Space Travel Question...

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smokey

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I just thought of something while reading the Atlantis/Hubble thread. Seeing as we see stars (or at least the light they emit) of millions of years ago - it's going to be pretty hectic if we do discover a "warp" engine. Imagine trying to navigate a universe where the only info you have (lets call it a star map for simplicities sake) is millions, if not hundreds of millions, of years old. Kind of puts a dampener on the whole thing dunnit?

Though I'm sure the bofs at NASA already took this into account, it still is a mind-numbing concept don't you guys think?
 
They says it much better than I can:

"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread." Blaise Pascal

"Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole." William S. Burroughs

"The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine." George Santayana

"Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go -- and he'll do plenty well when he gets there." Wernher Von Braun 1912-1977, German Rocket Pioneer

"In sci-fi convention, life-forms that hadn't developed space travel were mere prehistory -- horse-shoe crabs of the cosmic scene -- and something of the humiliation of being stuck on a provincial planet in a galactic backwater has stayed with me ever since." Barbara Ehrenreich
 
How big a problem is it?
Point A (us in warp drive spaceship) with a straight line to Point B (A star), taking into account stellar drift of both us and the star, along with gravitational effects cause by other objects, such as stars, dust clouds, dark matter, along the beam of light from the star to us, over the period of time we are observing the star.
Pretty easy to calculate, when you consider that this has to be done constantly for every visible object in the flight path of the space, over the duration of the trip.
 
Balstrome said:
How big a problem is it?
Point A (us in warp drive spaceship) with a straight line to Point B (A star), taking into account stellar drift of both us and the star, along with gravitational effects cause by other objects, such as stars, dust clouds, dark matter, along the beam of light from the star to us, over the period of time we are observing the star.
Pretty easy to calculate, when you consider that this has to be done constantly for every visible object in the flight path of the space, over the duration of the trip.
Click to expand...

How about old info, millions of years old. Maybe the stars are larger/smaller now. Different gravitational fields, have gone nova/supernova...

Look, I have no idea about any of this - which is why I put it out there to get some answers. Thanks!
 
Well, all the photons (light) flying through space will have an affect on the ship in much the same way that wind has an effect on a fast-ish moving biker.

But, theoretically, a camera stuck to the nose of the ship will still be able to "see", even though 1/2 of what the camera will see is the photons that the ship is overtaking that are going in the same direction as the ship.

It will be like looking in a mirror and in front at the same time.

They had better have a wonderful breaking system installed.
 
If we do find a way around all the planets, stars and debris, we should turn our telescopes back to earth and see what was happening in the past. Imagine seeing the 2000 year old light from earth, and looking at jerusalem to see if jesus is there, or 5000 year old light while looking at the giza pyramids while they are being built.
 
hyperian said:
If we do find a way around all the planets, stars and debris, we should turn our telescopes back to earth and see what was happening in the past. Imagine seeing the 2000 year old light from earth, and looking at jerusalem to see if jesus is there, or 5000 year old light while looking at the giza pyramids while they are being built.
Click to expand...

OK Dude... that is like the coolest idea EVER.
 
Breaking system is easy, just turn over at halfway point and start to decelerate. You will come to a dead stop at the terminus, if you had constant acceleration from the start.
 
Awesome hyperian.

To see what was happening on earth 2000 years ago, you have to travel 2000 light years away. I wonder if the remaining photons will have enough resolution so that you can see what was going on.

And, I bet that it was overcast when all the cool stuff happened.
 
davemc said:
Awesome hyperian.

To see what was happening on earth 2000 years ago, you have to travel 2000 light years away. I wonder if the remaining photons will have enough resolution so that you can see what was going on.

And, I bet that it was overcast when all the cool stuff happened.
Click to expand...

You would only have to travel 613.1903 parsec's (1.892106e+016 Km) and look backwards. Of course you would have to travel this instantaneously for it to be worth anything.
 
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davemc said:
Awesome hyperian.

To see what was happening on earth 2000 years ago, you have to travel 2000 light years away. I wonder if the remaining photons will have enough resolution so that you can see what was going on.

And, I bet that it was overcast when all the cool stuff happened.
Click to expand...
Logically, you would have to travel faster than light for that to be possible.
 
The real problem would be accelerating your complete ship past the speed of light at the same time. In other words the bow of your ship would have to break the speed of light at the exact same time as the stern of your ship, together with every other part of the ship.
One could not use the engines/warp drive to push the ship past the speed of light barrier, like it was possible to do with the sound barrier.
 
hyperian said:
If we do find a way around all the planets, stars and debris, we should turn our telescopes back to earth and see what was happening in the past. Imagine seeing the 2000 year old light from earth, and looking at jerusalem to see if jesus is there, or 5000 year old light while looking at the giza pyramids while they are being built.
Click to expand...

While that might sound like a good idea, it won't really be possible unless by the time you have the warp drive the telescope technologies have advanced 100000 more than today's telescopes. At the distance where you can see the light from a 2000 year old earth you won't be able to see the earth as a object let alone resolve any details on the surface.
 
OK, hows about this, we go 2k light years away, turn around, rush back at 1/4 light speed, with Telescope focused out the front scoping up light coming from earth. It could reduce the collection time by a quarter, and of course reduces the technology costs by the same.
 
And another thing ... the universe is expanding the whole time and we don't know at what speed it is expanding.

So if we travel we might end up lust standing still in relation to our farmost destinations.
 
Wait wait wait... if the universe is expanding at close to the speed of light and "warp" speed is a multiple of light speed... then... you wouldn't really be standing in relation to the universe.
 
smokey said:
Wait wait wait... if the universe is expanding at close to the speed of light and "warp" speed is a multiple of light speed... then... you wouldn't really be standing in relation to the universe.
Click to expand...

The universe at the beginning exploded with incredible force. Some physists say that the expasion rate has decreased. But with how much?
 
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