Current Events > Do you think interstellar travel will ever become a possibility for humans?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Its been in the realm of science fiction for so long, but at the rate at which humans are going, it seems like its just a pipe dream. Also, we never know if humankind is going to destroy itself before such technology comes to fruition.

ATfire567 posted...

Also, we never know if humankind is going to destroy itself before such technology comes to fruition.

That seems much more likely than the interstellar traveling future.

I'm not sure it's possible within the timeframe humanity has to work with even assuming society doesn't destroy itself within the next few decades

like the most likely we'll get is *maybe* freeze people and *maybe* wake them up on the other end, but it'd be a one-way trip and even then we don't currently have the capability to make a ship large enough to do anything meaningful on the other end.

Even taking the interstellar distances out of the picture, say we wanted to establish operations on mars or something, *we can't get people or supplies there in enough capacity fast enough to matter*

and any advancement in that kind of tech is decades away at best because it's categorically not profitable right now

Were definitely going to destroy ourselves via climate change and/or nuclear war long before we develop interstellar travel.

And even if by some miracle we did, we would most likely only send probes or robots. With faster than light travel being physically impossible, any humans we send would have to spend years or even decades on a ship just for a one-way trip.

Maybe it could be possible, but it would take a huge jump in technology / human innovation for it to happen. I don't think I'll see that happen in the next 60-80 years if I'm being honest

We're way too curious as a species not to. It would take extinction to stop it, and we're getting pretty close to extinction-proof. Yes, there are several major crises looming. But even a 99% loss can be recovered from.

I won't guess whether it will be 100 years or 100 generations, but there will be people curious enough to try it the moment a new technology is available.

we could build generation ships now, does that count?

We can't even come together as a species well enough to figure out how to make sure everyone has access to food and shelter. We're never traveling to other planets.

Only if we can make wormholes a reality, or if we can upload a consciousness to a server, only to later download it back into living tissue millennia later.

its very likely not even possible to go faster than light

Maybe if something like wormholes exist or can be created. I don't think we'll even get to the point where flying cars are a regular thing. We're still using rockets to get into space that don't look much different than they did over 60 years ago. I think we're at a plateau of what physics allows us to do.

MarshMellow posted...

Maybe if something like wormholes exist or can be created. I don't think we'll even get to the point where flying cars are a regular thing. We're still using rockets to get into space that don't look much different than they did over 60 years ago. I think we're at a plateau of what physics allows us to do.

Yeah, I think that, to reach the next stage of humanity, a scientific breakthrough in the physical and mathematical sciences has to occur, just like how harnessing electricity pushed humankind to the next level.

Something like creating wormholes, faster-than-light travel, antimatter fuel, going into the Planck scale to access interdimensional energy etc. Which all seems like science fiction at our current level of understanding of science

All of the science things are moot, humanity seems incapable of putting the collective above personal gains

Unless we figure out a way to cheat the speed of light, which we simply will not do, no.

I'm convinced we'll try it at some point, at least. How successful we'll be...

Cartoon_Quoter posted...

We're way too curious as a species not to. It would take extinction to stop it, and we're getting pretty close to extinction-proof. Yes, there are several major crises looming. But even a 99% loss can be recovered from.

I won't guess whether it will be 100 years or 100 generations, but there will be people curious enough to try it the moment a new technology is available.

Extinction proof? We would have to be multi planet. There isnt really a candidates in our solar system.

Mars would take major terraforming. You still have to fix its core. Its way beyond us to be honest. Venus you can rule out by the same token. Its the same size as earth but its core, crust/tectonics doesnt work the same. Not to mention the atmosphere. Jupiter moons can be ruled out by radiation. Saturn just Titan it has a atmosphere but its not breathable and its cold. Same with its ice planets.. that leaves uranus nothing there. Everything else is too cold. You could mine stuff and build stations. Anything on that level is costly and hurdreds of years away. So yea we got a good chance of going extinct. Things will survive by anything less than dinosaur impact.

Now interstellar travel is impossible. You would need something lile transwarp from star trek or wormhole tech. Thats fiction.

Yes, but not in our lifetimes, and perhaps not even in our current iteration of civilization.

Maybe for slower than light probes, but I doubt humanity itself ever leaves the solar system.

monkmith posted...

we could build generation ships now, does that count?

I think that might be what we end up doing

Eventually? Yes.

In our lifetimes? No.

Sure. Go back 30,000 years & show them a smartphone & airplanes.

Maybe. And I think it will have something to do with black holes and dark matter/energy.

Blue_Popo posted...

All of the science things are moot, humanity seems incapable of putting the collective above personal gains

This, right here.

2001mark posted...

Sure. Go back 30,000 years & show them a smartphone & airplanes.

Smartphones and airplanes weren't hindered by physics. Going faster than light is impossible with the understanding of physics we have now.

Metal_Gear_Raxis posted...

Smartphones and airplanes weren't hindered by physics. Going faster than light is impossible with the understanding of physics we have now.

seriously people respond to this with "oh people said man would never fly"

this ignores the fact humanity has understood the principles of flight for 100s if not 1000s of years

we just did not have a way to do them

the light speed barrier is a fundamental obstetrical that may very well be impossible to overcome

It depends how far AI advances. If they can get it to make scientific discoveries then we may see massive leaps in tech at a much faster rate

solosnake posted...

It depends how far AI advances. If they can get it to make scientific discoveries then we may see massive leaps in tech at a much faster rate

Ah yes, hallucinating programs are exactly where I want to go for scientific discoveries.

I'm going with no.

Reasoning being, assuming FTL impossible as far as we know, such an endeavour would require a project of millennial proportions.

Prospective system scouted by probes : insert time frame of centuries here.

Some form of colonial transport constructed, whether generation ship, crogenic sleeper, gene bank, blah, blah, blah whatever, also centuries.

This time frame is longer than our civilisations usually manage (quite outside the many many technical challenges), in an age where the political news cycle changes on the hour.

Just can't see it.

Metal_Gear_Raxis posted...

Ah yes, hallucinating programs are exactly where I want to go for scientific discoveries.

These programs that can't solve logic problems for 12 year olds?

Shhh... they're the future! (We're so screwed.)

AI can't even properly count to five but yeah I'm sure it's the key to interstellar travel.

to be more fair than I should, when people are talking about "use AI for scientific discoveries", they are *not* talking about the GPT engagement nonsense they're trying to stuff down everyone's throats.

but I don't think we'll see much reported on that in the US ever because that makes our techbros look bad.

No.

It's either actually impossible (no FTL travel), or practically impossible (no civilization could last long enough or access enough resources to achieve it).

It's another of those, "Will we even make it to that point" type of questions.

Limelol posted...

It's another of those, "Will we even make it to that point" type of questions.

i'd argue its more "what is even the point".

unless we discover magic or we're so wrong about physics that the whole field we've developed over the last several centuries gets thrown out there's really no chance of breaking the light speed barrier. so anything outside of our own system is going to be limited to fractions of the speed of light travel.

we could theoretically do that now. there's been suggestions of interstellar probes that are small enough we could launch to significant percentages of the speed of light. and something fun like project orion could push full sized spacecraft to maybe 10% of the speed of light. but there's no real chance of any of that happening because the price would be stupid high with no real benefit.

No, we are literally killing ourselves with climate change.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a65653811/scientists-say-physical-warp-drive-is-now-possible/

Last I checked the major limit is that we need a lot more energy than we can make right now.

Depends. Can the struggling billionaires, who are already struggling to trickle down to us peasants, make a bunch of money off of it, or escape to a paradise?

No. Interstellar travel in itself might well be possible, but I'm pretty sure that humanity is going to stupid itself into extinction long before it gets close to cracking it.

We're in the middle of societal & demographic collapse, the climate is screwed, the oceans are toxic, we're still going to run out of oil fairly soon, and AI is bound to make things worse. Humanity is fucked.

If we live long enough, sure.

garan posted...

We're in the middle of societal & demographic collapse, the climate is screwed, the oceans are toxic, we're still going to run out of oil fairly soon, and AI is bound to make things worse. Humanity is fucked.

probably. but hey, keep in mind that you have absolutely no control over any of that and that the shot callers that do couldn't give a wet fart about your opinion, so just ignore it and keep shit posting on the internet yeah?

The technology is feasible, but the energy requirements are not even remotely.

Never mind the impracticality. Reaching the nearest star is a nine year round trip if you're being obtuse and practically speaking would take several times that.

No lmao

Not without generation ships and doing it the hard way. Maybe some cold sleep is involved

I don't think so.

We'd almost definitely need a spaceship of some kind, we're kinda delicate.

maybe aliens will bring us the technology

DrizztLink posted...

We'd almost definitely need a spaceship of some kind

I assumed that was a given.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

I assumed that was a given.

If we're given the spaceship, I'm not sure that counts.

That's just a couple humans, not humanity.

Seeing how regressive most Humans can be, not without the help of either an Alien race, or enough progressive Humans willing to bloody their hands in the name of progress.

nocturnal_traveler posted...

Seeing how regressive most Humans can be, not without the help of either an Alien race, or enough progressive Humans willing to bloody their hands in the name of progress.

Even if aliens came and tried to help us, there would be enough stupid humans that would try to shoot them or something. Kinda like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLuP_90sabY