"Warning, Captain Kirk: Warp speed will kill you"

[Tharp Daddy]

Captain Kirk might want to avoid taking the starship Enterprise to warp speed, unless he's ready to shrug off interstellar hydrogen atoms that would deliver a lethal radiation blast to both ship and crew.

There are just two hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter on average in space, which poses no threat to spaceships traveling at low speeds. But those same lone atoms would transform into deadly galactic space mines for a spaceship that runs into them at near-light speed, according to calculations based on Einstein's special theory of relativity.

The original crew of "Star Trek" featured as unfortunate examples at a presentation by William Edelstein, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, at the American Physical Society conference in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13. The physicist showed a video clip of Kirk telling engineer Scotty to go to warp speed.

"Well, they're all dead," Edelstein recalled saying. His words caused a stir among the audience.

Edelstein's personal interest in this thought experiment began 20 years ago, when his son Arthur asked him if there was friction in space. The father responded that yes, there would be hydrogen bumping off a spaceship. But he soon realized that the stray atoms of hydrogen gas would actually go right through the ship traveling close to light speed, and irradiate both crew and electronics in the process.

More recently, the physicist and his now-grown son calculated the scenario of a spaceship trying to travel halfway across our Milky Way galaxy in just 10 years. That's doable in theory, because special relativity states that time slows down and distances shrink for travelers approaching light speed.

Edelstein's work showed that a starship traveling at just 99 percent of the speed of light would get a radiation dose from hydrogen of 61 sieverts per second, when just one tenth of that number of sieverts would deliver a fatal dose for humans. And that's not even the 99.999998 percent of light-speed necessary to make the journey to the center of the Milky Way in 10 years

At the higher speed, the human crew of a starship would experience something like getting struck by the high-energy proton beam from the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. On top of killing the crew, such powerful levels of energy would also likely destroy the starship electronics.

"I'm not claiming this is a brilliant new discovery or anything," Edelstein told SPACE.com. "I'm just saying that it's interesting."

Some audience members at the American Physical Society event protested that Kirk, Spock and the "Star Trek" crew would all still live because of the starship Enterprise having shields. But Edelstein noted some of the existing difficulties with creating an electromagnetic shield with any resemblance to "Star Trek" technology.

Solid shields seem even more hopeless. A starship might need anywhere from a 4.4 -meter to 4,400-meter thickness of lead shielding to deflect the hydrogen radiation — added mass that would make travel at near-light speed even more impractical.

The physicist concluded by suggesting that extraterrestrials might not have visited Earth because of all the problems in traveling at near-light speeds, including how to deal with deadly hydrogen space mines. But for the record, he does believe that alien life exists.

"Getting between stars is a huge problem unless we think of something really, really different," Edelstein said. "I'm not saying that we know everything and that it's impossible. I'm saying it's kind of impossible based on what we know right now."

Source (MSN)

I found it an interesting read, i am curious what humans will come up with (if they ever do) as a solution to long distance space travel.

Edit: Fixed portion of article missing.

[TogaForComfort]

I found it an interesting read, i am curious what humans will come up with (if they ever do) as a solution to long distance space travel.

Two Words: Deflector Shields, if it worked in Star Trek it must work in real life ;)

[JustGeorge]

I'm sure that if we ever get close to being able to light-speed travel, we'll also have developed technology to counter this problem as well. Besides, I thought warp drive was traveling through subspace where you're not really going faster than light, just taking a shortcut so to speak?

[Kyang]

It's not about the shields. This is precisely what the deflector dish is for.

EDIT:

...Right?

[Southern Patriot]

This guy must not know much about the fictional technology in the Star Trek universe. Not only are the hydrogen atoms not an issue, they are actually collected by the Bussard Collectors and made use of for fuel.

[Raa]

Lets get the propulsion worked out first. They've disproved warp drives, and I don't see fusion drives happening this year :p

After that, THEN let's talk about space deflectors ;)

[gigapixels Veteran]

Lets get the propulsion worked out first. They've disproved warp drives, and I don't see fusion drives happening this year :p

After that, THEN let's talk about space deflectors ;)

We should just go with the infinite improbability drive from Hitchhiker's Guide. Then neither of these things will be an issue :p

[devn00b]

Im wondering tho. Hydrogen burns as we all know (Hindenburg anyone), and I've seen some theories about using high temperature plasma as a shielding. Wouldn't that simply burn the atoms as the came in?

[chrispinto]

I read this on el reg the other day, seems the geek world fails to remember the deflector dish, and later it's companions the buzzard collectors

[Astra.Xtreme]

Even if it was possible to get anywhere close to light speed, we don't have enough (much less energetic enough) resources here on Earth to accelerate up to it.

Even with every drop left of oil we have, it wouldn't provide enough energy to accelerate a spaceship. I'm not saying there aren't other energy sources we could use, but that's the magnitude of "stuff" we are looking at.

1. We don't have the resources

2. Our bodies could never handle it (in many many aspects)

3. Science says it can't be done

Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say humans will probably be extinct way before we hit the light speed milestone. I mean, we have to be realistic here. :p

[Tai]

Lets get the propulsion worked out first. They've disproved warp drives, and I don't see fusion drives happening this year :p

After that, THEN let's talk about space deflectors ;)

Then there's FTL drives ... enabling one to meet 1000's of Sharon Valeris ...

[SkyDX]

Well, maybe we will just explore our solar system in a few decades and find some kind of alien technology that helps us reaching FTL travel :p

[krasch]

Plus they forget the whole point of WARP drive.

Namely the ship itself is stationary inside a bubble of subspace created by the warping of space/time by the nacelles. It's the subspace bubble itself that travels at transwarp speeds, not the ship. The deflector dish and Bussard collectors are both intended for sublight, i.e. IMPULSE speeds.

[fix-this!]

oh you guys! there will be no warp speed space travel, get your heads outta the books and movies. :rolleyes:

next you will tell me time travel is possible. :laugh:

[devn00b]

According to physics:

Time travel to the past is theoretically allowed using the following methods

* Travelling faster than the speed of light

* The use of cosmic strings and black holes

* Wormholes and Alcubierre drive

[fix-this!]

According to physics:

Time travel to the past is theoretically allowed using the following methods

* Travelling faster than the speed of light

* The use of cosmic strings and black holes

* Wormholes and Alcubierre drive

can i go back and never meet my greedy ex wife? :whistle:

seriously, i have my doubts we will ever achieve this.

[SyntaxError]

2. Our bodies could never handle it (in many many aspects)

3. Science says it can't be done

2. Inertial Dampers solve that problem. Too bad they aren't real yet.

3. Science used to say the world was flat too, yet every year more and more Star Trek technology becomes reality. Don't put too much stock in what "science" has to say about something. With time, science fiction becomes science fact.

Teleportation is possible today, but with single atoms and very short distances.

There are currently tricorders in development, albeit primitive compared to Star Trek's.

Cloaking technology is also very real, and still in development.

There are other examples of Trek tech becoming reality if we just look for them. Got to start somewhere, right?

And yes, for those wondering, the ship's deflector dish produces a field ahead of the ship which pushes matter out of the way.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Navigational_deflector

The navigational deflector (also called the deflector dish, the deflector array or the nav deflector) is a component of many starships, and is used to deflect space debris, asteroids, microscopic particles and other objects that might collide with the ship. At warp speed the deflector is virtually indispensable for most starships as even the most minute particle can cause serious damage to a ship when it is traveling at superluminal velocities.

[Nihilus]

Meh, I think I'm going to go with interstellar travel ever becoming a reality being really, really unlikely. Comparing people who say interstellar travel is nigh-on impossible with people who once said the Earth was flat is unfair, the problems with traveling at even remotely appreciable fractions of the speed of light have been discovered, and explored closely, using the scientific method. The Earth was merely assumed to be flat on blind faith.

I'm not saying it's beyond any realm of possibility, but I definitely agree that it doesn't look promising.

[Nadja]

if Исаак Юдович Озимов (Isaac Asimov) was alive today, he would have the answer to this one :rolleyes:

[Ridgeburner]

oh you guys! there will be no warp speed space travel, get your heads outta the books and movies. :rolleyes:

next you will tell me time travel is possible. :laugh:

No but apparently seeing into the future is :rolleyes: close-minded people.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Im wondering tho. Hydrogen burns as we all know (Hindenburg anyone), and I've seen some theories about using high temperature plasma as a shielding. Wouldn't that simply burn the atoms as the came in?

Hydrogen burns in the presence of an oxidizing agent (as far as I'm aware). On Earth, that oxidizing agent is oxygen. Hydrogen + oxygen = combustion reaction. In space though, I don't think it'd be an issue.

Anyway, I never really thought of this. I guess being a Trekkie does have its "blinding" effect. It's definitely interesting though. In Star Trek, this issue is remedied with bussard collectors and navigational arrays (aka deflector dishes).

[Astra.Xtreme]

2. Inertial Dampers solve that problem. Too bad they aren't real yet.

3. Science used to say the world was flat too, yet every year more and more Star Trek technology becomes reality. Don't put too much stock in what "science" has to say about something. With time, science fiction becomes science fact.

Well back then, people made things up to sound smart, or to gain a cult/religious following. Einsteins' theories are actually based on something real.

According to physics:

Time travel to the past is theoretically allowed using the following methods

* Travelling faster than the speed of light

* The use of cosmic strings and black holes

* Wormholes and Alcubierre drive

I think you might have that one mixed up. Traveling near or at the speed of light compresses time, so you'd actually be going forward in time if you made a round trip somewhere. (ie travel at the speed of light for one year starting at earth and returning. It will be 7 years later on earth while only 1 year elapsed for you). Honestly, the only way to go back in time is to look at something through a telescope.

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

Plus they forget the whole point of WARP drive.

Namely the ship itself is stationary inside a bubble of subspace created by the warping of space/time by the nacelles. It's the subspace bubble itself that travels at transwarp speeds, not the ship. The deflector dish and Bussard collectors are both intended for sublight, i.e. IMPULSE speeds.

This^

[mokthraka]

Even if it was possible to get anywhere close to light speed, we don't have enough (much less energetic enough) resources here on Earth to accelerate up to it.

Even with every drop left of oil we have, it wouldn't provide enough energy to accelerate a spaceship. I'm not saying there aren't other energy sources we could use, but that's the magnitude of "stuff" we are looking at.

1. We don't have the resources

2. Our bodies could never handle it (in many many aspects)

3. Science says it can't be done

Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say humans will probably be extinct way before we hit the light speed milestone. I mean, we have to be realistic here. :p

science said traveling to the moon wasnt possible. your point? actually science has said a lot of stuff isnt possible, yet now it is

[Growled Member]

Science used to say the world was flat too, yet every year more and more Star Trek technology becomes reality. Don't put too much stock in what "science" has to say about something. With time, science fiction becomes science fact.

I really don't pay that much attention to guys like this because most of the time their "theories" are proven wrong. Like you say, more of science fiction is becoming science fact every day. When we get to the point where we have fast-than-light drive, we'll find a way to solve the other parts of it.