Interstellar Travel
In the past, practical interstellar travel has been held to be an impossibility. It will require fantastic amounts of energy and superluminal speeds, and it was commonly understood that meeting those requirements is not possible if we accept Einstein’s relativistic model of the universe. However, examination of the problem based on the most current understandings of theoretical physics offers optimistic potentials that have never been considered before. These potentials, though radical, are consistent with a relativistic viewpoint.
Although interstellar travel is a technical feat that will occur far in the human future, it is important to remember that we are a young race. Humanity has had functional, technical science for several hundred years. Humans have enjoyed powered flight for one hundred years, computers for fifty years, solid-state electronics for fifty years, space flight for 40 years, lasers for 30 years, semi-conductors for 20 years, nanotechnology for a decade, etc.
While we understand a great deal about the nature of reality, there is a greater amount of knowledge that has yet to be acquired. It is the epitome of arrogance to assume that something as complex as interstellar travel is impossible simply because we can’t yet imagine how such a feat could be achieved. Specific knowledge has arisen which will overturn that sense of implausibility and humanity will find a means to do what was once suspected to be impossible. Science often progresses because of an examination of the unexpected. So, scientific progress is not entirely predictable. The perspective that interstellar travel is impossible is a prediction that the universe is quite likely to disprove.
A true scientist is aware that there are leading edges in every field of endeavor and will calibrate his position against what he considers to be the most current information. This section offers of white papers that specifically address the problem of interstellar travel through a variety of viewpoints. These documents are compiled to provide scientists with perspectives and specific information to make a better assessment of the possibility of both human interstellar travel and extraterrestrial visitation.
Report 1 - SETI, the Velocity-of-Light Limitation and the
Alcubierre Warp
Drive: An Integrating Overview
Dr. H.E.Puthoff, 1996
In SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) conventional wisdom has
it that the probability of direct contact by interstellar travel is vanishingly
small due to the enormous distances involved, coupled with the velocity-of-light
limitation. This paper shows the naiveté of this
assumption. It provides details which provide yet further support for the
concept that reduced-time interstellar travel, either by advanced extraterrestrial
civilization at present or ourselves in the future, is not fundamentally constrained
by physical principles.
Dr. Harold E. Puthoff is Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin. He has published over 30 technical papers in the areas of electron-beam devices, lasers and quantum zero-point-energy effects and has patents issued and pending in the laser, communications, and energy fields.
Full Report: SETI, the Velocity-of-Light Limitation and the Alcubierre Warp Drive
Report 2 - Physics of Interstellar Propulsion
Dr. Michio Kaku
November, 2002
The Physics of Interstellar Propulsion was presented at the Science Symposium at the George Washington University on Nov 8, 2002 and is located in the CFi site. Dr. Kaku is a Professor of theoretical physics at the City College at the City University of New York
link:
http://www.freedomofinfo.org/science/MkakuSummary.pdf
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