interstellar travel

[Bxmkr]

My big passion is interstellar travel. The idea of traveling to the stars and other planets just rocks my tits.

I love to talk about it and explore how to do it. Of course, I have a couple of thoughts about how to do it. I would be greatly appreciative if some of you out there would contribute commentary on this subject as I have been putting together this project for a lot of years and would like to hear from others.

First of all: I propose that the preferential will acts directly upon matter at a sub-atomic level.

I speculate that at least one "other continuum' permeates this one.

I infer, that since the human mind is composed of more than one aspect of cognizance, that human minds could be added together in certain logically conceived ways resulting in a sapient gestalt.

I beleive that the potentials manifested by these "gestalt beings" would exceed our expectations and would constitute a legitimate evolutionary accomplishment borne of inherent potential, intelligent extrapolation, and discovery of a greater self.

Just as no examination of the properties of oxygen coupled with a similar examination of hydrogen could ever lead to a prediction of the properties of water, so, we simply have no way of knowing, in advance, what the complete characteristic of a gestalt being might be.

I do expect, though, that teleportation and telekinesis would be a feature of those gestalts. Some with more modest potential and some with dramatic potential, depending on the number of persons interconnected.

Bertrand Russell was known to say that he was not looking for believers, he was looking for those who were willing to find out.

I, too, would prefer not to waste time on considerations of belief or disbelief, no one really knows anyway. That's why it's called discovery. Ever build a paper airplane? Did the first one work?

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Bxmkr

[This message has been edited by Bxmkr (edited May 30, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Bxmkr (edited June 22, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Bxmkr (edited June 22, 1999).]

[tigercub]

I recommend boblazar.com. He claims to have back engineered a ufo in area 51. Some items in his resume may be fudged, but he has detailed knowledge of the facilities there and a w-2 from Naval Intelligence. Instead of going faster-than-light, the people from Zeta Reticula are able to amplify gravity and warp space! The fuel they use is cool, too: element 115. One small piece can power a small ufo for 20-30 years (it generates anti-matter. Unfortunately, our government won't fess up, but the closest thing I have read is, "The day after Roswell" by Col. Philip Corso in Army Intelligence. Best thing written this century, after "A Course in Miracles."

[Overdrive6]

Hi, I believe that antimatter is what is most likely going to take us to the stars. It will be at least 20 years before we even begin to seriously take into consideration an interstellar misson, and by then there may be better ways to get to the stars.(maybe cyrogenic sleep?) But currently antimatter is faster and probably cheaper than fusion and laser light sails.
I personally don't believe in ufo's and the government hiding ufo sectets from the public, but what do I know i'm only a kid... But if the government really has ufo technology then the reason they aren't releasing the info is definently for national security, and quite frankly I am glad that we have it and not countries like CHINA.
Our knowledge of antimatter engines is still in its infancy, and I garuntee that antimatter engines in the future will be better than any we can imagine right now. Current perdictions say that it will take 40 years to get to proxima centauri with antimatter engines, but with the advancement of technology in that field, 30-35 years would seem more obtainable (at a rate of 60-65% the speed of light)

-EXOSCIENCE ROCKS

[Bxmkr]

Thanks for the great information from overdrive6 and tigercub. I'd like to see a large crew, 392 would be a good number, acting within a harmonic field to produce a gestalt sapience. I suspect that some interesting potentials would be manifested, among them the ability to command matter at the sub-atomic level. Sounds far fetched I know but then so was gravity at the time. Yeah, right Newt, things fall down.



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Bxmkr

[Plato]

In the 21 century we will probably explore our solarsystem and after that, who knows...

[Bxmkr]

A Sapient Gestalt doesn't seem that unreasonable when you think about it, an Intelligence composed of four to twenty-four people dynamically linked at the emotive level.

What I'm seeing is that pattern and form can be assessed and applied to manifest greater potential.



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Bxmkr

[Davespace7]

Antimatter is not an option, and will not be for a while, for interstellar travel. The reason is that there is no known way to get enough antimatter to fuel such an engine. As of now, there are only a few particle accelerators in the world, and they each produce a very limited number of antimatter particles each. Also, it is much too hard to contain antimatter. Although it has been contained in magnetic fields, physicists have little clue on how to keep the antimatter from annihilating the nozzle that it would expel through in the latest engine model (Can be found in the June issue of Popular Science).

Antimatter is intriguing, but it most likely will not be used in interstellar travel in our lifetime, unless there is some way to create antimatter much more abundantly.

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Send me your comments.
davespace7@aol.com


[This message has been edited by Davespace7 (edited May 20, 1999).]

[Davespace7]

Oh, and laser light sails ARE the cheapest way to travel to an interstellar place. It will most likely be the most efficient was to travel.

[This message has been edited by Davespace7 (edited May 20, 1999).]

[Bxmkr]

Bertrand Russel said that he was not looking for people to believe, but rather for people who were willing to find out.

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Bxmkr

[Rodvik]

I tend to dismiss things like light sails and so forth as there is nothing wrong with the good old nuclear rockets idea except for the publics fear of them.

Space elevators seem like a pretty good option to get out of Earths gravity well although I suspect like all these schemes the devil is in the details.

Hehe can you IMAGINE the media frenzy that will happen if anyone seriously starts to design an anti-matter engine? Even I might be a tad concerned over that :)

[woody]

Yea i agree anti mater is a good idea in theory but like nuclear energy not that good of an idea in practice. containing the antimater is not an easy task even of a very strong magnetic feild could hold the anti mater what happens if it fails? BOOM! most likely.

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[Double Overdrive]

Yeah, Antimatter is very dangerous. I saw an "Outer Limits" once where an antimatter experiment lab was set up on the moon. On day something at this lab malfunctioned and released the antimatter, which annihalated the moon in 1 second. The effects of this disasterous explosion left 1/2 of the Earth completely fried. When this happened, the only humans who survived were those who were living on the Martian base. Which eventually the Mars pioneers killed each other.

(lets find safe methods of interstellar travel...)

-Double Overdrive

[Bxmkr]

What is needed here is a major leap forward in our thinking, a reassessment of fundamentals, a new way of configuring our conceptual tools, a temporary abandonment of those tools which we think are so useful, a fresh look at the situation, something manifestly new and different from that which has gone before.

Then we can reach the stars.

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Bxmkr

[gravitywaves]

To Overdrive6:

You said:
"I am glad that we
have it and not countries like CHINA."
Can u explain that? I don't think it's a good move at all.

[Steve]

Here's an interesting new developement that I just read about. Scientists have developed a fusion reactor that's alot smaller than previous models, about the size of a desktop. Also, instead of costing $1 billion like previous models, this one only cost about $1 million. Now, they still haven't found a way to make the whole thing cost effective (so that more energy comes out of the reaction than what's needed to make it work), but the lower cost will make research much more accessable. And who knows, we might have fusion reactors for spaceships yet.

[Plato]

gravitywaves,

I think some of our US friends sometimes forget that the internet isn't just an American but a GLOBAL medium. There is a whole world out there reading everything that we write. But this is not a political forum so let's not get into it to much...

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greetings,
Plato

[Double Overdrive]

steve:

hmmm... that is really interesting. Do you know were you found out about this new fusion developement. We really need to find new ways of getting energy, and fusion seems to be the most popular. Maybe fusion power plants will be our main means of getting energy (they will probably still use hydrodynamic power, solar, and maybe wind??)

Did you find out about this price reduction in fusion from somewhere on the web?

-Double Overdrive


<blink>P.S:</blink> I was formerly Overdrive6 and I am a US citizen, regarding gravitywaves question: If you are a chinese citizen this is not to offend you. I feel as if all communist countries pose some threat to the free world. It would be really scary if CHINA had ufo technology (as it was when Russia got the nukes...)

[Bxmkr]

Dear Sweet Jesus in heaven, is there somebody out there who would like to discuss how to do this or not?

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Bxmkr

[Steve]

I saw the article about the new fusion generator in this month's Scientific America. It was just a paragraph, but interesting for this space nonetheless. I've mentioned this before on another topic, but they also had a great cover story on space travel a few months back that everyone here should read to get a good feel of where the tech is now and where we're headed in the near future.

[DragonMage]

Hey Bxmkr,

I agree with you on changing perspective in order to come up with ways to deal with the distance problems for reaching the stars. We are still talking about some of the same theories which have been discussed for years. Many credible scientists have even abandoned the possibility of faster-than-light travel.
So let's come up with some theories of our own and see where they go.

I have read the Bob Lazar information on gravity wave propulsion from his supposed tour of duty at Area 51. Now I am not sure if I believe all of his claims, but what about the "science" of using gavity distortions to propel a ship? I would appreciate any scholarly commentary on this subject.

[Bxmkr]

DragonMage
Thank you for your reply. I assure you I am no scholar. As for gravity magic, I don't see it, I don't know anything about it beyond what I have read on the boards, but it sounds hinky to me.

As for what I am proposing it's fairly simple, although the reasoning behind it is fairly complex.

WHAT IS IT?
It is the formation of a gestalt being with advanced potentials.

WHAT DOES IT DO?
Depending on the number of people in the gestalt it can, act telepathically, act telekinetically and finally it can Teleport both itself and a load.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
A group of people, selected for their talents, arrange themselves in a prescribed pattern within the confines of a generated field for the express purpose of combining their innate selves into a larger sapient self.

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Bxmkr

[Double Overdrive]

I couldn't get into www.boblazar.com, it has some sort of password encrypted entry... Can anyone tell me how to get in there because I am interested in hearing about this man's experience.

-Double Overdrive

[Boris]

Hey Bxmkr (how do you pronounce that? :))

Neat-o idea, but perhaps first we should try to figure out if telekinesis and telepathy are even possible? Being a neuroscience student, I would suggest that neither is a capability of the human brain. (Or any brain for that matter).

[ChucklesA]

It is a small, but hardly disastrous, pity that many posters have not done a little elementary research on that which seems to interest them so much. A nice, well-written entertaining little paperback is Robert Forward's "Indistinguishable From Magic".

There, you'll discover that antimatter can indeed be safely transported around the world in a suitcase-sized, battery-powered contraption called a Penning Trap. Nothing goes "boom". Not a single anti-particle - for months on end. It's a handy gadget.

Re. space elevators: the problem, as someone mentioned, is in the implementation. It's a materials science issue. I wonder if anyone here will become the next generation of great chemists? The prime candidate currently is the nanotube or buckytube, whose basis material is pure carbon, rolled into a tiny tube 10 nanometres or so in diameter. This is the strongest "rope candidate" yet discovered. Searching the web for "nanotubes"
will uncover a wealth of information. The current problem is making them longer than a few hundred microns. That's not going to even get you up on the kitchen table.

People have already exposed Mr. Bob Lazar as a fraud. I presume some people just didn't hear the news, which is now rather dated - as is Lazar's erstwhile fame. But the analyses are to be found online if one is curious.

[gravitywaves]

To Doubleoverdrive:
What I'm more scarely is that US got high tech and army power, and no country can balance it up. But as Plato said this's not the political forum so I'll not argue any further. I just found this website and you guys really impressed me. All of u have such good comment, idea. So I might come to visit this website quite often. But isn't that a good idea to be more careful what u gonna post besides of physics idea.

[Bxmkr]

To Boris,

Boris, I am a carpenter and cabinet maker, one day it occurred to me that what I do is largely make boxes, hence 'Bxmkr' sometimes I'm a 'Brdmkr', Other times I just put sawdust back together, which is very difficult because not all those saw dusts come from the same tree.

It would seem that telekinesis and telepathy have been around for centuries, we have just been unable to plumb the depths of their mystery.

Congratulations on your status as a student. What is neuroscience?

In this particular case it is my view that the 'preferential will' acts directly upon quarcks (notwithstanding their somewhat unsettled status).

Again, I have nothing to prove here. I am just a man with an idea. I think it will work. I have lots of reasons to think so. There is a lot of work which needs to be done. I cannot do it alone, nor do I wish to.

At one time, a thousand years ago, men and women saw an ocean of water and were curious about what it was and what was out there. They built boats and sailed on that water. Eventually they figured it out and sailed to the other side of their world. Some lived, some died, some were right and some were wrong, but they did it. Those who proclaimed it could not be done were right, for some it could not be done.

The question is not whether it will work the question is "How does it work?"




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Bxmkr

[Boris]

ChuckesA:

The Penning traps may be safe for months. But what happens if a plane accidentally falls on one?
There's always a possibility of catastrophic failure. And while with nuclear reactors/weapons you can shut the reaction down, or disarm the weapon for example, there's no equivalent for antimatter. If for some reason containment is lost, ka-BOOM. So with respect to antimatter propulsion, my position is: forget it. If you really do want to do it, then move anything and everything that has to do with antimatter off this planet, and far away onto some isolated station. I want none of that shit in my backyard, pardon my French.

Bxmkr:

Neuroscience is a study of the nervous system, and primarily the central nervous system (aka the brain). The field of inquiry encompasses everything from the particular chemicals (neurotransmitters) used for communication by neurons, to the complex chemical machinery inside the cells, to the various classes of neurons and interactions between groups of neurons, to large-scale information flow among functional 'blocks' of the brain, to filtering, processing, and integration of sensory information, to generation of movement and thought.

Thought == activity of neurons in the cerebral cortex. A few billion cells getting agitated and suppressed, sending electrochemical messages to each other along trillions of connections. The system has no more capacity to affect anything 'telekinetically' than the circuitry in your computer. It's only cells my man, just plain vanilla cells.

[Bxmkr]

Boris

Several dozen scientists at Princeton university are in disagreement with you. Their experiments with thousands of people during millions of trials demonstrated incontrovertably that the volitional will is a statistically validated phenomena in a scientifically controlled environment. They do not, however, know how it works.

For myself, I am not a scientist, I am a carpenter. I do not prove things, I build them. Telling me that I can not build something is pointless, unless you wish to exclude yourself, I'll just go find those who think that there might be some way and we will go do it.




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Bxmkr

[Steve]

To ChucklesA,
Do you know any good sources to find out more about tether technology? I've only seen a little from what I've read in scientific magazines. My memory may be faulty on this, but wasn't an experiment to see how long a tether in space would last using a simple configuration that involved simple materials, the result being it lasted months or maybe years longer than expected? As an astronomer pursuing about to start a graduate career in planetary science, I see tethers as the first of many ways we're going to gain access to the solar system cheaply, so I'd love to learn more.

And let's not rule out antimatter propulsion just yet. Sure it may be unreliable now, and somewhat dangerous, but so was nuclear fission 50 years ago. The Penning trap is reliable, and I think will be even more so once we get to the stage of putting it on space craft, but that's a ways off untill we can find a way to produce more of it.

As for the gestalt idea, it seems a little too far fetched to me. Even if ESP, telepathy, and the like exist (which I think would be great, but I've never heard of any conclusive proof of it. Who are the Princeton scientists? Where can I find their experiment written up and has anyone else reproduced their results? That's the real question) we have no understanding of the basics, let alone something as complex as this. Until I can see otherwise, the "plain vanilla cells" theory is correct. This does not mean you can't convince me otherwise, but I need to see proof first. But don't be discouraged. The "wierd theory" of today could be the vital inspiration of tomorrow.

[Bxmkr]

Steve, I have nothing to prove, nor would I prove anything even if I could. I am not a scientist, I am a carpenter, I build things.

I posted this message not in the hopes of finding people who would believe (I am not looking for believers) but rather in the hopes of finding people who, in the words of Bertrand Russell, "Are willing to find out."

As a courtesy, and nothing more, I will tell you that the telekinetic experiments (not ESP or telepathy) were performed at the "PEAR" Labs at Princeton University in New Jersey.

I will not be discouraged, it is not courage which I lack, it is company. All the courage in the world does not make up for a lack of self-realized minds capable of forging a path into the future which is not predicated on some extrapolation of the science which has come before. This is the very nature of discovery, it discovers.

The weird theory of today is not the vital inspiration of tomorrow. The vital inspiration of today is just that, vital inspiration, some may call it weird. Yeah, right Newt, things fall down, good thinking there.

Newton did not invent gravity, he postulated its existence. Nor is it necessary to prove it, it is a phenomonen whose consistency attests to its existence. What we know of it is resident in its action upon material and energy, we still don't know what it is.

What I propose is that the preferential will acts directly upon matter at the sub-atomic level. I also have reason to believe that the preferential will of an individual is several orders of magnitude slighter than the preferential will of an intelligently organized group. Such an idea is, in and of itself, quite rational and certainly no more far reaching than the concept of gravity.

I hope this clarifies some things about what I am doing. I appreciate your reply and look forward to hearing from you in the future.



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Bxmkr

[Aloysius]

To Steve, re. where to find tether information:

At the risk of sounding blindingly condescending, have a shot at

http://www.tethers.com

[Boris]

Bxmkr:

Wait... Don't tell me... You are a carpenter! You build things! :D
See, I learn fast. :)

Seriously though, I'm not saying telekinesis is impossible in principle. But for the life of me I can't figure out how it could reasonably be accomplished with the tools we have available. For example, being a carpenter you could hardly put together a wooden rocket to take us to the Moon, right? Well, in the same vein of thought, it's rather hard to see how the brain could affect something at subatomic level, when all it has to work with are chemical gradients within its cells.

Also, in many of those ESP/telekinesis studies, the results turn out to be 'statistically significant', but only in the sense that they are only slightly above noise. I have never seen a study on these issues where the effect was just plain conclusive (which is different from being statistically significant). And, you know, as Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Finally, for every scientist at Princeton who would support your conclusions, there are hundreds whose opinion I represent here. But of course, we could all be missing something; it wouldn't be for the first time :)

Which actually brings to my mind a certain possibility. Richard Feynman (who was a physicist, but ended up meddling with practically everything) proposed an intriguing theory of mind. This was before the modern boom of neural networks, and it did capture some imaginations. Basically, he noticed that neurons have very complex shapes, supported by intricate cellular scaffolding. The interesting thing about this scaffolding is that it consists of intertwined tubules, similar in geometry to carbon nanotubes. The quantum fields established inside those tubules could, conceivably, interact with those of other tubules, propagate along these tubules at speed of light, and in general perform some kinds of quantum computation. Now, I don't think anybody actually tried to empirically verify these hypotheses (which would be incredibly difficult) -- but there may be something to it after all. But anyway, if the brain in fact has a quantum component as opposed to being merely an electrochemical machine, then maybe through somehow resonating or modulating the quintillions of quantum interactions within it, it could affect other quantum entities outside of it. Of course, the theory is pretty far-out, and I wouldn't hold my breath, especially given the extremely slim evidence.

So there you go, my final 2 cents.

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I am; therefore I think.

[Bxmkr]

Thank you for your words, Boris.

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Bxmkr

[Steve]

Aloysius,

Doh! I always forget to look for that painfully obvious solution. Thanks.

Bxmkr,

I didn't mean to imply that you had something to prove, more that I'd like to see for myself what those people at Princeton you were refering to had to say, what their methodology was, etc. That was in no way to put you down.

[Bxmkr]

Steve
thanks for your note.
Yeah, I'd like to know more about the "PEAR" studies myself. I've tried to contact them but to no avail.
From what I've heard they rigged up some psychics and some regular people to a computerized random generator and told them to influence the outcomes of several million events and then recorded the results. The exciting thing for me, here, is that most everybody they tested,(psychics, regular people, dogs, whatever) showed statistical evidence of having influenced the damn test. Something was going on, I have enough respect for Princeton University to take their word for it. Now that is not to imply that I would not like to know more about the details and judge for myself, but I don't feel inclined to dismiss it offhandedly. I mean, I don't have any education, I'm just a dumb carpenter who wants to build a spaceship.

Again, speaking soley for myself, I think that it can be shown that the "preferential will" acts directly upon matter at the sub-atomic level. It just might be that 'will' is a different thing than thought. I know this sound a bit peculiar but stop and consider for a moment just what Newton did, he didn't invent gravity he discovered it. More precisely; he postulated the existence of a constant factor within his world which nobody else,(apparently), had thought about, at least enough to consider that it might be an extant existent thing which could be measured and calculated. It was just not part of their world. People must have thought Newton was very wierd, indeed! Yeah, right Newt, things fall down, "yur gonna fall down ya don' getoutahere widat shit."

Time for my nap, talk to you guys later,



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Bxmkr

[don't think so]

overdrive6 if the government is working with aliens, it is not for the american people it is for a darker purpose. you can bet the chinese know about it and so do all major world powers

[don't think so]

overdrive6 if the government is working with aliens, it is not for the american people it is for a darker purpose. you can bet the chinese know about it and so do all major world powers

[The_Sage]

The best way to travel the stars, is by a little property when you combine atoms. The so-called "fizzle" effect. Some scientists in Germany, France, England, and the US have observed a strange anomaly in fusion reactions. This anomaly does not work with the "Einstienian" physics. They propose that if you could send a large enough charge through a fusion reactor while it is working, then it would produce a fold in realspace. In effect, going from one point in space to another by bypassing light. The scale that these "fold" generators would have to be built on, we could possibly take the moon to where we need to go. Though getting to the moon and building it would take a few hundred years at least, so they have proposed a small shuttle-sized craft to make the first fold by 2035 aprox. Does anyone know of the game "Battlepace"? The science in that was bassed off those propositions. In conclusion, we could be to Proxima Centauri within the next 50 years.

The gestalt being is plausible, but where are we going to get that many people? Are we going to test all the people of the world? That would be too time consuming. That would take 75 to 100 years to acomplish. The fusion "fold" is more within our grasp.

[Bxmkr]

To: The_Sage

Thank you for your reply. In regards to the number of people to attain a working gestalt, I'm thinking that 4, 6, 8, 12, or 20, would be sufficient. As for testing, well, the prospect of testing people for suitability to be part of a gestalt implies that some rare, special, quality of being is out there if only we could find it. That is not what I have in mind. The advanced evolutionary potentials inherent in a gestalt being emerge because of the very nature of the situation, much like the properties of water. No amount of examination of the properties of oxygen coupled with a similar examination of the properties of hydrogen could ever lead one to a knowledge of water. More importantly, it is not necessary to require any water like behavior from oxygen or hydrogen in order to get water. Neither must we first test for water like properties in oxygen or hydrogen to get water like properties in water. In a similar vein, we do not need to search for a particular quality in people in the hopes that when we combine them the quality will somehow become magnified. The qualities that people have already are quite sufficient to the task, we need but combine them intelligently.



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Bxmkr

[The_Sage]

What about the "fold" hypothesis??

[Del]

Probably the best (and possibly only) way for human beings to get from one star to another is to establish a permanent presence on a small body such as a comet or asteroid and, by either using hydrogen separated from the water ice on the comet, or magnetically collecting it from the space environment, accelerating the body (imparting spin, of course to create artificial "gravity"). The business of interstellar travel will be long and dangerous -- remember that at speeds even a tiny percentage of C, a body as small as a speck of dust carries a terrific wallop. Also remember that solar systems are surrounded by various rings and layers of dust and/or bodies -- our own solar system, in addition to the planets, is surrounded by the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. These regions will have to be negotiated with caution.

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[ChucklesA]

Why trudge through the mud when you can ice-skate?

Just wait until Winter.

[gkooistra]

Speaking of a readily achievable technology and not things that involve complete paradigm shifts in fundamental physics. Laser powered light sails would be the way to go, even though some may scoff at such a technique. Establishing an array of 20-40 orbital lasers with a total output in the range of 9-15 gigawatts of power could easily push a light sail style craft (mass ~ 100 kilos) to the Alpha Centauri system with 15-20yrs. Although such an endeavor would cost on the order of $20-80 billion (U.S.)

[Del]

With regard to gkooistra's light sail idea ... I dunno. Seems it would be really hard to keep an array of emitters online for such a long period of time; plus, wouldn't that shut off lanes of travel in the solar system? And what if the laser beams were occulted by some object? Also, how do you keep the sail array oriented -- seems like every time they try something like that in orbit they end up wrapping it around the axle so to speak.

Such an array of lasers might be helpful in deflecting asteroids and comets from colliding with the earth. ...

[endlessDarkmatter]

does any one have a good guess on how much it would cost to make a space ship that could travel close to the speed of light :m:

[talk2farley]

I recommend boblazar.com. He claims to have back engineered a ufo in area 51. Some items in his resume may be fudged, but he has detailed knowledge of the facilities there and a w-2 from Naval Intelligence. Instead of going faster-than-light, the people from Zeta Reticula are able to amplify gravity and warp space! The fuel they use is cool, too: element 115. One small piece can power a small ufo for 20-30 years (it generates anti-matter. Unfortunately, our government won't fess up, but the closest thing I have read is, "The day after Roswell" by Col. Philip Corso in Army Intelligence. Best thing written this century, after "A Course in Miracles."

The traditional sci fi method of cheating general relativity involves "warping space" in front of a travelling starship, collapseing the associated distance between two points. It is theoretically possible, but practically paradoxical.

In order to warp space in front of itself, the starship would have to send a signal to a point in space. That signal is limited to the speed of light, at best. Therefore, you would outrun your own warping signal, expanding your spacial tunnel around your starship. This exercise would be repeated ad infinitum, with very little progress being made, all at great energy cost.

[Gravage]

Bxmkr:

Wait... Don't tell me... You are a carpenter! You build things! :D
See, I learn fast. :)

Seriously though, I'm not saying telekinesis is impossible in principle. But for the life of me I can't figure out how it could reasonably be accomplished with the tools we have available. For example, being a carpenter you could hardly put together a wooden rocket to take us to the Moon, right? Well, in the same vein of thought, it's rather hard to see how the brain could affect something at subatomic level, when all it has to work with are chemical gradients within its cells.

Also, in many of those ESP/telekinesis studies, the results turn out to be 'statistically significant', but only in the sense that they are only slightly above noise. I have never seen a study on these issues where the effect was just plain conclusive (which is different from being statistically significant). And, you know, as Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Finally, for every scientist at Princeton who would support your conclusions, there are hundreds whose opinion I represent here. But of course, we could all be missing something; it wouldn't be for the first time :)

Which actually brings to my mind a certain possibility. Richard Feynman (who was a physicist, but ended up meddling with practically everything) proposed an intriguing theory of mind. This was before the modern boom of neural networks, and it did capture some imaginations. Basically, he noticed that neurons have very complex shapes, supported by intricate cellular scaffolding. The interesting thing about this scaffolding is that it consists of intertwined tubules, similar in geometry to carbon nanotubes. The quantum fields established inside those tubules could, conceivably, interact with those of other tubules, propagate along these tubules at speed of light, and in general perform some kinds of quantum computation. Now, I don't think anybody actually tried to empirically verify these hypotheses (which would be incredibly difficult) -- but there may be something to it after all. But anyway, if the brain in fact has a quantum component as opposed to being merely an electrochemical machine, then maybe through somehow resonating or modulating the quintillions of quantum interactions within it, it could affect other quantum entities outside of it. Of course, the theory is pretty far-out, and I wouldn't hold my breath, especially given the extremely slim evidence.

So there you go, my final 2 cents.

------------------
I am; therefore I think.

I also heard that these microtunules would supposedly prove that there is a life after death.

[Gravage]

I also heard that these microtunules would supposedly prove that there is a life after death.

I meant I also heard that these MICROTUBULES would supposedly prove that there is a life after death.

[TruthSeeker]

My god... what an old thread....! :eek:

So nostalgic.... :(

[Nikelodeon]

Oh no, thread necromancy! Run for cover!!!

[jumpercable]

In the 21 century we will probably explore our solarsystem and after that, who knows...

Maybe by the 25th century we'll finally get to Alpha Centauri if we're lucky.........Real lucky that is. Just jump on a passing asteroid to save some fuel and head West young man.

[orcot]

Actually it was theoritical possible to reach alpha centauri afther Pionier 10 back in 1969. With it's speed of 2.6 AU it would have only taken 103 846 years to reach it, the fastests probe ever today was the Helios II from 1966 with 70.2km/s it would have taken him 18000 years if he was on a traject to alpha cen (btw it's not). The engine from the now not so distance futur the VASIMR can make speeds up to 300km/s and could therefore travel the distance in 4200 years. Let's say that it's fully developed and opperational in 2019, then the travel distance earth alpha centauri would have decreased with more then 95% in a 50 years period.

That's not that bad I think besides 2000-2100 is proberly going to be focused on the solar system annyway and a 100 years is a 100 years if you would go back 500 years you would proberly be around the time of leonardo da vinci.
I think we only have to wait a 150-200 years before we can travel to alpha centauri in less then a century

[jumpercable]

Actually it was theoritical possible to reach alpha centauri afther Pionier 10 back in 1969. With it's speed of 2.6 AU it would have only taken 103 846 years to reach it, the fastests probe ever today was the Helios II from 1966 with 70.2km/s it would have taken him 18000 years if he was on a traject to alpha cen (btw it's not). The engine from the now not so distance futur the VASIMR can make speeds up to 300km/s and could therefore travel the distance in 4200 years. Let's say that it's fully developed and opperational in 2019, then the travel distance earth alpha centauri would have decreased with more then 95% in a 50 years period.

That's not that bad I think besides 2000-2100 is proberly going to be focused on the solar system annyway and a 100 years is a 100 years if you would go back 500 years you would proberly be around the time of leonardo da vinci.
I think we only have to wait a 150-200 years before we can travel to alpha centauri in less then a century

I think you might be a little too optimistic. So far we're still having trouble re-inventing the same or similiar rocket technology just to get back to the moon again after 30 years of just talking about it. So much for Alpha Centuari. I think everyone will be happy just to make it to Mars and back in the next 50 years.

[orcot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

As certain projects would show, we could have travelled to alpha centauri/barnard star in abouth 50 years (less then a lifetime) in the years of 1978

Yust like we could reach mars with the technology of today or even yesterday (understatement).

So my initial prospect of plus 150 to 200 years could be reduced to minus 20 years or plus 30 years counting in the time to actually travel to there.
then again the math is for barnard star alpha is only 70% as far so it would have arived more like afther 36 years then the 50 for BS

Then again a stellairy flyby of a massive in space build probe that would do yust a fly by. Would have never been economical.

So political will is also going to be verry inportant (mind that no nation could have funded project daedalus)

I think everyone will be happy just to make it to Mars and back in the next 50 years.

between 2030-2050 I hope

[weed_eater_guy]

If enough money were alocated toward the effort (in otherwords, if the people and their governments gain more interest in space), I don't see why we couldn't have a nuclear-powered ion-driven probe developed in the next few decades to scream its way to alpha centauri.

But perhaps a more sensible option is to know what's out there without sending shit to meet it. Bigger telescopes. More power telescopes. Telescopes that can not only detect earth-sized planets (a capability we do not quite have yet), but detect continents and land features of such planets, see the moons of the super-giant gas planets we keep finding, and who knows, maybe find a suprisingly earth-like world humanity can dream about for the next few centuries. Better yet, maybe we'll find signs of a technologically advanced race, like a planet's night-side lights or orbital mega-structures.

But the first step is education. People need to want these kinds of projects to happen. Nations need to want to know more about the universe. Someone solve that problem and who knows what we're capable of.

[jumpercable]

If they (the super-advanced aliens) are out there and live on a planet in a nearby star system, then we can look forward to a senario similiar to the 50's sci-fi classic movie 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'. Throwing nuke powered spacecraft there way probably won't work to well for them.

[weed_eater_guy]

lol, true that, but then again if they were so advanced, they would probably not even fear nukes, for they'd have force-fields and photon torpedos and all that la-la-la. but besides, a nuke-powered probe is by no means a nuclear weapon in itself, it is a peaceful use of nuclear power.

if anything, sending a probe like that to such a civilization could be a good thing. if we detect ANYTHING like that, we may consider it an external threat, which ironically could create a better sense of unity amongst humans, and actually decrease the conflict we have. who knows?

[jumpercable]

lol, true that, but then again if they were so advanced, they would probably not even fear nukes, for they'd have force-fields and photon torpedos and all that la-la-la. but besides, a nuke-powered probe is by no means a nuclear weapon in itself, it is a peaceful use of nuclear power.

if anything, sending a probe like that to such a civilization could be a good thing. if we detect ANYTHING like that, we may consider it an external threat, which ironically could create a better sense of unity amongst humans, and actually decrease the conflict we have. who knows?

One way to find out. Jump in your nuke-powered Daedelus spaceship. Explode a few nukes behind you and head to Zeta2 Reticuli. I'm sure 'if' the super-advanced aliens are there, I'm sure they would have a 'blast' meeting you.

[orcot]

yeah especially because daedalus didn't have breaks, what happens if you crash a 4000 ton spaceship that travels at 12% of the speed of light into a planet

someone ones made this little program (http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/)
I entered it would be abouth 5 km long because you can't actualy input the mass angeluar momentum 45 speed 36000km/s

And I got something of a 4000 km crater with 2.13e+09 km3 that's vaporized and released in the atmosphere. (The 5 km may have been a bid to much)

Annyway those aliens better now how to terraform

[orcot]

But perhaps a more sensible option is to know what's out there without sending shit to meet it. Bigger telescopes. More power telescopes. Telescopes that can not only detect earth-sized planets (a capability we do not quite have yet), but detect continents and land features of such planets, see the moons

Well corot is launched and will began active duty somewhere in febuary,
The terrestial planet finder/darwin are going to be launched within the next decade who will be capable to detect earth like planets, and the farther future Exo-Earth Imager (http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1334702,00.html) is already in the making and will probebly be launched somwhere before 2050 and be able to image continent sized features.

Changes are when a ship finaly departes for a nearby star, we will knowalready know all the mayor planets, moons and their conditions

[jumpercable]

yeah especially because daedalus didn't have breaks, what happens if you crash a 4000 ton spaceship that travels at 12% of the speed of light into a planet

someone ones made this little program (http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/)
I entered it would be abouth 5 km long because you can't actualy input the mass angeluar momentum 45 speed 36000km/s

And I got something of a 4000 km crater with 2.13e+09 km3 that's vaporized and released in the atmosphere. (The 5 km may have been a bid to much)

Anyway those aliens better now how to terraform

There's nothin like a little 'Air Braking' to slow you down. (Remember the movie > '2010'?) Just inflat a couple of blimp-sized balloons on the side of your mile-long spaceship before you get ready to orbit Zeta2 Reticuli and then start braking. Could work. Of course it's possible you may have to make a few hundred orbits around Zeta2 Reticuli inorder to slow your mile-long spacecraft down enough to stick your head out the spaceship's window to say hello.

[orcot]

okay I have to ask what is so special abouth Zeta2 Reticuli?

[jumpercable]

okay I have to ask what is so special abouth Zeta2 Reticuli?

Bob Lazar seems to think that our so-called captured advanced flying saucer technology that is/or was secured in one of the hangers in Area 51 comes from the Zeta Reticuli star system.

www.boblazar.com

[eburacum45]

There's nothing like a little 'Air Braking' to slow you down. (Remember the movie > '2010'?) Just inflate a couple of blimp-sized balloons on the side of your mile-long spaceship before you get ready to orbit Zeta2 Reticuli and then start braking. Could work. Of course it's possible you may have to make a few hundred orbits around Zeta2 Reticuli in order to slow your mile-long spacecraft down enough to stick your head out the spaceship's window to say hello.

That wouldn't work very well; you would still be traveling too fast after the first attempt at air braking so you would end up in a hyperbolic orbit, which would take you out of the system altogether.
But you could try a magnetic brake; use a magnetic ramscoop, like a Bussard ramjet, to brake against the material in the target solar system. This braking system could be made arbitrarily large, so you would eventually grind to a halt.

[jumpercable]

That wouldn't work very well; you would still be traveling too fast after the first attempt at air braking so you would end up in a hyperbolic orbit, which would take you out of the system altogether.
But you could try a magnetic brake; use a magnetic ramscoop, like a Bussard ramjet, to brake against the material in the target solar system. This braking system could be made arbitrarily large, so you would eventually grind to a halt.


Forget the so-called elliptical orbit stuff. You can always reverse your mile-long Daedelus spacecraft on the way there and explode a nuke infront of you to slow you down so you can do a little 'air-braking' to get you into a circular orbit.

[orcot]

Some sort of magnetic solar sail would proberly do the trick, the craft would be much lighter because it almost has zero fuel left. Making a nuke in front of you would proberly vaporize at least a portion of your own space ship so it proberly wouldn't work to brake like this.
I wonder if they could use a cable and use the death weight of the massive empty fuel tanks to gradually rotate the empty tanks around the leftover ship and then let the the empty tank go, the empty tank should then move even fasther then 12%c and therefore the rest of the craft would go slower. That in combination with the solar sail and perhaps and perhaps some other minor tricks could slow a portion of the ship down enough to aerobrake

[eburacum45]

Some sort of magnetic solar sail would proberly do the trick, the craft would be much lighter because it almost has zero fuel left. Making a nuke in front of you would proberly vaporize at least a portion of your own space ship so it proberly wouldn't work to brake like this.

Oh it would work fine; all you need to do is turn the ship around so that the explosion happens in front of the engine bell.
As the ship has already accelerated by exploding numerous bomblets inside this bell it had been shown to be able to withstand this punishment.

Project Daedalus
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/40/Daedaluscap158.JPG

Freeman Dyson calculated that the pusher plate of his Project Orion ships would lose no more than a 16th of an inch with each detonation (IIRC)
I wonder if they could use a cable and use the death weight of the massive empty fuel tanks to gradually rotate the empty tanks around the leftover ship and then let the the empty tank go, the empty tank should then move even fasther then 12%c and therefore the rest of the craft would go slower. That in combination with the solar sail and perhaps and perhaps some other minor tricks could slow a portion of the ship down enough to aerobrake

Nice trick; using rotation and perhaps a tether to disspate momentum. I doubt if this would work for interstellar speeds, but it is certainly worth considering for interplanetary missions.

[w1z4rd]

My 2 cents and imagination.

I don't think the way to move from say Point A in Galaxy A, to Point B in Galaxy B is by going really fast.

I was reading about an experiment where they took two photon/protons (cant remember exactly which) from the same atom and fired them in opposite directions. When they effected the orbit of the one particle the other particle responded by acting in an equal and opposite response.

They explained in the experiment, that the "connection" between the two particles was instantaneous and however they were connected and communicated with each did so instantaneously no matter what the distance.

I think when we find out how they are connected we will be much closer to real interstellar travel.

[jumpercable]

If you use the Daedelus spacecraft cocept, next question is; How big should the nukes be inorder to get it to 12% the speed of light or close to it inorder to get it to the nearest star system like Alpha Centauri? I would imagine anything bigger than a small nuke blast in the single digit kiloton range should do nicely. Next big question. How many nuke blasts will be needed to get the job done? Let's not forget the return trip either. You don't want to run out of nukes on the way there.

[eburacum45]

whoa!
you don't want to have to carry fuel to came back as well, do you? That will make the mass of the ship far greater.
No; just plan for a one way trip for now- when you get there you can think about refining deuterium and He3 for the return journey. You might not want to go back.

As it is, the deuterium/He3 fuel weighs 100 times the payload in a Daedalus type ship; so figure out where you are going, how many people you want to take, and how massive the accomodation would be to support that many people for that length of time. If for instance your accomodation masses 100,000 tonnes, the fuel would mass 10 million tonnes. We can tentatively design our super-Daedalus craft now.

In the original proposal each pellet weighed a tenth of a gramme; I think we would have to scale that up a bit to allow for the bigger ship. But it would still mean the detonation of tens of billions of pellets over a period of about four years...
The ship would have a dry weight of 800,000 tonnes, all other things being equal.

[orcot]

Nice trick; using rotation and perhaps a tether to disspate momentum. I doubt if this would work for interstellar speeds, but it is certainly worth considering for interplanetary missions.

Disspate momentum! Certainley, but I was more thinking of a decrease in mass. A craft that is down to 40% of it's original mass minus the loss of momentum will be far easier to stop then a craft that weights a 100% of it's weight and is still traveling at 12%c.

I wonder how much of a detour it would be to make a close pass of proxima centauri and use that the decelerate a bit and travel the last 0.1LY a bit slower. If you then time your arrivel that you for example do a flyby of AC-b, for a sort of solar aerobrake (not in the atmosphere but with a solar sail and gravitational push). And then a other fly by of AC-a then perhaps the craft could slow down enough to reach orbit.
3 stellar gravitational brakes, reduced mass and loss of momentem and a solar sail, it all ads up. I doubt with todays technology we will be able to stop the craft but who know, the concept of daedalus is almost 30 years old. Perhaps they will make a new sort of spook mission in a other 20 years and I'm sure even without mayor propulsion breaktroughs daedalus 2 is going to do a lot better

[jumpercable]

It will be a long time before the human race decides to head for Alpha Centauri. Chances are in the next 200 years or so, if the human race doesn't kill itself off, just maybe we might have the technology to make such a trip. However, we still haven't made it to Mars or even back to the moon yet, let alone establishing any permenent scientific research bases on anything. I still believe the space Shuttle program has sucked up too much money and has accomplished what? It's just a high priced ferry to carry astronauts, sleeping bags and fast food into orbit. Something that could have been accomplished with just using cheapers rockets like the what soviets use. If we ever get to Alpha Centauri, it won't be with using space shuttle technology.

[orcot]

For some reason NASA seems unwilling to apply nuclair technology and that is rather sad, because it is part of the future of space hardware.

Sigh the problem with the space shuttle was actually that it was to big and to costly. Basicly it was a wast of money the moment someone tought hey let's make a reusable spaceship to impress the russians.

To me a permanent scientific research post on the moon looks verry uninpresive A little factory where they make their own drybrick that can be used to make underground structures, would be far more inpressive then determing the silicium isotope of that particulairy bit of dust, of that particulairy rock. And that's proberly what NASA is going for.

They should send engineers up, that had a short flight education, not testflight pilots that had a short science education.

I think the science is inferior to the costs. Science (like it is today) is never going to make a structure self sufficient it's only going to close it better of from it's enviroment. And that will give problems (meaning it will cost extras).

[jumpercable]

For some reason NASA seems unwilling to apply nuclair technology and that is rather sad, because it is part of the future of space hardware.

Sigh the problem with the space shuttle was actually that it was to big and to costly. Basicly it was a wast of money the moment someone tought hey let's make a reusable spaceship to impress the russians.

To me a permanent scientific research post on the moon looks verry uninpresive A little factory where they make their own drybrick that can be used to make underground structures, would be far more inpressive then determing the silicium isotope of that particulairy bit of dust, of that particulairy rock. And that's proberly what NASA is going for.

They should send engineers up, that had a short flight education, not testflight pilots that had a short science education.

I think the science is inferior to the costs. Science (like it is today) is never going to make a structure self sufficient it's only going to close it better of from it's enviroment. And that will give problems (meaning it will cost extras).

Yea, I agree for most part of what you say. We should have been on Mars by now and have already established a scientific base there. We had the technology to get there almost 30 years ago, but thanks to politics and a wrong direction-minded short-sighted NASA, we still are reaching for the moon. O.K. Send a robot to Alpha Centauri. It's cheaper, expendable, long lived and he can recharge it's batteries again when it's get's there.

[orcot]

However, we still haven't made it to Mars or even back to the moon yet

One of the mayor problems are the launch costs (.US$40,000/kg) It most simply costs to much to launch a kg to space. However that may change when the first space elevator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator)
is being build. Plannend on october 27, 2031 and will proberly be completed before 2050. And it should reduce the costs to some $350/kg.
Therefore a 54 000 000 kg space ship like daedalus (would only costs 18 900 000 000$:) ) without constructing costs

[jumpercable]

I've always thought that the space shuttle could be modified to some extent for a manned trip to Mars. It could have a martian lander attached to it and have enough room to carry a 4-man crew, enough food, fuel and scientific equipment for a 9 month journey to Mars and back. But I always hear that it is not feasable to modify the space shuttle for such as journey. So, tell me why not?

[orcot]

you wouldn't wreally need that much scientific payload in your orbiter only in your lander right. Besides the power systems wont proberly last for a 2 times 6 month voyage and x months on the ground (Thats a lot of adaptation).
Further there are going to be navigation problems and mass problems the shuttle weights 68 586.6 kg the service module weighted only 30 332 kg and that's a big difference

[jumpercable]

you wouldn't wreally need that much scientific payload in your orbiter only in your lander right. Besides the power systems wont proberly last for a 2 times 6 month voyage and x months on the ground (Thats a lot of adaptation).
Further there are going to be navigation problems and mass problems the shuttle weights 68 586.6 kg the service module weighted only 30 332 kg and that's a big difference

I think it's well within NASA's engineering technology to do it. In terms of navigational problems? If they can navigate the space shuttle to dock with the International Space Station, one would think that they could navigate it to an orbit around Mars too?

[orcot]

perhaps... it can be adapted to go to mars certainley not alpha centauri, but it would involve carring a lot of death weight, wings, weels, robotic arm, sides and roof arounds the cargo bay if the lander is inside, the cargo bay altogether if it's hanging outside. Besides the engines of the space shuttle use liquid hydrogen right, I believe that there is a natural boil of so you would need to take more fuel. Also the normal exterior tank isn't big enof to send the space shuttle outside earths orbit so there has to be a second rocket. Then their is the long time exposiur of radiation aren't those heat tiles pastet on, the glue will defenitley hold for a week in space but who knows what the radiation will do afther a year of exposure.

[rturner]

Ross Turner;

I'm new to these threads, bt to be quite honest i would say that the most ample way of traveling to the distant stars would be through using wormholes.
Space is made of covulents of Dark Matter, i have found a way of creating Anti-Matter so in order i can control Dark Matter bending it or even moving it.
So with this new technology, i believe we should be able to bend space at our will thus creating a an empty space, which has no time, gravity Dark Matter anything. So we would pass through it instantly. Now that i belive will be the future.

[orcot]

i have found a way of creating Anti-Matter

Okay I'm going to have to... ask for a couple of kilo's of the anti stuff to verify that...

Given the average price of electric power around $50 per megawatt hour, this puts a lower limit on the cost of antimatter at $2.5 million per gramsource wiki

i believe we should be able to bend space at our will thus creating a an empty space, which has no

Maybe according to http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006
It would certainly help if Bush wasn't that determent to trow money to revisit the most expensive golf coarse in the earth system.

Annyway it's certainley true that there may be something out there like hyperspace where space crafts could move FTL. Altough it's yust basic theory these days.

[jumpercable]

So what is it going to be? Anti-gravity propulsion or a spacewarp drive to get us to Alpha Centuari?

[Singularity]

How about Inertia Drive. Gain inertia to speed up and loose inertia to halt abruptly.

I wonder what this inertia is let alone how to modify and use it for Inter Galatic Traveling.

[jumpercable]

How about Inertia Drive. Gain inertia to speed up and loose inertia to halt abruptly.

I wonder what this inertia is let alone how to modify and use it for Inter Galatic Traveling.

What are you using to speed up the inertia with? Likewise, to slow it down?

[orcot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_propulsion_engine

It's not inpossible

[John Connellan]

I can't wait for the time when the magnitude of another star will be greater than that of the sun from the point of view of Voyager I

(although I know I won't be around to see it). I still can't wait!!!!

[orcot]

I still can't wait!!!!

yes your right you can't wait that long because your proberly going to be death by then.
Besides it proberly would take thousands of years before that happend and I see voyager somewhere in a museum back on earth long before that.

[Singularity]

What are you using to speed up the inertia with? Likewise, to slow it down?

I dont know but i do know theres something that makes a object have unique inertia with reference to the universe.