Could we ever travel the speed of light?

Question

If we want to exlpore space properly we need to travel the speed of light or faster? Will this ever be possible? Is it anything to do with working out nuclear fusion ?

Answer 1

According to Steven Hawkings, it is not possible at this time or any time in the forseeable future because of the fact that you can't go faster than the speed of light. However, as the past indicates, there is always a chance that anything is possible given the right conditions. Always remember,as Arthur C. Clarke once stated, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Answer 2

Just can't be done, or at least not with current technology. The Air Force is toying with an idea that might make a "warp drive" possible,

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

However, from a practical standpoint the energy required would be enormous and the magnetic field flux would probably kill the occupants.

There are also ideas that use wormholes to link two places in space-time. There might even be a way to make one:

http://www.discover.com/issues/dec-04/features/survive-end-of-universe/?page=3

Scroll down to 6a. The technology looks sort of like a fusion reactor on steroids, where a score of lasers focus energy on a single point until space time does something funky. The wormhole could lead to anywhere, even out of the universe entirely. The only disadvantage is that the only way to make lasers that powerful is a nuclear x-ray laser, which can only fire once. Also, the wormhole is only open for a tiny fraction of a second and it would be impractical to try to make a large wormhole this way.

Answer 3

Its physically impossable to travel faster than the speed of light, and if we could get close there is no materials strong enough to withstand the stresses at those speeds. Not to mention travelling at those speeds (sub light like 0.9c) would take thousands of years to get to the nearest solar system, plus thousands of years to relay info back and fourth. But warping space-time is possible. That may work, and if we could work out fusion the possibilities for this planet would be endless!

Answer 4

Hard to say.
All I know, physicists are working on it.
The biggest problem will be, how to over come what it would do to the human body at this speed.
Watched a program on the Discovery Channel
about reversed engineering of alien space crafts, and what it would take to fly one.
Sorry, I do not remember the title of the show.

Answer 5

i hear that we are working with microsingularities at this point and these micro things bend space and time so we can travel by warping, but speed of light, i dont know i heard if we were able to move at the speed of light by the time we got back to earth time will have significantly changed even if were were gone for like 1 day.

Answer 6

NASA actually had a small in-house program looking into this, called the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program. Running from 1996 to 2002, it has since had its funding diverted to the Vision for Space Exploration, but if somebody finds the money, NASA can restart the program.

Answer 7

According to Einstien, no, you can't reach the speed of light. But you don't have to. If you develop an engine that runs for long periods of time, you can get close enough to the speed of light to travel to other galaxies in a lifetime.

Answer 8

no longer something with mass can bypass the linked fee of light and besides the fact that if we could the human beings going the linked fee of light could purely be vacationing for some years on an identical time as all and sundry who replaced into alive at that element is long long gone.

Answer 9

it is improbable if they did travel the speed of light they need to know how to put the thing that traveled molecules back together.

Answer 10

I think we will not actually "travel" so fast, we will probably warp space or something like that. Even if we get to .9c, it will take us years to get anywhere useful and all our family will be dead.