years or so... does
anyone
think a major discovery will appear in the next couple of hundred years
that
will enable us to travel much faster,making interplanetary travel or even
interstellar much faster..or are any future gains going to be much more
hard
won in the centuries to come?
i have had a few 'stella's' as i type this!

"Andy H" wrote in message
...
Technology will indeed advance to greater & greater levels (if we don't
all blow each other to bits first) but it will advance in different
directions to any you can think of right now



I've always thought that *we* will have to be advanced a bit too. Better
micro-gravity abilities (inner ear), stronger hearts, bones and muscle less
affected by low gravity, etc, etc. As soon as we get into space in a big
way, the human race will probably become as diverse as other creatures. We
can't rely on having to do exercise all the time to stay on top of muscle
wastage as we are just to lazy a race! Cryogenics is a bit of a non-starter
at the moment. All those frozen brains are essentially knackered... IIRC
doesn't freezing any living tissue cause the cells within it to expand and
rupture? Only a few living organisms, a few insects and small creatures can
be frozen and thawed succesfully.

Oh, and then there's fusion... Pretty handy for space exploration!

This all sounds very SF, doesn't it?

Cheers,
Jim

It sounds like we're going to have quite a bit of a wait then if we're
waiting for human physiology to change - it's only taken a few thousand
years to make the appendix obsolete and we all still have one of those how
long will it take to humans evolve further (I'm sorry X Men is a good film
but those kind of evolutionary leaps are fiction - science fiction but still
definitely fiction)

Mago


"James Hill" jay ay undaskor hill on microsoft's hot mail dottcomm system
wrote in message
...

"Andy H" wrote in message
...
Technology will indeed advance to greater & greater levels (if we don't
all blow each other to bits first) but it will advance in different
directions to any you can think of right now



I've always thought that *we* will have to be advanced a bit too. Better
micro-gravity abilities (inner ear), stronger hearts, bones and muscle
less affected by low gravity, etc, etc. As soon as we get into space in a
big way, the human race will probably become as diverse as other
creatures. We can't rely on having to do exercise all the time to stay on
top of muscle wastage as we are just to lazy a race! Cryogenics is a bit
of a non-starter at the moment. All those frozen brains are essentially
knackered... IIRC doesn't freezing any living tissue cause the cells
within it to expand and rupture? Only a few living organisms, a few
insects and small creatures can be frozen and thawed succesfully.

Oh, and then there's fusion... Pretty handy for space exploration!

This all sounds very SF, doesn't it?

Cheers,
Jim

"Mago" wrote in message
...
It sounds like we're going to have quite a bit of a wait then if we're
waiting for human physiology to change - it's only taken a few thousand
years to make the appendix obsolete and we all still have one of those how
long will it take to humans evolve further (I'm sorry X Men is a good film
but those kind of evolutionary leaps are fiction - science fiction but
still
definitely fiction)

Mago

Evolution is not a slow process. The rate depends on the intensity of the
selection pressure. Selection pressure against the appendix was mild even
before its the advent of surgery. A plague which killed of 95% of humans
would result in a massive selection event leaving a human race consisting
entirely of the 1 in 20 genetically able to resist it. For most of the
developed world human evolution has been effectively halted by modern
medicine.
And you haven't even considered artificially altering the genome.
By the way X-Men is a crap film.

--
Mike Collins
UK
Mike&heather-at-oakwellmount-dot-freeserve-dot-co-dot-uk

Mike Collins wrote:
For most of the
developed world human evolution has been effectively halted by modern
medicine.

Just out of curiosity, how did you reach this conclusion?