Travelling to the stars.

Just watched a docu about space travel and it got me thinking…not always a good thing LOL

If we could build a ship that could achieve 99.999% the speed of light it would take it eight earth years to reach Alpha Centauri.
For those on the ship time would slow down and their travel time would be just 44 days.

I’m not a mathmagician so I may be wrong on rest of this, but I assume if we went at half the speed of light the travel time would be 88 days for those on the ship, and 16 years would go by on earth?

At one eighth the speed of light travel time on ship would be 352 days, and earth time would be 64 years.

So, at one eighth the speed of light a round trip would be about 2 years for those on board the ship, and 128 years would have gone by on earth.

Realizing that time slows down for those travelling at great speed the idea of space travel seems a little more reasonable.

So…
How difficult would it be to reach one eighth the speed of light?
What is the maximum speed that can be obtained by slingshotting of the planets or the sun? or maybe the entire solar system?

The Hadron collider accelerates particles to almost light speed. Could we build one in space but make it straight rather than circular, and use it to send a ship to far away places?

Originally posted by VoidHawk


The Hadron collider accelerates particles to almost light speed. Could we build one in space but make it straight rather than circular, and use it to send a ship to far away places?

In space the:
vacuum
cold temperature exist simulated in the LHC
next needed is the Energy out devices used to aim or direct craft. Large Multi devices generating charged magnetized field. Field looks like laser beam/field

Place Gold craft in field simulating gold proton bundle. So maybe scale proton gold bundles to craft hypothesized size to make math for laser input energy and field size simulating the 17 mile LHC ellipse but beam/ray straight. Drift AI based craft prototype in field, activate large laser array in beam or rings, rings harder perhaps now so beams. track it until no longer traceable. Keeping in mind any objects in line of drive interacting like stranglets large stranglets so that part mapping matters. So test would be needed to accomplish distance data and energy input in order to achieve amount of proper energy input and distance. Cool Idea OP


NAMASTE*******

Outta Box ...To avoid strangelet interference neutrino drives anti matter drives and so interacting with NO matter during travel so then you just move thru all object in way not affecting them as well as them not interfering with your travels..

reply to post by VoidHawk



Love the Thread!! I think the amount time slows down goes in multiples as it get closer, not sure tho. I saw on through the worm hole thr idea of a black hole powered engine... apparently we could make it now by building a couple hundred mile solar array. Then focusing the radiation on a single point and vwwa la! A black hole just the right size!!

reply to post by VoidHawk


It'd be awesome to build a ship like that but you'd need some really, really long range projections otherwise you're hitting an asteroid at thousands of mph......

Interesting thought. I think the math for this light speed vs time would be the same as how we observe light. If you stand directly in front of a light bulb it is very bright. Move back two feet and it loose four time its intensity. Move back four feet the light is sixteen times less intense. I think time would be to the square root of the speed.
So if you are traveling half the speed of light the time difference would not be half but a quarter.
Just a thought.

reply to post by d8track


So you're thinking Light speed but just different kind of Light speed?

Wish I new more about this and could provide useful information. I don't believe that is completely accurate as far as how much time slows down related to reduction in speeds, but again I'm not knowledgeable enough to say for sure.

Nice thought though, I would love to see us try to explore other solar systems as soon as possible. Definitely want to keep an eye on this thread, might learn something from it.

Originally posted by EA006
reply to post by d8track

 

So you're thinking Light speed but just different kind of Light speed?

Not the speed of light but its intensity vs distance. The faster you get the time difference would increase exponentially.

Originally posted by d8track

Originally posted by EA006
reply to post by d8track

 

So you're thinking Light speed but just different kind of Light speed?

Not the speed of light but its intensity vs distance. The faster you get the time difference would increase exponentially.

I was suspecting that was the case. But would still like to know what the time difference would be at half light speed.

Anyone know the answer?

Originally posted by d8track

DP

reply to post by VoidHawk


Here's a Relativity Calculator for you to play with: www.1728.org...

Time dilation changes exponentially, meaning there's very little change at 1/8th of light speed, but it increases dramatically as you get closer to c.

At 1/8th of c (0.125 if c=1) your time will slow down by the factor of 1.0079052613579391 which is very insignificant. To get time to slow down by the factor of 2, you'd need to be travelling at about 0.866 of c.

At half c, time dilation will be 1.1547005383792517.

Originally posted by wildespace
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

Here's a Relativity Calculator for you to play with: www.1728.org...

Time dilation changes exponentially, meaning there's very little change at 1/8th of light speed, but it increases dramatically as you get closer to c.

At 1/8th of c (0.125 if c=1) your time will slow down by the factor of 1.0079052613579391 which is very insignificant. To get time to slow down by the factor of 2, you'd need to be travelling at about 0.866 of c.

At half c, time dilation will be 1.1547005383792517.

edit on 19-7-2013 by wildespace because: (no reason given)

Thanks for that
I had an idea that might be the case. Another plan down the drain

reply to post by VoidHawk


By the way -- a little correction:

Going at 99.999% the speed of light, it would take 8 years (actually 8.7 years) to go to Alpha Centauri and back. Alpha Centauri is 4.35 LY away, so going 99.999% the speed of light should get you there in about 4.35 years.

Of course, this assuming a mostly constant velocity -- although in reality there would need to be time to accelerate and decelerate (unless you want the astronauts crushed by the g-forces), which may be why you said "8 years".

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Yea but how long would it take the astronauts relative to the earth. That was the thought. So it might take 8 years for him to get back to us, but that might only take a week to him.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

By the way -- a little correction:

Going at 99.999% the speed of light, it would take 8 years (actually 8.7 years) to go to Alpha Centauri and back. Alpha Centauri is 4.35 LY away, so going 99.999% the speed of light should get you there in about 4.35 years.

Correct, that is the figure given in the doc that I watched, I just used 8 because it didn't seem important to be exact.

Of course, this assuming a mostly constant velocity -- although in reality there would need to be time to accelerate and decelerate (unless you want the astronauts crushed by the g-forces)

Yes I was aware of start and stop times, but again, didnt seem important because my real purpose for the post was in the hope someone knowledgeable in such matters might have been able to answer my questions.
1. What is the max speed we could achieve by sling shotting of the sun or maybe even the entire solar system!
2. Using the hadron collider technology (scaled up and straightened) to launch a ship.

I asked those questions in my mistaken belief that at one eighth light speed the occupants of the ship would experience a two year journey but wildspace up^^ above corrected me on that.
Would still like to know the answers though

Originally posted by VoidHawk
How difficult would it be to reach one eighth the speed of light?

Really, really difficult.

It is probably impossible to build a spaceship that will travel at any appreciable fraction of the speed of light. The amount of reaction mass needed to accelerate and decelerate it would be prohibitive. And then there's the danger of collision – at such speeds even the impact of a strat proton could do a substantial of damage to the ship. There would probably also be heating from blue-shifted microwave and other radiation to burn the ship up.

Sadly, I have begun to incline to the opinion that interstellar travel is simply impossible.

Originally posted by artemisminion
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

Yea but how long would it take the astronauts relative to the earth. That was the thought. So it might take 8 years for him to get back to us, but that might only take a week to him.

If you could get up to 50% of light speed, then a day to you on the ship would be 1.15 to those observing back on Earth.

Time dilation doesn't really come in handy until you are going at least 90% the SOL. Even then, time is only stretched by a factor of 2 (meaning for every day spent on board the ship, 2.29 days will pass back on earth).

Originally posted by Astyanax
...
Sadly, I have begun to incline to the opinion that interstellar travel is simply impossible.

Not if you can afford to take a long time to get to your destination. We already have spacecraft exiting the solar system. It isn't inconceivable that something that could remain dormant for a long period of time could survive the journey between stars.