When will we reach the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, another star and another galaxy...

AcidHell2 said:
I assume the mapping ones will be in low earth orbit so will have exactly the same problem. it's also a urban myth that space satellites can read newspaper headings. The most powerful de-classified ones can resolve down to a couple of meters squared. So a car is about the size of one pixel.
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NeilFawcett said:
Quick google = blobs...

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/apollo15_touchdown_photos_010427.html
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I see what you mean Acid from these pictures I could be looking at anything. But dont worry Neilfawcett i'm not saying your wrong I just wish we could see the landing zones to end the on going tin hat group talking about all the silly reason we didnt go. I mean I think we went but the age old story of I cant be 100% sure on anything :p hovis or warburtons
 
trouble is they are so silly we shouldn't need to. But there's always people who are bored of live and these things bring them some sort of peace.
 
Duggan said:
I see what you mean Acid from these pictures I could be looking at anything. But dont worry Neilfawcett i'm not saying your wrong I just wish we could see the landing zones to end the on going tin hat group talking about all the silly reason we didnt go. I mean I think we went but the age old story of I cant be 100% sure on anything :p hovis or warburtons
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Hey! The Flat Earth Society still exists, so some people won't accept anything!
 
- A human lands on the Moon again 10 years
- A human lands on Mars 50 years
- A human reaches Jupiter 70 years
- A probe or human reaches another star 100 years
- A probe or human reaches another galaxy 25,000 years

Considering that the nearest star is 4.25 light years away you'd have to be travelling close to the speed of light to get there, otherwise you'd need years of food supplies on the ship. Once you get to the speed of light food isn't a problem because of special relativity, this would allow a person to travel to the nearest galaxy in a few seconds relative to them, but would be 25,000 years to someone on earth.
 
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Energize said:
Once you get to the speed of light food isn't a problem because of special relativity, this would allow a person to travel to the nearest galaxy in a few seconds relative to them, but would be 25,000 years to someone on earth.
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No. The time dilation experienced by travelling close to the speed of light does not alter the time taken for the person to travel with respect to themselves, but will make them slightly younger than they *should* be when they return to earth.
 
- A human lands on the Moon again 25 years
- A human lands on Mars 40 years
- A human reaches Jupiter 50 years
- A probe or human reaches another star 250 years
- A probe or human reaches another galaxy never
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Jupiter shouldn't be too much harder than Mars, just more time and more speed needed. It's about 5x the distance depending on their orbits, with a speed boost there wouldn't be much more effort requiried.

If there's something worth visiting around one of the local stars, it might be possible to get a proble there, I reckon up to 10% light speed might be achievable with some ultra efficient propulsion, so a ~50 year travel time.

Another galaxy is pretty much out of the question, Andromeda is 2 million lights years away, and I'm not particularly hopeful for FTL travel!
 
Duggan said:
I see what you mean Acid from these pictures I could be looking at anything. But dont worry Neilfawcett i'm not saying your wrong I just wish we could see the landing zones to end the on going tin hat group talking about all the silly reason we didnt go. I mean I think we went but the age old story of I cant be 100% sure on anything :p hovis or warburtons
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If they would take photographs as evidence then all that should be needed would be to show them the actual photos taken on the moon! If/when we do have a satellite that can resolve the lunar landers they'll still claim it's all fake/photoshopped.
 
Souness said:
No. The time dilation experienced by travelling close to the speed of light does not alter the time taken for the person to travel with respect to themselves, but will make them slightly younger than they *should* be when they return to earth.
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Umm, that's what he said.
At 99% the speed of light it would take you just over 7 years to reach a start 7 light years away from the point of view of someone on Earth, but you would perceive it having only taken one year.

If you could go fast enough a 25,000 light year journey would seem like taking a few seconds from the point of view of the person on board, yet the full 25,000 years would pass on Earth.
 
Hmm lots of speculation in this thread. We seem to have one of these pseudo science threads every so often..

Proper time passed is measured along particle's wordlines (geodesics) so the speed increases, there is length (lorentz) contraction along the direction of travel so it won't actually take long to get far. In fact, its possible to get anywhere in the universe in our lifetime as long as you can travel fast enough.

Mind you doing the above will mean you will travel into the future as well (relatively speaking to observers on earth).

I think in terms of going to different stars, theres not enough fuel to get there and back really.

sid
 
Souness said:
No. The time dilation experienced by travelling close to the speed of light does not alter the time taken for the person to travel with respect to themselves
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Photons don't experience any time in space. It's been proven in particle accelerators, at a higher velocity particles decay more slowly because they experience less time.
 
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I don't mean to be a party pooper, but isn't Jupiter a gas planet? So it would be grossly impractical to go there - interesting nonetheless.

- A human lands on the Moon again 50 years
- A human lands on Mars 60 years
- A human reaches Jupiter never
- A probe or human reaches another star never
- A probe or human reaches another galaxy never
 
Goldy said:
I don't mean to be a party pooper, but isn't Jupiter a gas planet? So it would be grossly impractical to go there - interesting nonetheless.

- A human lands on the Moon again 50 years
- A human lands on Mars 60 years
- A human reaches Jupiter never
- A probe or human reaches another star never
- A probe or human reaches another galaxy never
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Don't mean to be a grammar nazi, but "REACH Jupiter"... There's no problem reaching it, as long as you don't get too close or try to land on it...
 
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AcidHell2 said:
As already said in the thread.

Nasa has committed to going to the moon by no later than 2020 using it as a test bed for a manned mission to mars.
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Fair point of course. But what NASA says and what NASA does do not always materialise. I stand by my initial guess of 50 years on the basis that the first mission fails catastrophically and there is an American civil war in the mean time, the technology developed during the civil war makes the next moon mission a walk in the park.

Its only a theory :p
 
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AcidHell2 said:
You have taht little faith? the nearest star is not that far for a probe.
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Theres not much to be gained by sending a probe to a star, You want to explore extra solar planets.

All stars are pretty much the same bar the size, specifics like magnetic field can be useful to know for the sun but not really worth it for a far away star.

It will also take a very long time to get there as well.
 
The effects of special relativity are certainly worth a mention- time does indeed pass slower for you as you approach the speed of light. You've got to be really shifting for it to have an appreciable effect though- for perceived time duration to half, you'd have to be doing over 80% the speed of light.
 
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