Faster than the Speed of Light.

Agree even with fusion, rocket propulsion would not reach even 20 percent ligh speed, that is fast compared to today's chemical rockets however. Antimatter propulsion would the fastest propulsion method that one day could techonologically be feasible, unless someone comes up with a way of using wormholes,more appropriately womholes that could actually be crossed, knows as traversable worholes, and that would be only if exotic matter with negative anergy density could be used to stabilize them. So wormholes as means of interstaler travel will stay in the theoretical physics realm still. That means then that antimatter propulsion will be the fastest way humans will ever do one day, and the feat of using antimatter as a means of propulsion, will be one of the greatest techonological discoveries.

I agree. . . . to a point.

Using "worm holes" or perhaps the possible use of a "fold space" method to travel, would almost eliminate what we humans term as time.

Therefore, it would SEEM a traveler had exceeded the speed of light from point of origin to final destination, but in actuality had not.

Instead, the traveler had exceeded a sort of "speed of time" or broken the "time barrier".

What are your and other's opinions about this? All are welcomed. ;-)
____________
Wishing you continued science "fun" and at least, always valid results,
Laters,
Rick "WHOSIT" W.
Participating in: Einstein/MilkyWay/Rosetta/SETI

The issue I think with traversable wormholes, how would matter, meaning, the spaceship and its humans traverlers, how would that matter behave in a wormhole environment? Matter might behave the same way it does in a wormhole like it does in the event horizon of a blackhole, that is bad news for any interstaler traveler. Would humans come out of wormhole in one piece or would spagettization occur to them? Hopeffully in next hundred years, fusion will become viable, and down the line, antimatter propulsion becomes reality. Solar sails as a mean of propulsion is limited, once the spaceship is by the ninth planet, pluto, then solar sails become useless. yes, Pluto allways will be the nineth planet. Perhaps using a hybrid aproach of solar sails with fusion propultion, thus saving fusion enery, once the spaceship leaves the solar system, then the fusion propulsion is activated. Has NASA and other space agencies though of installing powerful radio beacons in probes, maybe those beacons could be captured by alien radio receivers.

Might be possible that wormholes can be pruduced at the LHC, but to apply such celestial phenomena for interstaller travel, is beyond today's techonology and budgets.

Would humans come out of wormhole in one piece or would spagettization occur to them?

Ideas are born out of speculative ideas. Have any interesting candidate signals been picked up the Paul Allen Array so far? If any ETI radio signals are picked up, that array will probably detect them, the Paul Allen Array is more powerful than Arecibo.

The SETI Institute is running a program called SetiQuest. See www.setiquest.org. I have been unable to understand if they have obtained any result with this program, which processes the Allen Telescope Array data.
Tullio
____________

interesting

Just to complete the information, I have downloaded from SetiQuest a binary called OpenSonATA 1.0 on my Linux box with SuSE 11.1 and it works up to a certain point. Then they now post a SonATA source code but you must have SuSE 11.3 to compile it. Since I am planning to upgrade to 11.4 I did not try to compile it. But how many people use Linux and how many of them use SuSE Linux 11.3? Most users run Windows and many run Mac OS X.
Tullio
____________

I agree with you, but how many people know how to compile a program? I have read on the openSuSE news that there is a Canterbury project which includes open SuSE, Debian, Gentoo, Grml and Arch Linux. Once there was a Standard Linux project and now I am running Scientific Linux in a VirtualMachine called BOINC_VM developed by CERN in a project called LHC++@home, which is still an alpha project. But there you don't have to compile anything, only to install a VirtualBox on your PC, which can run Linux, Windows or Mac OSX, the rest is automatic once you attach to the project after getting permission. I wondered once why the SETI Institute is not using the BOINC platform and was insulted as a "nonnetto" (silly old man) for asking that question. I may be old, but I am an alpha tester for a CERN project.
Tullio
____________

I have often thought about this topic myself. but before I mention my idea I want to address the issue of mass increasing as you approach the speed of light. if that is the case then wouldn't gravitational attaction increase as well? and if so has anyone detected any high speed blackholes cruising about the universe? maybe this is something the guys and gals at einstein@home should look for? although not all lifeforms exist at once. any advanced species that has been around for millenia may have a solution to mass.

Anyway my idea was just using the vacuum of space itself to propel of suck you in the direction you want to go. I don't know if open space is a perfect vacuum? my understanding is the reason you can't maneuver is because the effects of the vacuum on all sides or points of your vehicle. if there was someway we could cancel out the effects of a vacuum on the rear of the vessel it might pull you in the direction you want to go. until you reach a speed where particles in space start inpacting the front of the vehicle and create a boundary flow. which will result in the choking of the vacuum.

Just a thought...

As far as pressure is concerned. the vacuum in outer space is given as 10^-12 Torr which is probably much better than we could produce easily in the laboratory. There is a small average of one or two molecules per cubic meter.

One of the first queations I posted here some years ago was, why is the speed of light what it is? Why is it Approx 186,000 miles per second?. Why not 150,000 or 200,000?. The answer came back that it HAD to be at that speed, else the universe wouldn't exist in the form that it does today.

Any got an update on that?

The Problem here is that whatever you do, if you speed up your system( that's you and your spaceship) is getting more Energy. Near the Speed of Light this Energy will have Mass itselve, so you are more heavy than you where before.
This means, you put in the same Energy, but only get for example the half speed more (I actually don't know if it is really the half, but in the end it has the same effect). So it is like adding in this way: 1 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.125 + ...
You can calculate this row a infinite time, but you never reach 2, but you get really near.
____________

I'm new here :D and loving these threads. These are my thoughts on this topic- some of which have been echoed by others.

Let's say that the speed of light(c) 'can't' be broken. Perhaps, as mentioned, breaking the speed of light isn't relevant. At some point in the future we may learn how to skillfully manipulate time and space(and therefore distance). Percentages(or multiples) of c may only end up being a limited part of the puzzle.

There is no generally accepted proof that c is breakable, so far indicating that Einstein's theory may be correct. What about his theories about the curving of space-time? Could we somehow harness this knowledge in the future? We already know we can manipulate the passage of time by approaching c, what if we were also able to manipulate the curvature of space? We might have to circumvent c through various means.

In terms of interstellar travel- we know that the speed of light is relatively slow.. As said, it would also be hard for us to handle going that fast, the debris, slowing down, etc (let alone going even faster) and we still wouldn't get very far, very fast (unless we moved multiples of c)...Hopefully we're near enough to some extrasolar planets for possible colonization because I assume that's where we'd start. Its good that there might be ways other than sheer speed in which to traverse great distances. We'll need all the help we can get.