I often read in the news scientists finding new life supporting planets and new galaxies etc.. I also read such things as the Em Drive and possible worm holes etc.. But are space agencies actually trialling new engines so we could feasibly reach all these new planets? Or are we still stuck with just ideas?
Well I heard that NASA was testing a warp drive and it might be available in the year 2100 or so. But right now we have no engine to go check these potentially hospitable planets out.
Interstellar space travel is extremely hard. The Em Drive goes against all laws of physics (though it does seem to work in early testing) and worm holes, warp drive, etc are just wild theories. NASA is working on Ion drives which sound promising, but still not perfect.
Well, rumors have it that NASA already achieved a warp bubble in secret, and their employees have signed a secrecy agreement that means they can't talk about it to the public. But the fact that NASA is doing it might mean public disclosure sooner or later.
Its not just the engines. Fer instance, effective radiation shields would be needed or arrivin' alive might be very problematic. And other protections depending on methods like wormhole opening/traversing which would require shielding from encounters with the theoretical exotic matter that exists within. Without FTL, we could do that whole"space ark" thing, which has been done to death in the sci fi genre, to reach Alpha Centauri, but we'd still need effective rad shielding to protect the micro biosphere required.
Well particles in space travel at high speeds and can pass through metals and hulls like bullets. So a special self healing wall of composite design is an idea. The idea of a complex sustainable bio complex in a large generational ship of enormous size with gravity in most habitations. Drednaught class. Radiation is controlled the same way as on planet earth. Plan B includes hibernation, that has additional medical issues. In particular a frog that can be frozen an suffers no ill effects, because it has a natural antifreeze. https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/5-animals-1-superbug-that-can-freeze-thaw-live/
Okay, Call It! Warp Space / Time So a ship seems to be propelled although it is just shifting space under warping conditions. Shrink the space in front, expand the space in back and you seem propelled. Yes? Hyperspace. Babylon 5 style. A space beyond space that seems to allow for ludicrous speed. Sometimes aided with "gates". Other ideas? It's late, I'm itchy and may not be clear. Just Say "NO", to Worm Holes.
Just say no to reaching alien galaxies millions of light years away. Getting to the nearest star is probably not possible.
Barring extreme advancement in the understanding and manipulation of Physics and Space, humankind will not be visiting even our closest star in the remote or near future. Even IF we develop the ability to approach light speed and remain alive the time frame involved makes it pointless as no one would still be here to say...."Cool".
What about what the head of Skunkworks said a few years ago, before he died? Rich was his name. He said that we now had the technology to take ET home. What do you think he meant by that? I am assuming he was not talking about taking that character from Spielberg's film home, dead, but alive.
Well, if these non man made Advanced Aerial Threats(ufos) are real, as recorded on state of the art fighter jet technology, and if they are ET and not from other dimensions, and if we can get our hands on that technology, then everything changes, and it will be a paradigm shift.
we are never leaving this solar system...it's nice to speculate/dream about it but it ain't ever going to happen this rock is our only home and we'd better learn to look after it...
Conspiracy theory? So Rich created a conspiracy theory? Why would he, the head of skunkworks at one time, do that? The guy certainly said what I parroted. But I surely don't know what technology he was speaking of. But I assume it is something you or I are not aware of. It was a cryptic statement, which can of course easily spawn conjecture. But even hard scientists will conjecture.
If man was meant to fly god would have given him wings. Absent some monumental scientific breakthrough in the future, the best we can hope for is exploiting the inner regions of our heliosphere. I do agree we won't be able to do that if we don't learn to look after nature's very own space ship.
Or, it will. We may have a handle on the limits of the physics of space travel, but many exotic theories and unresolved issues remain. No one can say with any confidence if physics is about done or not - or what the true limits of space travel may be. The EM drive seems to be a great example of the limits of knowledge. From what I have read, prosaic explanations have all failed. Even a tiny crack in the door like that - anytime the fundamentals come into question - could change everything. We don't know the implications.
Physically we might not, but the Voyager spacecrafts are still out there and one, or now both, are currently outside of our solar system and venturing into interstellar space. That we were able to achieve that in the 70s and they are still out there functioning is quite remarkable on its own. Oh, and they fired up the engines of Voyager 1 back in December of 2017 for the first time in 37 years. - https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/news/details.php?article_id=108
It's mostly just ideas and speculation. Blueprints, simulations, etc. They have built some things on small scales to see if it would work but if you are asking if NASA is currently building a USS Enterprise somewhere then the answer is no. Our children's children's children would be lucky if they even saw a manned spaceship worthy of leaving our own Solar System. We may one day figure out a feasible way to send human beings outside of our Solar System but as far as exploring any of these exoplanets it will be probes in many many years. We humans are more than likely forever stuck in our own backyard. In the future we may have humans scattered around the Solar System, if we figure out a way to reach some significant fraction of the speed of light then we may one day have humans visit the Alpha Centauri system. But unless we figure out legitimate FTL travel then we probably aren't ever going anywhere past our nearest neighboring star system. Powerful telescopes like James Webb and Kepler are what will be studying exoplanets for many many decades to come. Spectroscopy provides Astronomers with A LOT of information. If/when life is discovered beyond our own it will more than likely be because something like James Webb found some sort of atmospheric composition in a far away planet that isn't "natural". Best bet to actually "see" life beyond Earth is to cross your fingers for Europa or Enceladus. We might see probes launched to those places in our lifetime and they are two of the best candidates for life that we'd actually be able to verify.
Odds are there is life in many places in the universe. However, It is unlikely we will ever interface with it.
Easiest way to answer this question is to consider the following hypothetical instance. Let us assume that a planet identical to earth in every aspect is identified 65 million light years away. Let us also assume that we have the technology to detect the level of civilization on that planet from the levels of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere and the electromagnetic radiation spectrum and it also matches our own current levels of technology. Whatever intelligent life exists on that planet is advanced enough for us to be able to communicate with them. Now imagine that you are the equivalent of a scientist on that planet who is also searching elsewhere in the universe for intelligent life. Your own telescopes identify Earth orbiting our sun. What will you, as that distant scientist, see on our own planet? Will it appear as it is now or what it was like when the dinosaurs roamed the earth? Unfortunately it will be the latter because the light from our planet reaching the other planet takes 65 million years to get there so all that would be visible would be those dinosaurs. This is the problem with space travel. Even if we identify a likely habitable planet and have the ability to travel at warp speed when we get there the odds of the planet still being what we saw back on earth are not good. It might have undergone an impact that transformed it into something different. It might even have knocked entirely out of orbit. We aren't going to be traveling to the stars without some significant breakthroughs in technology that do not exist at present. We need to find a way to preserve our current biosphere for the next couple of thousand years or so that it might take to find a way to travel through space in a safe manner that will ensure enough survivors can make the journey. It is a monumental undertaking not that different to what it would have been like to try crossing the Atlantic on just a log of wood 10,000 years ago. We do have a head start now but the journey is still way beyond our current technology.
While that is true for distant planets, we are finding many possible homes to alien life much closer than 65 million ly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets
True but even these "close" planets are only close on a cosmic scale. 20 light years is still extremely far away. Even with all of the research being conducted we can only expect to reasonably achieve some small fraction of the speed of light with any sort of probe. At least any time soon. 20 light years won't be "that bad" if we could actually travel at c. We will likely never actually achieve that or get anywhere even close for a LONG TIME so we will be sending things to these planets that will still take centuries to get there. Nonetheless I'm not expecting to find Star Trek type civilizations though, I'd be in awe if we simply found microorganisms.
I was mainly speaking to the notion that it would be useless to travel 65 million Ly. There are planets of interest far closer than that! I have no doubt the universe is packed with intelligent life. The odds demand it! But it is going to take new physics if we will ever go there. The best evidence we can travel beyond our own planet are UFO reports. It's true! If even one report of alien technology is true... And there are certainly reasons to think they could be real.
