Deep Space Travel: Is Science Fiction Now Reality?

Since the beginning of man, we have always been intrigued by the idea of what lies beyond our comfy little planet. We have pushed ourselves to travel to the Moon and send robots to study planets we have not been able to make it to, but science fiction puts the idea in the mind of humans that we can keep traveling farther in space. Science fiction uses technology that enables them to travel light years at unimaginable speeds. Is the idea of traveling at speeds greater than the speed of light possible and do we have the propulsion technology to travel into deep space?

Science Fiction

Before we can discuss the reality of the technology for deep space travel, the science fiction of deep space travel must discussed. Traveling to other planets and deep space was made possible by a variety of spaceships and propulsion systems that could accelerate at speeds greater than the speed of light. In the Mel Brook's classic Spaceballs the spaceships could attain "Ludacris Speed" and even go "plaid." In Ender’s Game the people of earth were able to travel to space stations and then travel on spaceships to colonize the bugger planets. Star Trek is one of the most famous works of science fiction and the Star Trek spaceship featured a unique type of propulsion known as warp drive, which enabled travel at unimaginable speeds. The warp drive is a propulsion system that used antimatter and matter to power it. Warp drive could attain speeds greater than the speed of light by colliding antimatter and matter, which produces enormous amounts of energy. All of these sci-fi examples make deep space travel extremely interesting, but how close are we to the technology to accomplish space travel at light speed?

Today's Technology

The first issue with deep space travel is the overwhelming size of the universe. According to the world renowned physicist Dr. Michio Kaku "the familiar stars we see at night are about 50 to 100 light years from us, and our galaxy is 100,000 light years across." Based purely on this it can be seen that even at the speed of light it would take hundreds and thousands of years to travel through our own galaxy, which is only a small part of the universe. Another problem is trying to travel faster than the speed of light. The great minds at NASA show that the problem you run into is the object that is trying to break the light barrier is made up of the same matter as the barrier. Also in order to travel near the speed of light an enormous amount of energy is required. In order to move an object at the speed of light you would technically need an infinite source of energy to move a mass at that rate. As mentioned earlier the warp drive in Star Trek was powered by the collision of antimatter and matter to produce enormous amounts of energy. The physicist at CERN have done extensive research on antimatter, which shows the collision of antimatter and matter does produce an enormous amount of energy, but the problem is getting the antimatter. CERN is only capable of producing atoms of antimatter and it is believed it will take several hundred or thousands of years to produce enough antimatter to use as a viable power source. Based on this information light speed seems highly unlikely, but a new discovery might come about that might make it possible.

Ion Thruster

Light speed might not be attainable, but there are several propulsion systems that are being researched that could propel spaceships at very high rates of speed. One particular propulsion system that has had success is ion propulsion, which simply uses ions to propel the spaceship. NASA is currently working with Ion propulsion and they show that it doesn’t produce a large amount of thrust, but it provides a long constant thrust that could accelerate a spaceship to speeds as high 90,000 miles per hour while only using minimal fuel. This particular propulsion system is being used on satellites, but maybe it will eventually make its way to space vehicles. Another form of propulsion being explored is Ram-jet fusion engines, which can operate longer than ion propulsion because it would runoff the free hydrogen found in deep space. Dr. Michio Kaku describes how this particular design hinges on our capabilities to create a proton-proton fusion process. Dr. Rod Nave shows that proton-proton fusion is essentially the fusion process that powers our sun and the technology needed to for this fusion make take at least another century to develop. The Planetary Society is exploring the idea of solar sails as a form of space propulsion. It works by using a large sail that reflects the light from the sun, which transfers the momentum from the light photons to the sail. This type of propulsion may have a small acceleration, but it will be continuous and can reach high speeds over time. There has also been some advancements in the traditional chemical propulsion that we have used since the beginning of our space exploration. NASA has developed technology and manufacturing methods that have made it possible to attain higher combustion temperatures, which enables more efficient combustion with new chemicals that needed a higher combustion temperature. This could make it possible to use chemical propulsion to get us further in space before we would have to switch to a different propulsion system. No particular propulsion system may be the answer, but a combination of systems could get us into deep space.

Solar Sail

What does the Future Hold?

Even though deep space travel for humans is still seems like a thing of science fiction, the human race will continue to make advances to make it possible. In less than 100 years we went from learning to fly to putting a man on the moon, which seemed to be impossible. With the rate at which technology is continuing to get better, I can eventually see the human race traveling into deep space and again doing what seemed to be impossible.

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