Is Speed of Light Human Travel Possible?

[Kokolums]

Yes and it will be instant (in a sense).

The logistics of humans travelling space are insanely complicated. It would be far better to send robots to explore and leave humans here on Earth. However, we will be able to build a perfect model of the universe in a holodeck/matrix, and in THAT we can travel instantly and there really is no difference between it and the real thing for us as humans.

[Zelk]

seems like something that would make our blood boil tbh

[IIamaKing]

I'v been told that with god all things are possible.

[Donald Hellscream]

I don't think it is possible in the near future, maybe a few centuries from now.

That said to reach the nearest star system from the solar system we'd need to travel much faster than the speed of light in order to do some extensive space exploring outside of our "backyard" unless we develop a way to go into cryosleep for hundreds or thousands of years whilst travelling.

[Danuru]

Yes and it will be instant (in a sense).

The logistics of humans travelling space are insanely complicated. It would be far better to send robots to explore and leave humans here on Earth. However, we will be able to build a perfect model of the universe in a holodeck/matrix, and in THAT we can travel instantly and there really is no difference between it and the real thing for us as humans.

Unless we're already in the matrix and we figure out a way to hack our current artificial universe to do the same thing.

[wholol]

Humanity always seems to want to bring to reality every futuristic imagination conceived, if you look back 200 or so years you will see that a lot of things that humans once considered an impossible fantasy came to be, like walking on the moon, flying cars ,robots etc.

I'm sure eventually we'll develop technologically to the point where traveling at the speed or light or bending space might be possible, but I fear that is still quite a distance ahead of us.

For now I'd settle with whether or not humanity can overcome the effect of the impending global warming and ecosystem damage that will affect life on earth in the next couple of centuries or so, everyone seems to have the " someone will do something about it attitude" but no one seems to give a F.

[Polarthief]

Unless some new discovery pops up, we'll never hit SOL.

You could say we're SoL (shit out of luck) on achieving SoL (speed of light).

[Stormspellz]

who knows? after air planes was once thought impossible as well. For as much as we have learned in the last few decades about space and the universe its opened up as many questions as answers.

[igualitarist]

1st - It would require more energy than the amount of energy avaliable in the whole universe to make things with mass travel faster the light.

2nd - Speed of light is really slow. Yeah, light is the fastest thing in the universe and in human scale its insanely fast. But in a galatic scale, even in an interstellar scale, speed of light is pretty damn slow.

if we want to colonize stars, maybe we should consider another possibilities.

[EliWallach]

No, but you can get as close to it as you want, given an exceedingly powerful energy source or a long, long period of time. Interestingly, the current hot topic in theoretical physics involves black holes and quantum theory, notably entanglement. New breakthroughs in this area could potentially lead to new methods of space travel. Also interestingly, the father of black holes was of course Einstein, but he was also the first, along with a few others, to publish about quantum entanglement.

[Mormolyce]

You mean faster than light? Light's too slow :P

In short: according to our current understanding of the universe, no. You can't even reach light speed let alone go beyond it.

But we may eventually find a way around that.

[BloodyAngel12]

Unless someone figures a way around Einsteins theory of General Relativity, then maybe.

Just easier to use wormholes to move around the universe.

[Very Tired]

There's no need to match the speed of light if we just increase the speed of light to begin with.

[Ealyssa]

Most likely next tuesday

[BloodyAngel12]

There's no need to match the speed of light if we just increase the speed of light to begin with.

Its a universal constant.

[Myr010]

The BBC put together an interesting article on this a couple of years ago, the TLDR version is you'll be bombarded with radiation and die

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2015...-through-space

[Kujako]

Its a universal constant.

It's been slowed in laboratory conditions (shrug). But doesn't mater, speed is relative to the observer. So just don't look!

[rogoth]

in short, no, we may have the understanding to achieve it on paper, but the materials needed to make it happen do not exist in this universe or any other, they would need to be fabricated with some kind of monumental leap forward in technological understanding to make this happen which is never gonna happen in several lifetimes at this point due to nobody funding such a thing, they are too worried about who has the biggest nuclear missile that could literally tear the planet apart at the seams than developing the technology to increase the prosperity of the human race as a whole.

[Adam Jensen]

No.

It takes too much energy to go even a significant fraction of the speed of light. Objects with mass can neither meet nor exceed the speed of light.

The only way we'll ever travel the stars is to warp space, which is more theoretically possible than breaking C, but still beyond our technological capabilities, and still requires understanding areas of physics that are still unknown.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm just a pleb. However, I don't see how you could generate enough energy for a complex cluster of matter, one specifically designed to support some blood and bone creatures, to move faster than a photon.

Can we create a nano-bot that's small enough to get somewhere close enough to the speed of light to travel somewhere very distant and collect data, then come back? Let's see if we can even do that first.

There are plans to send microchips with lightsails, powered by a laser, to Alpha Centauri, but even that journey, a distance of 4.5 light years, is suggested to take a decade, and we have no idea how to slow down the light sail once it gets to Alpha Centauri to take pictures and transmit them back.

- - - Updated - - -

Traveling at the speed of light is too damn slow!

If we did travel at C, it'd still take ~100,000 years to cross the galaxy.

[Tierbook]

1st - It would require more energy than the amount of energy avaliable in the whole universe to make things with mass travel faster the light.

2nd - Speed of light is really slow. Yeah, light is the fastest thing in the universe and in human scale its insanely fast. But in a galatic scale, even in an interstellar scale, speed of light is pretty damn slow.

if we want to colonize stars, maybe we should consider another possibilities.

So what you're saying is that we need to figure out negative mass engines? Though honestly if we have that kind of tech we probably have teleportation as a valid technology at which point quantum entanglement.... etc etc