What are some options for future space travel?

Question

I noticed on another question I asked earlier people suggested Ion drives, Solar sails and Space elevators. In the question I was asking about Nuclear rockets. What are some other ideas about future ways to get into and travel thru space.

Answer 1

A simple list of (currently possible) future propulsion...

Nuclear (Thermal, Pulsed, etc.)
Electric (Ion, resistojet, arcjet, pulsed-plasma, magnetohydrodynamic, etc.)
Advanced Chemical (Always advances being made here)
Solar sail (Though unlikely, not a very useful form)

Anti-matter... however, this is only very theoretical and by very, I mean it'll be hundreds of years before we even get close to anti-matter propulsion technologies... maybe thousands. We simply cannot make enough, we can't contain it, we can't direct the energy in any sufficient way... (An anti-matter/matter collision is a 100% conversion from matter to energy... as we know rocketry today we must throw mass out the back of the rocket to make it go forward... 100% matter/energy conversion would have no matter left, thus we'd have to find a way to utilize the energy to propel the rocket.)

There are a few others, including many in the areas I have already mentioned. But light-speed or even close to that will not be attainable for a very, very, very long time.

Answer 2

I think the Biefeld - Brown effect may lead us to the next "Warp" drive.

The basic principal is that a highly charged capacitor will move towards it's positive pole - even in a total vacuum. Some believe that space/time is being warped by this high voltage charge. Or a gravity field (warped space and a gravity field may be one and the same) is being created and the capacitor is "falling" towards the greater density of space and time (if time exists). Gravity in this theory would only be created if the density of space was changing over distance. You would fall towards the denser region.

This could easily get turned into a space drive of some sort. I'm surprised that, to my knowledge, no one has tried it for space travel.

Answer 3

you will would desire to do slightly learn and get awareness of what's needed, what type it relatively is going to take etc. a rapid concept would advise 2 substantial aspects are propulsion and command centre. a brilliant participant in the former would be Lockeed Martin and undecided pertaining to to the 2nd. for sure NASA performs/performed a brilliant area: is this moveing to own company? yet another section would be pilots- i comprehend Serco employed the 1st woman astronaut, possibly there's a training college and professional employment employer for area team?! you will desire to speculate in something which will make money from the commencing up. i think making an investment in 'area shuttle/exploration' in maximum cases will purely consume up money and not in any respect teach a return. As they say the super money spinner in the Gold rush became into people who bought options and shovels!

Answer 4

Ultimate, we're going to have to figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light, because otherwise, no matter what we do, it will still take centuries just to explore our immediate stellar neighborhood, let alone our galaxy or the universe. We're going to have to create wormholes or shoot cosmic strings into each other or something.
By the way, I have every confidence that faster-than-light travel is not only possible but inevitable. Just think how every other perceived "absolute limit" has been broken. Two thousand years ago nobody believe that the ocean was traversable. Two hundred years ago, people thought that a heavier-than-air flying machine defied the laws of physics. Eighty years ago, people thought that aircraft could never break the sound barrier without being crumpled to pieces. Humankind has a way of figuring out how to do the impossible. Faster-than-light travel is just another one of those milestones.

Answer 5

I really think the answer is in finding a way of powering a super collider and using a matter/ anti matter drive system.
Speed is the key in space travel.
So its either that or we had better break into a new line of physics to negate the laws that we all hold fundamentally correct.

Answer 6

We have the technology to go to Mars, it's just a matter of developing it. (And that technology IS indeed nuclear.)
It is much easier for us to go to Mars (about ten years ago when I heard this statement) than it was to go to the moon during 1969.
The other optins you have mentioned very much sum it up as the options there could be.
But for you, I have heard of a different type of theorized propultion for travelling closer to the speed of light. It involves something like light with waves made narrower to increase the speed.

Answer 7

Astral travel if it is ever proved to be real or not, if the mind left the body and entered the astral plane he could bypass normal space and time to go almost anywhere instantaneously, but most people don't think it is real and i tend to agree with them.

Answer 8

Jump gates that let you instantly pass from one point to another--like matter-energy transporters but over great distances.

Answer 9

Quantum physics. It's the latest trend in physics.

Answer 10

Space minds will blow the world up before we reach that floor level.