We won't ever be able to go very far into space for a few reasons. Space, or rather the galaxies, are expanding away from eachother at about 1,300,000 mph. So even if we could somehow do the speed of light, you'd never catch up to most of the observable universe. We'll likely never leave the Milky Wayn
Galactic space-travel is within the galaxy. That’s already possible over long time scales. Intergalactic travel between galaxies is unlikely for those reasons.
It is problematic even within the Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000 light-years. We're in the middle-ish of one of the arms. It's not likely we ever leave the arm we're in.
Why would that be unlikely? Ignoring human problems like self-destruction. Given enough fuel, couldn't a spaceship easily pick up enough speed for significant time dilation, then GTFO of the galaxy?
No, it really isn't. Humans do not do well in low gravity for extended periods of time. We do not have a remotely practical way to artificially generate gravity.
Spinning the ship would require a gigantic diameter, which would require massive weight, which means moving it through space requires too much fuel (which requires even more fuel to move the fuel).
And we haven't even started touching on the problems we've run into trying to create sealed biosystems.
These may be addressable in the future, but we very much can not move people in generation ships now.
100 years ago, it was impossible to visit the Moon.
50 years ago, visiting Mars was something only a robot could do, and it wouldn't last long.
Now, after 50 years, we're going back to the Moon, this time to establish a base.
If humans can survive the next 1000 years without going through another dark age, we'll be able to leave the Solar System. In another 1000, we'll be able to navigate our spiral arm, maybe even the Milky Way Galaxy. It's just a matter of time, innovation and progress.
The light barrier is mathematically impossible and even if you could achieve it, nothing with mass can go the speed of light and even if it could, the speed on light is too slow. You'd need to exceed the speed of light by an order of magnitude to get anywhere in a timely manner.
If humans can survive the next 1000 years without going through another dark age, we'll be able to leave the Solar System.
The only way we'll be able to legit leave the solar system is if we somehow discover a technological solution to the distance problem. Literal FTL travel is physically impossible for us; even close to FTL travel is just totally infeasible. If we discover a way to warp space-time to get around FTL travel and traverse vast distances without actually physically moving that fast (think: wormholes) then that would make it possible. But right now that's just an idea on paper. Otherwise, it's just never going to happen no matter how long our species manages to to keep existing. At least not unless and until we get out of these flesh sacks and turn ourselves into silicon-based life. But then if we did that, we wouldn't be human anymore, so what would be the point?
I mean, that's assuming we never make any groundbreaking discoveries. Stuff that sounded impossible a single generation ago is daily life now. All it would take is finding out teleportation, folding space, etc. is a real possibility to completely change that.
Not saying it's a reasonable assumption, but it is still a non-zero chance at this point.
We won't ever be able to go very far into space for a few reasons.
You fail to mention any of those reasons, nor do you specify "very far" (imho we've already gone "very far" like 50 years ago)
Space, or rather the galaxies, are expanding away from eachother at about 1,300,000 mph.
False. The rate of expansion depends on the distance between two points
So even if we could somehow do the speed of light, you'd never catch up to most of the observable universe.
The speed of light is much higher than 1.3 Mmph, and there's also the benefit of time dilation. Sure we'll never "catch up to most of the observable universe", but that was never mentioned as a goal, and it's definitely a far stretch from "go very far into space".
We'll likely never leave the Milky Wayn
Given enough fuel, leaving the Milky Wayn will be trivial
With our current understanding of Physics no but we’re actually progressing absurdly fast in terms of technological advancement, we went from the Wright Brothers first flight to landing on the moon in less than 60 years, From no electricity to absolutely insanely powerful A.I. in less than 200. who knows what we may accomplish in the next 100 years
Speed of light is a pretty hard limit so far. There is really nothing on the horizon to get around that. I am sure we will continue to improve our tech within the current limits. But for interstellar travel we need something totally new.
23
u/Reasonable_Archer_99 5h ago
We won't ever be able to go very far into space for a few reasons. Space, or rather the galaxies, are expanding away from eachother at about 1,300,000 mph. So even if we could somehow do the speed of light, you'd never catch up to most of the observable universe. We'll likely never leave the Milky Wayn