Without "Light Speed" are we all going to die?

Question

On the news that earth may be destroyed on 5 billion years time it got me thinking...

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11852-galactic-merger-to-evict-sun-and-earth.html

Many scientists believe traveling at light speed is impossible regardless of technological advances.

This makes me wounder how are we going to populate other inhabitable solar systems many light years away?

Stasis i.e. freezing then toughing years later is my only suggestion.

Any other ideas how we will populate planets thousands of light years away without being able to travel at light speed?

Peter A

I agree, were all dead relatively soon. Just takes the development of arms on one "nut job" to finish this one. One child law in China inmplented around the world coupled with the creation of sustainable fusion would solve our population and resource problems.

The question of moving solar system could apply to 200 years from now with global warming for example, I'm interested to see if there are any suggestions of travel without light speed.

Answer 1

Well, if we never develop FTL drives then I still think the human race will explore the galaxy. It will just be done at a much slower rate.

I'm hoping that O'Neill habitats will be built... and used as potential generation ships... however, as the inhabitants of the habitats travel they should become better adapted to their lifestyle and lose the desire to live planet-bound.. some would select to live on planets, of course, but the majority of the travelers would expand upon the space habitat theme and create cities or perhaps entire countries traveling through the cosmos :) As they approach planetary systems they'd use them as resources (asteroids and comets would provide easily accessible metals and volatiles, etc) ... they could build more habitats and expand their habitable areas...

As they develop, divisions would occur... splitting the travelers into groups... the groups would go their separate ways... spreading humanity even further. So, in the long run... humanity would eventually spread across the galaxy :)

Here's a link to some NASA space habitat designs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitats#NASA_designs

The O'Neill habitat (also called the O'Neill cylinder) seems to be the best design (IMO)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder

Author Greg Benford has a few books that utilize this theme... in case anyone's interested ;)

Answer 2

That is the real problem. While it isn't totally impossible to travel to the stars at slower speeds, doing so would be totally different from what we have all come to expect by watching Star Trek or Star Wars. Basically, we would have to build a giant nuclear powered space colony that could support many generations of people in outer space, with gravity, air, water, and a whole ecosystem on board, and then send the whole thing off to another star. Then, hundreds or thousands of years later, their descendents could reach another solar system and colonize it. We could send them messages by radio while they were on the way, and they could reply, but since radio waves only travel at the speed of light, we could not carry on a real time conversation. It would be more like exchanging E-mail messages, but with years between sending a message and getting a reply. And we could keep in touch with the colonies the same way. But there could be no trade of exchange of ambassadors or whatever between star systems. This could be done with a technology that we don't yet have but is at least possible to envision. But having a Star Trek like situation, where you travel to Vulcan at warp speed like we now travel to Europe would require some kind of breakthrough (warp drive) that we just can't even say is theoretically possible right now.

Kind of depressing to me actually. I rather like Star Trek. But it just doesn't seem to be a possible future reality. At least not with what we know now. The Star Trek universe is kind of like a rehash of the 1950s when even serious scientists though there were plants on Mars and the possibility of oceans on Venus. In those days all the science fiction was about interplanetary travel to cities we have built on Venus and Mars. Now we know that is all clearly impossible, with Venus being 900 degrees and Mars air so thin that is would be considered a pretty good rough vacuum on Earth, although some people still cling to the idea of colonizing Mars. I just don't see it though. Mars is just too hostile, people couldn't make a living there. So we imagine warp drive and the ability to travel to other stars where we hope there are truly inhabitable planets to have the same fantasy of space travel between inhabited planets all over again.

Answer 3

There is a much better explanation of how we would populate planets, it's true that matter can never travel at the speed of light. We could eventually make a matter anti-matter rocket to reach speeds close to the speed of light. If a crew where to travel to the closest star and come back they would tell us it only took them 3 months!! but everyone on earth would swear that it took them 12 years that's because time passes slower at the speed of light....well only relative to the people on earth. Time is not absolute, meaning time does not pass the same everywhere in the universe or even here on earth. if you where to live on top of a mountain and your twin brother at see level if you where to meet again the would then be older then you, of course the difference is very small here on earth.

Answer 4

The only way I can see it happening is to build a colony that can survive for generations in deep space before arriving at its destination.

We're obviously a long, long way from being able to do that. But heck, look how far we've come in the last couple hundred years. We've got plenty of time to keep progressing before the sun explodes. The more pressing problem is not spoiling the earth ourselves.

Answer 5

Multi-generational starships.

Huge starships that travel at sub-light speeds, filled with people who will be born, grow up, have kids, grow old, and die without ever seeing a planet.

The great, great, great, grandchildren of the original travelers are the ones who will reach the destination.

Answer 6

5 billion years. WOW, you do realize that humans have been around for less than half a million years (maybe more like 200,000 years). We'll be lucky to last another 10,000 years. Eventually we'll go extinct due to lack of resources due to over population (such as food, water, air, etc.)
We need to worry about living for the next 10,000 years, not the next 5 billion.

Answer 7

We will develop ways to travel in other dimensions which are outside of time and distance.

Answer 8

We are all going to die anyway.