If a spaceship is travelling through space approaching light speed or even greater - how to keep from hitting?

Question

If a spaceship is travelling through space approaching light speed or even greater - how to keep from hitting a wandering asteroid, meteor, comet or other object?

I like the worm-hole idea. But, is there such a thing? I have also seen scifi suggestion that we could somehow pass through a portal and by dimensional crossover, pass through so many light years of travel in moments. How possible is that? I don't know.

As far as stuff bouncing off the outside of the ship with some kind of force field - where will those objects go if they bounce off the outside of the ship? What if that object hits someone?

A force field outside of a ship would have to send all objects to some place proven to be safe through a dimensional field or something.

How is it possible to create a course suppusedly going around all known objects in space? What if you missed something? What if there happens to be something floating around in deep space and your run into it?

Establishing better space stations might be a better idea. Get a space station into deep space away from asteroid belts.

Keep working on the moon if you must, but we have to

Keep working on the moon if you must, but we have to be on our guard against disrupting the moon's normal relationship with the earth planet. There is scifi story where the moon is partially destroyed due to too much mining and etc.

Otherwise, keep working on the mind ships that the mystic yogis are believed to have created in bygone eras. Get to other planets through mind travel.

But, still, the best thing is to figure out how to be happy forever. Read Bhagavad Gita.

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http://gitamrta.org/
http://www.vedabase.net/

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Answer 1

I guess you could leave the headlights on so that you could see whatever is in front and avoid it. Like I mean steer clear of it, you know?

OK, seriously now. There would be no need to travel at light speed. (Not a wise idea anyway as you have already suspected.) If you want to get to another part of the galaxy (or universe) in a jiffy, it's much easier and time-saving to go thru a wormhole.

Sigh... why do we get so many of this kind of question here? Why do so many people want to travel at the speed of light? Don't they realize it's still gonna take up lots and lots of time to get to their destination? The nearest star is still a few light years away, meaning it'll still take 4.3 years to reach Alpha Centauri at light speed. To get outside the Milky Way galaxy would take, what, thousands of years? There's really no point in it. By the time you reach your destination, things would have changed so much. Or your destination may no longer be there. So save time (and energy), and use a wormhole instead. You'll travel thousands of light years in minutes (or even seconds) and still be back on time for dinner (provided you don't stay and hang out for long over there).

Answer 2

You can't hit a button and "jump" to light speed, like in the movies. Because
1. We don't have the power to do it.
2. The instant acceleration would kill you - millions of G's.

The acceleration would be gradual, by the time you got to light speed you would be 10 billion miles from the sun.
Way beyond the asteroid belt, even past the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.

Interstellar space has less debris in it other wise we wouldn't even be able to see stars from the clutter.

So, in interstellar space you would be relatively safe from colliding with anything.

Another point is this, no matter how fast you are going, if
you turned on a flashlight the light from the flash light would leave it at the speed of light.
In other words, radar would still work at detecting objects,
and you could do some turning to avoid them.

As for friction going through an area with gas, you could use
ablative tiles for shielding like the space shuttle uses on re-entry.

I believe faster than light speed is pure science fiction.

Answer 3

You cannot avoid hitting objects at that speed. Light's speed is an extreme level speed. None of our technological developments could help us in preventing hitting objects like asteroids etc if our space ship travels at light speed. Even half or one third of light's speed cannot prevent that happening.

In fact that is a major reason why we cannot travel between stars and galaxies. To do so we need to travel 50 to 100 times faster than light.

At that speed before reaching our destination our space ship will have been destroyed without doubt.

Answer 4

You pointed out a huge problem with FTL (faster than light) travel. At FTL speeds a small cloud of hydrogen could destroy the space ship.

Arthur C. Clarke had one idea for shielding; ice. His space ship traveled near the speed of life and it used a huge block of ice as a shield against collision.

Star Trek addressed that problem with the Deflector Shield. The Deflector Shield was designed to push such objects out of the way or detect them in time so the ship can dodge them.

Answer 5

I've often pondered this same question. My conclusion is..Most large asteroids and major comets have fixed orbits depending on what planet or sun they are close to. The smaller ones would pose no threat just like birds or hail hitting our current airliners or space shuttles. I think the navigator of the spaceship will file a flight plan or tell the computer to avoid these objects when they approach them.

Answer 6

You aren't likely to hit something big. But the kinetic energy of a collision with a tiny grain of gravel - or even dust - could be explosive and devastating. You can't avoid those; you can't even see them. Some science fiction speculates about using extremely strong electromagnetic fields to deflect objects.

But your biggest problem is not going to be collisions (at least on the scale of visible matter). It will be friction as you travel through interstellar gas. There isn't much of it, but the faster you go, the more you'll encounter and the harder you'll hit it.

Answer 7

We need a new law on Physics.

If this law gets passed, all your problems would be solved.

That law would say: if a mass gets past the speed of light, then all material laws are no more applicable, since no matter can put a break on it. It turns into energy, and the laws of energy become applicable. And the energy policeman can put the ticket for speeding.

Aref

Answer 8

You may even pass strait through them .A solid object like a spacecraft travelling at such speed could change its molecular structure and somehow pass through another solid body without touching it. Of course i am only guessing .But you never know .Most of what we know about the universe is theory.

Answer 9

You could probably detect and travel around anything that big The problem would be things too small to detect and avoid. At that speed hitting even a hydrogen atom would be a problem.

Answer 10

The ship has real time sonar similar to a bat of course inertia limiter for sudden change in speed,worm holes are every where thru out the universe traveling thru intermittent would alter your time space continuity,reduced to relativity therefore you are there,some where else in the universe!!!