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NerdyKeith's avatar

Do you think space exploration in a starship will be possible?

Asked by NerdyKeith (5489points) April 18th, 2016
Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

15 Answers

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

Yes. Just a matter of time.

jaytkay's avatar

Yes, but I think nobody will make the whole trip. Their descendants in the ship will reach the destination.

ragingloli's avatar

You humans will not be doing any meaningful interstellar exploration until you crack FTL.

ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

The universes we are about to start creating will be just as interesting and we’ll be able to explore them freely.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Sadly, not in my lifetime.

When earthlings get serious about scientific exploration (if ever) then it will happen. But right now there is no political or economical will to do something as long-term as space exploration.

stanleybmanly's avatar

conquering the distances will be about something other than sealing folks up in a fast can. I think it less likely that the brute force approach of traveling faster than light will be our solution to spanning those distances.

kritiper's avatar

No. Mankind will be extinct before that happens.

Lightlyseared's avatar

Yes on a long enough timeline anything is possible.

canidmajor's avatar

I find your question to be too broad, you need to define what you mean by “starship”.
The possibility of a generation starship is in the foreseeable future, the possibility of a viable FTL drive isn’t really (foreseeable).

NerdyKeith's avatar

A starship is a large ship that travels through space.

canidmajor's avatar

No. One would suppose that a starship is interstellar. Intra-system is called interplanetary ship.
You mentioned in another Q that you’re writing a science fiction novel. Surely you are familiar with the vast differences between sub-light, generational interstellar travel (in a number of various forms {light sail? Chemical fuel? Fusion powered})and some sort of FTL (faster than light)? Or perhaps some sort-of quantum wormhole?
And why large? A colony ship rather than an exploration mission? One would hope that a planet would be vetted by a qualified scientific crew before just tossing a thousand or more people at it.
Or was your comment perhaps just a snide little post because I wanted more information?

NerdyKeith's avatar

Very well a star ship powered by a quantum slip stream drive.

The reason my question is broad is to allow,the answerers to decoded what sort of starship would exist of one where to exist.

As far as I know warp drives are also possible.

Here2_4's avatar

@jaytkay is right. Our interstellar travels will have to be like the migration of the monarch butterfly; going in the prescribed flight plan on the trust the next generation will move ahead according to plan… until we get travel without fuel propelled containers perfected.

flutherother's avatar

While it may be a nice idea the laws of physics say no. Nothing can travel faster than light, starships included. By using telescopes on Earth on in Earth orbit we may well find interesting worlds we would like to explore further. We could sent a probe to take a closer look but even if it got there any signal it sent back would be hopelessly weak. Perhaps in the future we will discover the technology that will allow us to build a starship. Hopefully by then we will have the wisdom not to destroy what we will find.

Setanta's avatar

I am skeptical because even at significant fractions of “c” shipboard time would be decades. We might get to the Alpha Centauri multi-star system, or we might get to Barnard’s Star. But stars farther out would be ruled out by our relatively short life spans. Crews would necessarily be 30 years old or older to have acquired the skills necessary for such a mission, and it would very likely be a one way trip for them.

More importantly, with the economic inequality of our societies, what nation or even group of nations would be able to convince their populations to make enormous sacrifices just for the purpose of exploration? The idea that we would colonize in such a manner is even more problematic. What society would be willing to make enormous material sacrifices simply to benefit a handful of colonist, with absolutely no prospect of return on the expenditure?

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