ps418

Travelling in a straight line from here to pluto, I wonder what the odds are of striking an object with a radius of, say, 2cm or larger? I wonder how the risk of impact structural damage increases with speed and travel time?

To answer the original question, I think the answer is no. I also doubt that humans will successfully land on and return from any planet further away than mars.

Plus, I don't see any reason (yet) to go even if we could. There's not likely to be any nearby planets suitable for us, or resources that could be sucessfully exploited.

Plus, it will always be a hard sell to get governments to spend the Big Bucks needed to do the needed R&D, with so many other priorities, and private industry will not invest unless there is some good hope of returns on their investments.

So, that;s my pessimistic take on it. It'd be cool if it happens, though. For my money, though, I say build bigger and better telescopes. Even if we can't be there, we can see there.


Patrick

Arbogast

Dont look now, with ridiculously primitive technology we have already sent machines on a path to leave the solar system.

People will follow...

SULPHUR

Some factors have been ignored such as the the slingshot effect.It is not amatter of moving from point a to b in a straight line.I believe with a greater understanding of "space" interstellar flight could be possible.Not for any great reason but for the sheer hell of it
NOTE RODDY

dublczek

I'm all for space travel. Outside the the solar system? Maybe someday. If no one can think of a good reason why we should, send me into space and I'll invent some reasons for you. I read somewhere that Jupiter's moons should number in the hundred soon. I'd like to go check them out. Work out the science and I volunteer to go.

Oxymoron

Not for a long while. Sending rockets is no problem: it's just an equation involving fuel and mass and velocity. Sending soft, resource-intensive, radiation-sensitive, waste creating, emotional animals into an unbelievably hostile environment for stupid amounts of time with no easy way of returning is another problem altogether. The problems are as much physiological and psychological as they are are technological, and I suspect that we just aren't built for it.

Bit of a bummer, really.

Arbogast

I speculate sending out embryos or eggs and sperm in a spacecraft for a milennia or two, then raising them with robots when the ship nears its destination, will not be a very difficult feat for a future generation to achieve.

There really would be no need to send adult humans on the mission to colonize another solar system.

This assumes there is uninhabited room in the local stellar neighborhood for people to colonize.

SULPHUR

Why do people volunteer for space programs? Maybe it is equivalent to sailing of the edge of the earth.

Oxymoron

Because the furthest we've been is the moon and getting back has always been an option. When returning - or even arriving - within one's own lifetime isn't viable, people will view it differently.

Do not underestimate how tough being away from home is for even the hardiest individuals. In close proximity to other human beings for protracted periods of time, people go a bit nuts. Submarine crews can attest to this! Add a brutally hostile environment: cold, dark, filled with radiation that can cause incurable disease and the increasingly long contact times with home and, well, I don't see it, not unless a large number of very well established things are overturned...

...which I fully expect might happen, and which I would gladly celebrate. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see interstellar travel. My rational head says "no chance" though.

Oxymoron

That's not such a dumb plan. So long as we can get robots there safely! Radiation will eventually cook their gooses, too.

SULPHUR

Many boats from many countries set sail never to return. The people on those boats were the same as you or I.