What do you think it will be like?
2007-02-28 01:39:17 · 5 answers · asked by jrdrager 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Solar sails will spread the species to the Universe..god help them..?
2007-02-28 01:59:13 · answer #1 · answered by kit walker 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you assume Einstein was correct and we can not go faster than the speed of light, then the fastest you can get some where would be slightly slower than the speed of light. Since the nearest star is approximately 4.2 light years away, it would take slightly longer than that to get there.
Let's say we sent a mission to Proximal Centaur, the closest star. Let's also assume we can accelerate and decelerate at a decent speed so that we can get there in 4.5 years. If they were to just turn around and come home, the total trip would be 9 years.
At least it would seem that long to the people back on earth. For those in the ship, it would seem like a considerably less time be cause as they approach the speed of light, time slows down. For them, the trip would seem more like a year.
Considering the amount of time spent traveling, if we were to go to stars even further out, we would have to consider the trips one way. Interplanetary trade would probably be done with robot ships.
OR, we can assume Einstein was wrong and Gene Roddenberry was right, which is a lot more fun to believe!
2007-02-28 10:44:38 · answer #2 · answered by forgivebutdonotforget911 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Space travel will be common and economical in the inner part of the Solar System via fusion engines. Outside of Saturn's orbit, only scientific outposts, explorers and some comet miners will exist.
Earth will be filled to capacity with human beings. 300 billion.
Mars will be partially terraformed and the farthest along. Atmospheric pressure and temperatures on Mars will be high enough to allow domed cities on the surface, with oxygen pumped in to keep the dome inflated. There will be several billion people living there already; Mars will be an independent (of Earth) confederacy of nations.
Terraforming will have started on Venus, with the construction of a sun shade; the shade being a ring similar to that of Saturn's formed from destroyed asteroids that we moved out of Venus grazing orbits. We will be also (gently as possible!) crashing comets onto Venus to create oceans of water and add other volatiles. There will be small scale floating research stations in the atmposhere, but no attempts to colonize the surface yet. Temperatures will be down to 200 degrees, F and most of the cloud cover will be gone.
We will be starting the process of terrforming Jupiter's moon Callisto by melting and vaporizing her water ice into an atmosphere. There will be a handful of colonists there living below ground.
2007-02-28 11:25:14 · answer #3 · answered by stargazergurl22 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No one knows... it's that simple. Who could have imagined the car 500 years ago?
2007-02-28 09:45:03 · answer #4 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
My people travel to other worlds all the time. I'm sure you humans will understand what it's like too someday.
2007-02-28 09:43:23 · answer #5 · answered by dww32720 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋