Spaceships...
BlindFire
Join Date: 2003-03-28 Member: 14986Members
Join Date: 2003-03-28 Member: 14986Members
In the NS universe, whats the spaceships top speed? Kinda wondering, as it seems like they have colonized a lot of planets. Now the closest star to our sun is Alpha Centauri (Or so I heard, dont know which of three stars though) which is about 4.6 lightyears away, meaning that if you had a space ship travelling as fast as light , it would still take 4.6 years to cover that distance, so really, how fast can a spacehip go?
Comments
Marine phase technology however requires that there is a "reciever" at the destination point to reform the matter (from nanosludge?), so there might be some limitations as to where ships can travel at light speed. Some large ships might not need a reciever, otherwise it would be difficult to get to Alpha-Centauri in the first place. But if everybody could just pop to lightspeed anytime they wanted, the Kharaa would have infested Earth long time ago, so smaller crafts probably have to travel by impulse speed to the nearest phase station. These would also serve as customs and quarantine as necessary.
Slightly off topic: A cool thing is that alpha centauri a is likely to be able to have life, becouse that star is nearly exactly like our sun, save a little bit larger. It is unknown if that sun has planets at all though.
So how about: Kharaa = Centauri <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
Alpha Proxima is the closest to us. Hence... Proxima...
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The red dwarf?
Alpha centauri is similar to sun, but it's binary system with beta centauri, so seasons can be pretty mad on planets there :-)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But by the end of the day the Station was abandoned, and Russia's half-finished gate had torn itself to pieces (marking the end of their trans-system program).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which I would take to imply that space travel is doen via stargates. Seeing as Phase gates can be assumed to function on a similar, if not identical, procedure, I would assume space travel is instantaneous <i>between gates.</i>
Of course, there is always the question of how they got gates to various locations in the first place <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Proxima Centauri B is the nearest of the 4 stars. It is a red star.
that's too bad
So, how can you say it's bollocks? I mean, really? Maybe our current paradigm of science doesn't allow for such things as fictional worlds like NS hypothesise about.
Lighten up, it's FICTION.
Dunno what uni he's at but <a href='http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0129_030129_teleport.html' target='_blank'>quantum teleportation</a> which isn't too far from teleporting solid matter is already possible.
To teleport stuff is one thing.. but to get them to the otherside without being a pile of mater is another thing <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
To teleport stuff is one thing.. but to get them to the otherside without being a pile of mater is another thing <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Teleportation of PHOTONS. Photons != molecules.
H = proton plus electron plus their relation
H = proton plus electron plus their relation
O = eight protons, eight neutrons plus eight electrons, plus their relations.
thats 3!*3!*(8^3)! = 512!*36 which is a number too big to comprehend, lets say about the size relation of a spoon versus the planet jupiter in weight.
so now lets not even think about the complexity differential of teleporting a spoon versus a water molecule, and from an inanimate object to a human, and from that to a spaceship.
teleporting a spaceship is a wee bit out there in fiction land.
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on the topic of alpha centauri, i really doubt a ternary star system would be hospitable for life, youd have one planet flinging around three stars, sometimes getting too close to one or the other to cause decade long days or nights or summers. its just not a happy place.
For travelling to other systems, it would be reasonable that unmanned probes setup a small Phase gate, a few robots were sent through that built a larger phase gate before humans came through to assess the system (or a probe was sent to the system via the small phase, before determing suitability).
Judging from Subspace Array on good old nancy, it's my guess that a faster then light communication system can be used.
Now, someone else above said somthing as the individual gates being the doors, with the obs being the go between. I should think that something similar would exist on the interstellar scale, hence unmanned starbases. Presumably a gate network would exist with several backups in case of failure. Depending on the voraciousness of the corporations and governments in NS time, I'd say that we could be looking at 40 to fifty years of development at the very slowest pace. Even so, this is presuming that unmanned ships travelled at half the speed of light to get to the systems in the first place to emplace the initial phase networks (dropping a buoy along the way as the go between with several backups at varying distances).
This would denote dedicated ship building, bitter rivalry and covert operations to sabotage competitors progress, all of which exist in the NS universe.
I assume they have large phase gates <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Some of the latest theories in space travel believe that a great enough gravitational field (immense ammount of energy/electromagnetic radiation) shot infront of a craft can condense space infront of a craft, and some sort of reverse polarization of that field can expand the space-time continuom behind a craft. That way it can travel below the speed of light in relation to the space around it, but can in fact travel several times faster in relation to the entire universe if it is condensed and expanded fast enough in conjunction with the appropriate engines.
If Einstein's relativity theory, as far as the part about not being able to accelerate to light speed is true, then this is the only (believed) way to travel faster than light.
Wormholes and such might prove to be possible to travel through, but that would be a two way trip, from one point in the universe, to another.
To much star trek <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
1.) It is IMPOSSIBLE to travel faster than the speed of light. Period. This formula is cliché, but because...
E=mc^2 where e = energy, m = mass, and c = the speed of light.
As matter approaches the speed of light, its mass increases because of the effect that energy of motion has on an object's mass. This effect is not noticeable however until you travel about 90% of the speed of light, where the mass will more than double. because of the rate at which the increase in mass happens, the mass of an object would be infinity at the speed of light (which is impossible) and would therefore take an infinite amount of energy to propel it (which is more impossibler, lol. Theoretical physics + bad grammar = irony...).
2.) Jimmeh!, you sad sad little man. What you are referring to is the "Casimir Effect". This does not create a wormhole.
When two flat parallel metal plates are placed extremely close to each other in a vacuum, there is an attractive force between them. This is because certain particles can't fit into the space. (Imagine trying to bounce a boingy-ball in a space 1/2 its size.) The lack of particles creates a pressure difference, pushing the two plates together.
What does this have to do with space time/time travel? Well, to create a wormhole, you would need matter with negative energy density. The Casimir effect shows that it is possible to reduce the amount of energy, but in no way does it create negative energy.
3.) Warping of space-time is possible, if you have a singularity (a point where the curve of space-time becomes infinite). Now, suppose that you had two points where the curve of space-time became infinite, and then theoretically, you could hook the two ends together and have a tunnel, aka wormhole, aka Einstein-Rosen bridge. The only way to have a singularity however is to have a black hole, or negative energy. If you don't know what space-time curvature looks like, look <a href='http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/PhysicsHasItsPrinciples.asp' target='_blank'>here</a>
4.) An experiment was done which transmitted a symphony through hyperspace, however this was not done using what we all think of as matter, and is still under much scrutiny. The distance was about 6 feet as well. It was suspected that because of 'entanglement' that the parts of the symphony would arrive at random times, and would be jumbled. but the signal arrived intact (with a whole lot of static).
5.) If you can't spell molecule, don't get involved in a discussion about quantum physics.
6.) Zel, you have the right idea, but its wrong. There are other factors to take into account, like the spin of the electrons, and the sub-sub-atomic particles (quarks, i.e. proton = 2 up, 1 down). However, because of the Uncertainty Principle, you can't tell the exact location and the exact velocity. And even if you encoded it with lasers (why is it always a laser?), you still aren't moving anything, just information.
7.) Star Trek, Star Wars, Star Gate, BattleStar Gallactica, etc. are not real. *ducks* You may be able to prove that Darth Vader can kill Spock, but you can't do much else with TV shows from the 70's as far as quantum physics is concerned.
8.) I'm not trying to flame anyone. All I am trying to do is clear up some misconceptions so that we can make informed decicions about who to flame. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
9.) Don't flame me. My post is long and has big words in it. Because it is longer, it has more room to have things that are right in it. Therefore, my post has more right things in it than yours does. You would think that it would also have more room to have wrong things, but it doesn't. I did the math, trust me.