I'm with you on the interplanetary pit stop thing. But not thinking intelligent life exists anywhere else is kind of a scary thought. Unless FTL travel is possible and we're meant to conquer the universe.
FTL travel would violate fundamental laws of physics, so it's probably not possible no matter how advanced our technology becomes.
If we eventually end up replacing ourselves with sentient machines, it's conceivable that they could construct an interstellar civilization, as traveling for a few decades or even centuries would probably not be too onerous from their perspective, but even that I think is a bit far fetched.
You don't need FTL travel, thanks to time dilation. You just need to approach the speed of light., even 0.8c would turn a 20 ly journey into a 15 year journey. Of course such tech is still well into the realm of Scifi.
Yeah I saw that article too. The problem, which they mention in the article, is that it's only possible with negative energy and negative mass. In order to use this theoretical method to transport even a small spaceship, you would need an almost infinite amount of mass to generate the negative energy imbalance that it would require.
There was one compelling argument I recall from a few years ago that said it wasn't impossible that such a distortion could exist, it's just impossible to cause the conditions to bring one into being where it didn't previously exist.
Either way the burden of proof on whether it's possible is on the advocates.
I'm with you on the interplanetary pit stop thing. But not thinking intelligent life exists anywhere else is kind of a scary thought. Unless FTL travel is possible and we're meant to conquer the universe.
We'll never conquer the universe. Most people can't even control themselves.
FTL travel would violate fundamental laws of physics, so it's probably not possible no matter how advanced our technology becomes.
If we eventually end up replacing ourselves with sentient machines, it's conceivable that they could construct an interstellar civilization, as traveling for a few decades or even centuries would probably not be too onerous from their perspective, but even that I think is a bit far fetched.
You don't need FTL travel, thanks to time dilation. You just need to approach the speed of light., even 0.8c would turn a 20 ly journey into a 15 year journey. Of course such tech is still well into the realm of Scifi.
Yeah I saw that article too. The problem, which they mention in the article, is that it's only possible with negative energy and negative mass. In order to use this theoretical method to transport even a small spaceship, you would need an almost infinite amount of mass to generate the negative energy imbalance that it would require.
There was one compelling argument I recall from a few years ago that said it wasn't impossible that such a distortion could exist, it's just impossible to cause the conditions to bring one into being where it didn't previously exist.
Either way the burden of proof on whether it's possible is on the advocates.