I am not a scientist but i like to ask questions
if we could travel at light speed how long would it take a manned flight to reach it taking into account mans limited resistance to g force

It seems funny that they would include Ceres in with the dwarf planets. How big is the second-largest asteroid between Mars and Jupiter? Ceres is quite-a-bit smaller than Pluto or Eris. It seems like a funny place to draw the size line. What is it, 500 miles/805 km?

LOL. I personally don't believe in time so I'm not to concerned about it being dilated.

You must really be always late, then.
Girls must love you. :p

I beleive in using a tool created by man to sync my events with the events of others.

I heard about a "beacon" being sent, but I don't think it has been implemented. Major problems being:

1) If the signal is omnidirectional, power requirements would be tremendous.
2) If a unidirectional signal is sent, how do we decide where to point the antenna?
3) Paranoia: What if we give our position away to a hostile race of Daleks or similar?

my computer's ram memery alone is 1280 meg probably power than was first used to send man to the moon

LOL. I personally don't believe in time so I'm not to concerned about it being dilated.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and risk being bashed and burned at the stake.

Am I the only one that thinks the gravitational and velocity dilation of time is a crock of bull-dreg?

Gravity may curve light, yes, but time dilation caused by gravity or speed is an illusion. ;)

At least in my opinion of course.
Come on, somebody back me up.

/Regards

You're going to have some trouble backing that up, since both effects have been directly observed.

Andy Westcott said:
What might an alien creature really look like?

Wishful thinking I suppose, but wouldn't it be good if, upon the indesputable proof of intelligent life elsewhere, warefare stopped on our planet?

Maybe proof of a larger community would have this effect by putting our petty squabbles into perspective?

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet is how we, as organisms, would cope with the acceleration required for even, say, 0.5C velocities.

We would obviously want to reach the cruising velocity in a faily short space of time, but without being reduced to soup on the rear bulkhead.....

I feel this is an even more important point than the possibility of super-light speed travel, as it has immediate implications as even our current 'fireworks' put us at pretty much the limit of human endurance, G-wise.

I've thought that for the past 50-60 years or so, we've let The Universe watch the likes of "I Love Lucy", "M.A.S.H", "Friends", etc. How would a civilization recognize them?

Clyde C. Phillips, III said:
We can't do too much about the Moon when we have all these goddamn problems on Earth such as the Vietnam War (Yes, that was in full swing in 1969), crime, the Persian Gulf War and al-Qaeda. We have to spend too much to protect ourselves against these bad things. If we do put bases on the Moon (or Mars) we'll just probably tear up those bodies, too.

Sorry labbie, I had no way of knowing. I deserve a good boot up the arse!!

No problem John. Just think Laddie with dyslexia in the mibble. ;)

It would really suck if nothing or nobody could travel faster than light, wouldn't it?

Well, that wouldn't completely shut the door on interstellar travel. Someone already mentioned that we may be able to use wormholes. Non-biological intelligence and cryonics on possibilities too.

Einstein's theory of special relativity has been one of the most challenged theories of all time. Physicists are constantly trying to prove it wrong, but Einstein always wins.