Space travel Definition and 117 Threads

Very interesting bunch of guys trying to get a man into suborbit as cheap as possible. Found their website and youtube videos links at the bottom. Thought I would share. They have interesting video's of engine tests as they try to design the first rocket to send a man into space...

I'm not sure if this is the right area of the forums. If it's not. Tell me which area would be better and I'll post this there. Time Travel- Would have to be space travel... and possibly faster than light If the time traveled and the time it takes to travel took less time to travel...

Let me ask a strange question. is it posible to atract the gravitational pull of an object in space and some how use it to accelerate your spaceship thrue space. Like reach out to Jupiter and lock in on its gravity and magnefie it for acceleration.

From what I understand, the expansion of the universe means that sub-lightspeed travel is sort of like running on a treadmill and eventually the expansion wins out and you'll never get anywhere. So, my question is, Take a point in the universe, and imagine a sphere expanding from that...

Ok, so I just watched the nova fabric of the cosmos (blew my mind). Anyways, suppose I jumped on top of a beam of light and road it as it traveled out into space. Now, suppose that as I was traveling out there, another person is coming at me in the exact opposite direction on another beam of...

Apologies if this is a really stupid question but I've never seen it satisfactorily explained although that is perhaps because it is a really stupid question! Bill stays on earth, Ted flies off into space traveling randomly at or very near the speed of light. He's back after a few days and...

Hello. Thanks for previous responses. I asked a question about developing a vehicle that 'flies' in a vacumn instead of a rocket. Apparently the issue with space travel is the required speed. Not distance traveled per se above the Earth's surface or the fact that the vehicle has to travel thru a...

My novel is coming together rather rapidly, but I've left some pretty big holes in my descriptions of the setting. It takes place on a generational ship traveling from Earth to a New hypothetically hospitable planet. Essentially I would like to know the amount of time that has passed on both...

Hiya, I'm working on a 2D turn based space combat game, and I'd like to nail the mathematics of how a ship would truly move in space. Without going too much into my control scheme, here's the problem I'd like to solve: "Given a ship at point (x_0, y_0), with initial velocity V, along with...

Hello Everyone this is my first post on the forums and I want to share my ideas on what FTL is how it would possibly work. Now first thing is that I choose this part of the forum because of what FTL would involve. Now I am 14 who greatly interested in mechanical and electrical engineering and...

I am a writer of science fiction and I need to know some basics about space travel. I've read that it would take a ship 40 years to travel 1 parsec (3.26 light years) if the ship moved at 10% the speed of light. Does that sound right? Given that a futuristic ship could travel at this speed...

Quoting from Wikipedia: "Time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to travel further into the future while aging very little, in that their great speed slows down the rate of passage of on-board time. That is, the ship's clock (and according to relativity...

Homework Statement I have a twin brother, and we're 30 years old. If i travel for three years at 2.55 X 10^8m/s (0.85c) while my brother is a rest on Earth, how much older than me will my brother be upon my return?Homework Equations t=To/√1-v^2/c^2 [b]3. Try to work out To=3 T=? V= 2.55 X...

Hello, Is it true that the event horizon will destroy anyone who was able to enter a wormhole before exiting to another location? And is it also true that if fed the correct exotic matter, a wormhole could be opened large enough to travel through? If so, could a wormhole exist in close enough...

note: I will be brief, I previously attempted to post this thread and was logged out while writing a wall of text, I do not have the energy to get it all down again. - Is near light speed space travel theoretically viable due to time dilation (traveler covering light years while potentially...

This is a followup to another thread I started, on the current status of Newton's theory of gravity as compared with Einstein's. I asked this further question there in the last reply I made, but nobody answered, so I started this thread to ask it here. Newton's theory as I said there is still...

How fast must we go to travel to another galaxy?

bacteria space travel ! If a bacteria was traveling through space at the speed of light would the cells divide at a constant or relative rate. Also would space travel effect the number of divisions..

Writing Sci-fiction Graphic Novel need advisement in "space travel" I've used VASIMR rockets as a reference and cited them as precursors to what now allows "rapid stellar travel" at say Earth to Mars in forty eight hours. Any advice on how this could be at least theoretically possible?

So when humans talk of space travel, we imagine these horribly complex and sanitized capsules or small spacecraft with people in big spacesuits. The vehicles are made of super lightweight material with extraordinarily high-tech components and if the slightest thing goes wrong, the thing could...

for quite some time, there has been the thought that once a species has evolved far enough to really travel in space, they have lost their greed, etc., such that they are not dangerous. i am not sure that i buy this. i realize that i have only the observations of one species with which to...

According to the special relativity, an object that has a mass cannot travel at the speed of light. So nothing in this universe can travel faster than the light, especially our spacecraft which has mass. Then would it be ever possible for us to visit far off heavenly bodies in a finite (less...

Intergalactic space travel and hydrogen "blasting" To travel by spaceship to Andromeda (2.5 million light years) within a life time (say 50 years) you would have to travel with a much greater Lorentz factor than LHC protons, 50000 versus 7500. The LHC supposedly can melt a metric ton of copper...

I'm still having trouble with this: Generically, work = m * d^2 / t ^2 (mass, displacement, time) If to a 1kg mass at rest in space I attach a small rocket that fires with a force of one Newton for one second, at the end of that period the mass will have traveled 0.5 meters, and the rocket...

i am amazed by the possibility that if the light reflected from Earth comes back to us after traveling in space for thousands of years we will be able to see our past. And this could happen around black holes. Has anyone found an image resembling earth?

Hello All, I'm trying to wrap my head around SR and I have a couple questions: If two space travelers (A) and (C) take off from a Planet (B) in opposite directions and each travels just over 1/2c, do they vanish from each others' view? I don't see why they wouldn't but If yes, doesn't...

Okay, I'm trying to get a grasp of how exactly wormholes function, how they form, etc. Please correct any and all flaws/mistakes in my understanding and further educate me, if you please. :) A wormhole could, theoretically, span any distance. Though the greater the distance (relative to our...

Hi there Can members please review my understanding of the problem. [b]1. The problem A star is 522 light years away from Earth. Imagine that the spacecraft was able to travel to the star at a speed pf 0.9999c a) How long does the trip take, as observed from Earth? b) How...

ok last dumb question for tonight i promise... i have read that you can theoretically warp space (on paper not in a lab). let's say we built a warp drive however... if you were traveling through warped space say on the enterprise and shined a flashlight off the front of the ship would it still...

Anyone know of a good 10-20 minute video on space travel? Anything that provides sufficient information on space crafts, progression of space travel, future space travel? Much appreciated, thanks. I need to show a video for my Space Travel seminar.

Universe ?? So in books and pics online, you see the solar system in a single plane, if you want to travel great distances you use other planets gravity to swing you out there. What if we wanted to travel in ANY OTHER direction, could it be done? I heard that its not practical to send manned...

Homework Statement Suppose rocket traveler Amelia has a clock made on Earth. She flies to and back from a planet 12 light-years away (as measured from rest with respect to Earth) from Earth at a speed of 0.6c. Every year she sends a signal to Earth. How many signals does Earth receive by...

I read that the Sun will become a red giant and destroy the Earth in about 5 billion years. If this is correct, is there any possible way that a vastly advanced alien civilization that exists in a galaxy 6 billion lights year away could ever reach the Earth and make contact with human...

[Post edited by Ivan] I've heard that the intense radiation from the Van Allen belt would make it impossible to travel to the moon or send anything to Mars etc. It's obviously possible to have satellites or the ISS (which is only I think 330 miles above us). People say that the radiation from...

Hello, I have been lately very interested in time dilation. I have found out many information about it and it's very interesting for me. But I have few problems I don't quite understand, so I will be glad for your help. Let's start: There's a man traveling in a spaceship from point A to...

A spaceship becomes lighter and easier to accelerate as it burns fuel. If it doesn't literally burn fuel, but it "magically" converts mass into to momentum with 100% efficiency, you will find that the limit of v as m approaches zero is c. You may ask, "At that limit (when v=c) where did all...

First of all, my background: I am an engineer interested in physics; so I am not very well versed with the nitty-gritty details and the math of physics. These are my thoughts and would like your comments: In some sense, time travel, being able to move back and forward in time is the...

I was watching the show Exodus Earth on the Science Channel, and they were talking about new methods of travel in space. Things like Ion Engines, Solar Sails, and Vasimir Plasma engines. I was reading a HALO book, is it mentioned how their Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Slipspace Engines worked. I was...

Space travel is possible (or not) not more than time travel is. Do you thing that you can travel back and forward in space? You may THINK that you can, but you can't. We all travel with earth, and Earth travels with sun, and sun travels... etc. The final velocity is too high to reach with...

Hello. This is my first post here, so I can only hope (having read the guidelines and physics FAQ), that my post is appropriate to go here. If not, and it is deleted, I'd much appreciate an explanation by PM and a suggestion as to where it would be appropriate to post. That said, the reason...

1. A 1000m long and 200m wide (when at rest) spaceship equipped with a chronometer is sent on a roundtrip to their Galactic Base, 8 light years away. (a) Astronauts start the trip after celebrating their captains 29th birthday and they want to make a round trip and return to Earth on the eve...

Space ship Alpha travels at t = 0 and v = 4/5 c to the star Sirius which is 8.6 light years away. One year later spaceship Delta starts at v = 9/10 c to the same star. Question 1: When does Delta overtake Alpha, as measured from Alpha's, Delta's and Earth's perspective? Question 2: At which...

All right, so here it is! Archer Enterprise states that they have a theoretical device (in process of proof of concept) that can reach speeds near that of light. Looking at the description of the theory of the device, it looks like this could work, at least in electrically propelling space...

Homework Statement A spacecraft with its astronaut has a total mass at rest of 10^5 kg. The astronaut is to travel to a star 10 light years away at a speed such that she only ages 1 year in her frame of reference a) the quantity 1-v/c where v is her speed with respect to Earth is? b)...

Hi this is my 2nd post so pls be kind guys. Let me know of any other cool cosmology forums out there as they seem hard to find with google. So to my idea! Instead of waiting for some hyper-drive to be invented (I read of pushing spaceships with lasers?) how about we use our own star, the...

Alright, i have a final and i have to explain just three parts to einstein's theory of relativity... they are space travel (time slowing nearing the speed of light), increase of mass with speed, and length contraction... the space travel makes no sense, and the mass one, i have mixed feelings...

Wouldn't high speed travel in space be near impossible even if we could get to around the speed of light. Specs of space dust would most likely obliterate the spacecraft . A fleck of paint almost ruined one satalite and it was going about 22,000mph.

i have a question for your minds to wonder about. i don't know the answer but i would love to hear your opinions or facts if you have any. now i am probably the hugest trekkie a person can be. i love star trek, it is one of the things that got me into science. anyways, what makes Star Trek...

Homework Statement Oh well I'll post here ... There is no mathematics here. It's history based. This question may appear in one of my Physics exams. I just need to verify if my exam response is accurate, as I omitted irrelevant information such as how von Braun forged papers to escape...

Many short story ideas I have involve space travel. I'm looking at the Lorentz transform formula and scratching my head. Is there a relatively straightforward way to use the time dilation formulae and calculate subjective travel times for space travel? Presume a spaceship accelerates at...