'Nearby' star systems

[Jitendra Hydonus]

How long would it take to get to Alpha Centauri (Proximi Centauri) which is the closest star system to us? Over four light years. That is to say if we could travel at the speed of light it would still take over four years to get there.

http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-to-the-nearest-star/

[SpiritImage]

[mccoy]

Without a major breakthrough (wormholes and farcasters are still purely stuff of SF) we can forget about travel to other systems which are not the really closer ones. I think the Galileo project did not detect habitable exoplanets in them, although it may have been wrong.
nevertheless, presently even the closer system at 4 LY distance may pose unsurpassable problems. This is an excerpt from some material on Astronomy from the University o fTexas.

Basic problems:
1. The speed of light “c” is an upper limit to speeds in the universe, and so
we have no hope of traveling faster than light (as far as we know). And it is
well-established that in order to approach a significant fraction (say 80%) of
the speed of light requires stupendous amounts of energy, more than anyone
has so far imagined from any kind of propulsion system. Even the amount
of energy it takes to approach even a small fraction of the speed of light (say
0.1 c) is enormous.
The energy required to accelerate to a certain speed doesn’t depend on
what kind of fuel you use (see discussion on pp. 300-302), but it does
demand that the mass of fuel you carry will have to be enormous—the mass
needed does depend on the kind of fuel you use because different fuels have
different mass-energy conversion efficiencies (see below).
2. There are designs that could in principle travel at 5-10% of the speed of
light (as discussed in text and mentioned below; most of these are just out of
reach of present technology). But stars are many light years apart, so even a
one-way voyage to the nearest stars would require decades or centuries or
more at a speed of 0.1 c. This will require a multigenerational crew, or
suspended animation, or a very large increase in human lifespan to reach
even the nearest stars. There are severe problems with each of these.
You may notice that the time problem could in principle be solved by
robotic probes. (This assumes that those on Earth would be willing to wait
the centuries required until the robots report home.) One interesting variant
of these are called “von Neumann probes” –they are basically starships that
make copies of themselves and launch the copies, which then replicate again
and launch further copies, etc. A good tactic to colonize the Galaxy! This is
not discussed until chapter 13 of your textbook

Even if we'd be able to overcoem the above basic problems, space travel at relativistic, close-to-light velocities still poses more problems, a simple one outlined here.

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2015/04/near-light-speed-travel-increasingly-impossible-according-maths


Bottomline: leaving our solar system presently appears to be totally unrealistic.

Right now, the only realistic option appears to be the colonization of Mars, with its terraforming as a target. The moon might be used for some resources, although it would probably be wated time and money.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Without a major breakthrough (wormholes and farcasters are still purely stuff of SF) we can forget about travel to other systems which are not the really closer ones. I think the Galileo project did not detect habitable exoplanets in them, although it may have been wrong.
nevertheless, presently even the closer system at 4 LY distance may pose unsurpassable problems. This is an excerpt from some material on Astronomy from the University o fTexas.

Basic problems:
1. The speed of light “c” is an upper limit to speeds in the universe, and so
we have no hope of traveling faster than light (as far as we know). And it is
well-established that in order to approach a significant fraction (say 80%) of
the speed of light requires stupendous amounts of energy, more than anyone
has so far imagined from any kind of propulsion system. Even the amount
of energy it takes to approach even a small fraction of the speed of light (say
0.1 c) is enormous.
The energy required to accelerate to a certain speed doesn’t depend on
what kind of fuel you use (see discussion on pp. 300-302), but it does
demand that the mass of fuel you carry will have to be enormous—the mass
needed does depend on the kind of fuel you use because different fuels have
different mass-energy conversion efficiencies (see below).
2. There are designs that could in principle travel at 5-10% of the speed of
light (as discussed in text and mentioned below; most of these are just out of
reach of present technology). But stars are many light years apart, so even a
one-way voyage to the nearest stars would require decades or centuries or
more at a speed of 0.1 c. This will require a multigenerational crew, or
suspended animation, or a very large increase in human lifespan to reach
even the nearest stars. There are severe problems with each of these.
You may notice that the time problem could in principle be solved by
robotic probes. (This assumes that those on Earth would be willing to wait
the centuries required until the robots report home.) One interesting variant
of these are called “von Neumann probes” –they are basically starships that
make copies of themselves and launch the copies, which then replicate again
and launch further copies, etc. A good tactic to colonize the Galaxy! This is
not discussed until chapter 13 of your textbook

Even if we'd be able to overcoem the above basic problems, space travel at relativistic, close-to-light velocities still poses more problems, a simple one outlined here.

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2015/04/near-light-speed-travel-increasingly-impossible-according-maths


Bottomline: leaving our solar system presently appears to be totally unrealistic.

Right now, the only realistic option appears to be the colonization of Mars, with its terraforming as a target. The moon might be used for some resources, although it would probably be wated time and money.

Like your thoughrs here mccoy. We may be able to communicate at such distances far before we can reach them. Imagine the lonely space between solar systems. Relationships are much different today because we can have friends on the other side of the earth that we may never meet in flesh. The same holds true of beings on remote planets at far off solar systems. Unless of course they are way beyond us technologically speaking and already know about us and have visited here.

Sirius  is twice the distance of Alpha Centauri. Because of its size it appears closer.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Mccoy, Spiritimage and others taking an interest...

Not being able to get out to other life forms than our own makes one feel marooned and quite isolated on this remote earthly existance. It gives one the feeling of the smallness of our little lives in comparison to a vast universe we know little about. Not being a physicist  or in some other closely related field that may eventually have a break through to get us beyond our own solar system makes me direct my interests again towards inner travels in meditation. While these too have barriers we are trying to circumvent it still seems more as an approachable goal. But these discussions are always helpful in gaining perspective as to where we are in our present state of cosciousness and awareness.

[mccoy]

Steve, absolutely so, it is fascinating to discuss about the cosmos, but apparently God wanted the different stellar civilizations not to communicate among them, or to be able to communicate only after huge scientifical and technical progress., arguably achieved by very few ones.

Sometimes it may even be for our own good. we all know what happened to the Santo Domingo natives when Columbus was able to cross the Ocean, then to the American Indians, to the polynesians with the Spanish, and so many other civilizations which were enlaved or destroyed when the Europeans were able to overcome the ocean barriers. There might be some 'Europeans' out there ready to enslave us were it not for the immense distances between galaxies.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Steve, absolutely so, it is fascinating to discuss about the cosmos, but apparently God wanted the different stellar civilizations not to communicate among them, or to be able to communicate only after huge scientifical and technical progress., arguably achieved by very few ones.

Sometimes it may even be for our own good. we all know what happened to the Santo Domingo natives when Columbus was able to cross the Ocean, then to the American Indians, to the polynesians with the Spanish, and so many other civilizations which were enlaved or destroyed when the Europeans were able to overcome the ocean barriers. There might be some 'Europeans' out there ready to enslave us were it not for the immense distances between galaxies.

Yes. If we were able to get to another stellar civilization what would we do? Repeat history? We 'need' resources and a place for us to live. Would we do the same as before? Or would we prove that history does not repeat itself?

If Sri Yukteswar was right, we only have 12, 000 years of ascending yugas to figure out how to overcome such distances and 12,000 years to find other places to live that are in areas whose spiritual atmosphere does not have such dark periods as our own kali yuga. Otherwise we are doomed again to face more kali yugas where most or all knowledge is lost and we are faced with the same grim prospects of civilizations in our recent past.

It becomes more and more recognizable that we are on some kind of penal colony here on earth and it may be more likely our own way out is through working out our own individual sentences and being born on higher planets then our own or lengthen our stays in the astral world's till we no longer are sentenced to come here.

[SpiritImage]

I think that "thought" will be and is the only way these distances can be reached. It's really the only thing I can think of that could travel that far, that fast.

I think that if that power were perfected all the physical world problems would not affect you (not to say you may not still be involved though)

However, the actual visit would likely be very different from what we see and think about it physically.

[mccoy]

I think that "thought" will be and is the only way these distances can be reached. It's really the only thing I can think of that could travel that far, that fast.

That is my same reasoning. Light speed, even though presently unreachable, would only be enough to explore the nearest star systems. Other galaxies would be unexplorable.
Thought speed on the other side guarantees zero-time travel. As soon as you are able to think about a specific location in the universe and will to be there, you are there. Space and time no more would exist.

This is probably the stuff of extremely evolved souls, since you should need to be able to extend the thought visualization to the physical body.

By thought speed we could reach the huge quasar in the remotest parts of the galaxies. That would be pretty dangerous though, since relocation of the physical body would imply vulnerability to a lot of hazards: extreme temperatures, lack of breathable air mixture, radiations and so on.

Just imagine to land fully into the beam of a pulsar, being inundated by extremely high levels of gamma radiations. The travel would have a sudden end...

[Jitendra Hydonus]

I think that "thought" will be and is the only way these distances can be reached. It's really the only thing I can think of that could travel that far, that fast.

That is my same reasoning. Light speed, even though presently unreachable, would only be enough to explore the nearest star systems. Other galaxies would be unexplorable.
Thought speed on the other side guarantees zero-time travel. As soon as you are able to think about a specific location in the universe and will to be there, you are there. Space and time no more would exist.

This is probably the stuff of extremely evolved souls, since you should need to be able to extend the thought visualization to the physical body.

By thought speed we could reach the huge quasar in the remotest parts of the galaxies. That would be pretty dangerous though, since relocation of the physical body would imply vulnerability to a lot of hazards: extreme temperatures, lack of breathable air mixture, radiations and so on.

Just imagine to land fully into the beam of a pulsar, being inundated by extremely high levels of gamma radiations. The travel would have a sudden end...

What you guys are talking about seems similar if not the same things as astral projection. I have heard many people talking about leaving their bodies and even going to future times. It seems like a good thing to look forward to in meditation.

[mccoy]

Steve, yes, now you have given more focus to our ideas.

Thought travel would rather be a causal projection, you don't need to carry around a cumbersome astral body, subject to the limitations of the astral light velocity treshold. Causal travel has no limitations.

this conceptual framework is totally reasonable.

Of course this would rule out the possibility to transport to the other side of the cosmos the physical body, maybe for the better, because of the mortal hazards of interstellar space.

A very interesting side to causal projection woudl be the fact that we would see the farthest reaches of the universe are they really are now, not 12 billion years ago (what we see by the radiation reaching us).

That is, there would be a totally new framework to explore, bereft of the limitations of Einstenian relativity.

[SpiritImage]

Hmm,

But maybe when we are able to achieve this power in the causal, we might not deem it important nor necessary to "travel", supposedly, we would be at a level where we would already have this knowledge we seek now.

[mccoy]

Hmm,But maybe when we are able to achieve this power in the causal, we might not deem it important nor necessary to "travel", supposedly, we would be at a level where we would already have this knowledge we seek now.

Right and probably the idea of traveling there and being there would be the same, so direct knowledge would be granted instantaneously.