[ipWinston]

hmm if i recall correctly its Keplers Law that states that the laws of the universe apply all throughout the universe...if that helps you at all

[TheDude]

Humans must colonize other planets. So get off your butts and colonize!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')awking, a 64-year-old father of three who rarely gives interviews and who wrote the best-selling "A Brief History of Time," suggested propulsion like that used by the fictional starship Enterprise "to boldly go where no man has gone before" could help solve the problem.

"Science fiction has developed the idea of warp drive, which takes you instantly to your destination," said.

"Unfortunately, this would violate the scientific law which says that nothing can travel faster than light."

However, by using "matter/antimatter annihilation," velocities just below the speed of light could be reached, making it possible to reach the next star in about six years.

"It wouldn't seem so long for those on board," he said.

[morph]

Link from BBC news

will it ever happen? unlikely

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '[')url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061130/ts_nm/space_hawking_dc]Humans must colonize other planets.[/url] So get off your butts and colonize!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')awking, a 64-year-old father of three who rarely gives interviews and who wrote the best-selling "A Brief History of Time," suggested propulsion like that used by the fictional starship Enterprise "to boldly go where no man has gone before" could help solve the problem.

"Science fiction has developed the idea of warp drive, which takes you instantly to your destination," said.

"Unfortunately, this would violate the scientific law which says that nothing can travel faster than light."

However, by using "matter/antimatter annihilation," velocities just below the speed of light could be reached, making it possible to reach the next star in about six years.

"It wouldn't seem so long for those on board," he said.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Unfortunately, this would violate the scientific law which says that nothing can travel faster than light."

[PolestaR]

Pretty sure this has been covered before on the forum.. but alas.. it's sad to someone who has significant smarts be so stupid. It's like us saying "well we will be saved from peak oil if the core of the earth infinitely regenerates fossil fuels at whatever output we want" - riiight.

Academics commonly suffer from being unable to see "the big picture" which just goes to show, maybe you should be grateful for not being Einstein.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

What Hawking conveniently forgets is that the higher the speed, the more dangerous the radiation generated by dust and atoms in space.

At interstellar speeds a speckle of dust will behave like a bomb on the outer shell of the starship.

Nature's Tiniest Space Junk

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') 10-4 gm speck of dust racing along at 30 km/s carries about the same energy as a very high energy cosmic ray, ~3 x 10^20 electron volts. Collisions with high-speed space dust can electrify satellites, scrambling software and triggering mistaken control procedures.

[AWPrime]

Antimatter is also worse than fusion, for it needs too much containment equipment.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

I say we are so badly "Star Trekked", that even smart minds like Hawking can regurgitate stupid things like "interstellar travel is coming to a Walmart near you soon".

Note: I adore Star Trek, it's my favourite SF show, but I realize it's just a movie and I appreciate it for the sake of it.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', 'W')hat Hawking conveniently forgets is that the higher the speed, the more dangerous the radiation generated by dust and atoms in space.

At interstellar speeds a speckle of dust will behave like a bomb on the outer shell of the starship.

Nature's Tiniest Space Junk

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') 10-4 gm speck of dust racing along at 30 km/s carries about the same energy as a very high energy cosmic ray, ~3 x 10^20 electron volts. Collisions with high-speed space dust can electrify satellites, scrambling software and triggering mistaken control procedures.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AWPrime', 'A')ntimatter is also worse than fusion, for it needs too much containment equipment.

[AWPrime]

I have heard that the containment equipment would weigh 1000 tons for every gram of antimatter.

Fusion beats that.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'Y')ou are missing one point.
Interstellar space contains many orders of magnitude fewer dust, than an Earth orbit or inner Solar System.
For this reason your concerns are rather irrelevant.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'I')nterstellar dust speck at 50% of c would also not behave like a bomb. It would rather pierce a hole through a spacecraft and leave without depositing much of its energy.
NB. I mean here something like 10 E-4g and NOT something like 10g stone. The latter would certainly destroy our craft. Well, bad luck, try again...

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'Y')ou are missing one point.
Interstellar space contains many orders of magnitude fewer dust, than an Earth orbit or inner Solar System.
For this reason your concerns are rather irrelevant.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'I')nterstellar dust speck at 50% of c would also not behave like a bomb. It would rather pierce a hole through a spacecraft and leave without depositing much of its energy.
NB. I mean here something like 10 E-4g and NOT something like 10g stone. The latter would certainly destroy our craft. Well, bad luck, try again...

[TheDude]

For more info on this beyond-our-ken subject you might pick up Analog editor Ben Bova's book on Space Travel, in his series of Science Fiction Writing manuals. It was published in 1997 tho so the Science might be a little out of date...
Wasn't Hawking on a TNG episode? I remember fondly his spot on the Simpsons. This is probably a good spot to repeat the rubric that the popular conception of SF (especially space travel) is still rooted in the literature of the 1930's (outer space dogfights and what have you). Funny that Hawking is still reading Lensman books and watching Roddenberry for his hard speculation. Well, sad really, he's such an icon he could do a lot of good with his prestige but is just leading people down the wrong road. Kudos to James Lovelock for writing Revenge of Gaia which is no fun at all and makes nary a mention of salvation in the stars.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

Your enthusiasm is outstanding, even by SF standards. You seem to have answers to everything. You really make things look easy.

Only there's a problem with your approach: it's too good to be true. You never mention any problems, difficulties or dangers, or if you mention them, they can be effortlessly overcome.

It's this pinkish view of the world that brought us in this PO/GW/Resource Depletion/Pollution mess. People like you somehow convinced the vast majority of us that life is just an easy ride to more, better, easier.

Well not anymore. More and more people are starting to realize that the promises of easy life create way more problems than they solve.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'T')hese are charged particles and magnetic/electrostatic fields would be deflecting them.
As they are mainly protons, they could even be driven by mentioned EM fields into fusion reactors and actually make a power source for propulsion systems (cosmic ram jet design). Production of such fields would not be energy intensive process, and if mentioned protons are susesquently used as a fusion fuel for propulsion you would get decent EROEI.

[BlisteredWhippet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'H')ow will you "randomly" engineer genetic mutations to avoid genetic defects?

[AWPrime]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'A')nd why go to a star system? We can go to Mars, or the Saturn moons.