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.
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.
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?
The issue is that space is only empty to a certain point. And the faster you go, the more energy is released in collisions. At some point, if you go fast enough (which you want to do to reach beyond the solar system in acceptable times), a speck of dust can genuinely be a threat to the ship's integrity if it hits.
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.
Even if we figure out how to make an Einstein-Rosen bridge, the only thing that could possibly make it through is a massless particle since the only way to cross it is by going light-speed anyways. The bridge gets infinitely small in the middle in the incredibly short amount of time before it gets pinched off.
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?
No. I'm saying that the distances involved and our inability to move fast enough, plus the hugely increased risks of death even if we could move fast enough (think: a dust particle hitting a spacecraft at near-FTL, relativistic speeds), makes space travel by conventional means infeasible.
We had nothing about flight except for a Greek story for a thousand years. No, we don't understand faster than light travel, yet. Also, while we're not quite ready to swap to being silicon based, becoming silicon won't change the basics of what we are.
Sure, we have on idea how to do it now. 100 years ago we hadn't figured out ow to make rocks think, yet here I am typing a message and arguing with a random human I'll never meet. A thousand years, and we'll be able to traverse great distances far faster than we can now - as long as we don't kill ourselves in the process.
We've had basic conceptual, feasible ideas about how to fly since basically forever. There's nothing standing in the way of that besides a technical understanding of how lift can be created and the ability to create something to propel us. It's an inherently uncomplicated idea.
Traveling to another solar system on a timescale that would make it worthwhile is...not that. Even if we entirely solved the problem of accelerating to near light speed and then decelerating again, so that we could reach Proxima Centauri in about 6 years or so, hitting even a single dust particle along the way, at that kind of relativistic speed means that everyone's dead. So that won't work. And if we want to actually explore space for real, Proxima Centauri isn't gonna cut it, so we're actually talking tens, hundreds, even thousands of light years and since the speed of light appears to be a universal maximum, that isn't happening at any feasible level. The distances are just way too vast.
So at that point it becomes a hand-waving discussion of "well, let's do FTL travel then" and we don't even have any conceptual way to start down that road. It's an entirely pie-in-the-sky topic. Assuming we will definitely be able to find a solution to that simply given enough time is almost painfully naive. And just as past stock market gains do not predict future gains, the fact that "100 years ago we hadn't figured out ow to make rocks think" is entirely irrelevant to potential future technological progress.
I mean, just look at where we thought we'd be by now in the early 70s compared to where we are. That rapid decline in those expectations, the reality of the fact that we're barely even baby steps farther along from Apollo in that progress in more than half a century, and the understanding that we needed intense, near-apocalyptic, nation vs. nation competition to even get as far as the moon in the first place, presents a pretty clear indication that sending humans to other star systems is a pipe dream.
But hey, dreams are nice, I guess. So at least there's that.
No it isn't, and you're mistaking your optimism and fascination with space for reality.
1000 years ago, the energy requirements to accelerate anything to light speed is infinite. You cannot get around this. And 1000 years ago, anything with Mass cant go as fast as light speed, and anything faster than light speed breaks causality entirely, and is also impossible. Something the size of an atomic particle can be accelerated close to light, because it has tiny, tiny mass; but if you wanted to accelerate something the size of a rocket to only 10% of light speed, and if you could burn every single atom of every possible atom as fuel for that rocket, there aren't enough atoms in the entire universe to provide enough fuel to accelerate that rocket. The energy requirements are just too large to move anything practical.
200 years ago, the energy requirements to accelerate anything to light speed is infinite. You cannot get around this...
100 years ago, the energy requirements to accelerate anything to light speed is infinite. You cannot get around this...
50 years ago, the energy requirements to accelerate anything to light speed is infinite. You cannot get around this...
Now, after 50 years, the energy requirements to accelerate anything to light speed is infinite. You cannot get around this... But you've also apparently dreamt up an alternative reality where we have the technology now to build a base on the Moon; we don't. The lander to even get astronauts down to the surface and back isn't even completed yet, and that's technology from 50 years ago. And where is the technology to land habitable modules, develop food or at least just water on the surface, cope with repairs in an environment with erosion-less jagged rock particles everywhere...? We are decades, if not centuries from even getting that technology; you just imagine we already have it because you want to dream. But dreams won't keep human beings alive on dead worlds that take a week of space flight even with on our closest neighbour.
And in another 1000 years... the energy requirements to accelerate anything to light speed will still be infinite. You cannot get around this. We're not going to be navigating the Milky Way, and I seriously doubt you understand just how large the Milky Way alone is if you think we are going to be able too.
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.
The sound barrier was never an absolute limit but an engineering problem. It was known for a long time that there are things that move faster than sound. We just didn't know how to build them.
According to our current physical knowledge, the speed of light is absolute. Unless we come up with totally new physics, there is no way to go faster. And so far relativity has passed every test.
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u/physicssmurf 10h ago
https://www.cordobacorp.com/move-of-the-space-shuttle-endeavour/ Explains a lot of how they did it but the tldr is meticulous planning over 2 years by a number of engineering groups and etc.