Upvoted for your futile human attempts :P. I still disagree with your rebuttal. Yes, I did use an absolution word like "NEVER". But only because we have a limited time on earth before another massive extinction event occurs and realistically solving all the problems with space travel at light speed have such a tiny percentage of being solved that you might as well say its impossible for the sake of being realistic.
Lets look at your rebuttal:
1) Time dilation doesn't solve ANY of the impossibilities of traveling at light speed. Even the Earth, with its massive atmospheric force field and magnetic field only travels at 67,000 mph and still gets pummeled with meteors, natural space debris, and massive amounts of radiation that, despite being filtered out by a magnetic field thousands of miles thick, still delivers radiation. A tiny particle the size of a ballpoint from a ballpoint pen is nothing to fear, but when that particle is hits anything at light speed it is deadly. If there is 1 piece of space debris every 1 mile in space and you're traveling at light speed, the ship, no matter what it's made of is going to disintegrate when it gets hit with 11.1 million pieces of debris every minute. At that speed nothing can be deflected by shields all objects will disintegrate and rip the ship and crew apart.
Back to radiation: With 2 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter in space, at light speed the radiation exposure increases 100,000% PAST THE LETHAL LIMIT for humans. We would die of radiation exposure immediately. It would also destroy electronics on board. And NO, building an artificial force field is not going to work either. At light speed it will be useless. Also no force field of any kind will work or be able to work at such a high speed.
2) Still doesn't solve the unfilterable radiation problem, space debris problem, emotional toll, and cost. Granted things WILL improve in the future. They usually do. The problem is, we're both assuming that we will still be around long enough to figure this stuff out. Yes, we humans are smart and resilient but we live in an opportunist world where the longer any species stays alive (humans) the more counter-species (viruses/plague/bacteria) evolve to feed off of and kill the former species. We've extended our stay for quiet a while and are just now starting to feel our eventual fate with the rise of super viruses, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and super flus. And it will only get worse. As we evolve our microsized enemies do too. Lets not forget we're also self destructive.
3) Agreed, we could create habitats that don't kill us but this is assuming we actually reach another planet. Which just isn't going to happen.
4) We would go visit a society that was in its early stages of development just to see how they do it. At the cost of trillions of dollars and the lives of thousands, possibly millions of people over the course of thousands or millions of years. I don't think so.
I fully agree with you. While all of this is possible in theory, there are so many things that could go wrong, and one single mission would cost trillions.
Only if there is some extraordinary law(s) of physics that would open up entirely new methods of travel (and so many other things) would any of this be possible.
I still would like to spend a big chunk of my tax dollars on NASA, etc, but the idea that there is intelligent life out there, and it is likely that we are going to contact it, seems like nonsense to me.
I'd love it if we did, but I just don't think it's going to happen. And that's ok. Some people really seem to have an emotional horse in this game, I'm not sure why.
"Some people really seem to have an emotional horse in this game, I'm not sure why."
I think it's because no one likes being told what their limits are. And when faced with certain inevitable death humans will fantasize their way out of it to make themselves feel better. Even if it's illogical or obviously impossible. (ex: "When I die, I'm going to go to a magical place in the sky where there is no suffering, no pain, no death, no bad things, and I will have everything I want, and I will be happy and live there with all my friends and family forever." - Human fantasizing about "heaven"). And there's nothing wrong with that. We're only alive for so long, might as well spend that time being happy. It just sucks when people bring fantasy desires into scientific reality.
A MAJOR point I forgot to mention in my original post. If planets and suns existed forever then yes we might be able to work something out, even if we're not traveling at light speed. But the delays, distances, and time limits involved are what make all of this near impossible. We only have a few billion years before our sun starts entering into its red giant phase and burns away our home. A few thousand before another extinction event, and possibly few thousand before getting hit by a massive meteor. Whatever planet we find looking through a telescope will have its own time limits, it's own problems that we won't know about until its delayed and outdated light finally hits us. It's the delays, it's the distance, it's the time limits. Everything has to fall into place so well. And with no planet known 100% to sustain life, everything is a gamble with insanely impossible chances to win.
The distances are so massive in space, the time delay between sending a message just light years away and getting it back makes the gamble worse. Imagine starting a voyage and midway finding out the planet has been destroyed or has entered a massive extinction phase that will escalate when we get there. Or finding out the planet is no longer inhabitable. Lets not forget our own Earth has entered periods where it was one massive boiling ocean, one big icicle, a bunch of lava. Granted we've moved away from those periods towards stability. But what if the planet we're heading towards destabilizes while we're on our way there?
Most people are visualizing space by what they've seen in star trek or star wars. With percentages of failure and death completely missing from their mental image of what it truly means to travel in space. People see it as a game of patience. When it's really a game of 'ALL of the odds are stacked against you and continue to stack against you the longer you stay out there'.
The more I think about this the more I realize how really lucky we are being on Earth. Really really lucky.
Lets look at your rebuttal:
1) Time dilation doesn't solve ANY of the impossibilities of traveling at light speed. Even the Earth, with its massive atmospheric force field and magnetic field only travels at 67,000 mph and still gets pummeled with meteors, natural space debris, and massive amounts of radiation that, despite being filtered out by a magnetic field thousands of miles thick, still delivers radiation. A tiny particle the size of a ballpoint from a ballpoint pen is nothing to fear, but when that particle is hits anything at light speed it is deadly. If there is 1 piece of space debris every 1 mile in space and you're traveling at light speed, the ship, no matter what it's made of is going to disintegrate when it gets hit with 11.1 million pieces of debris every minute. At that speed nothing can be deflected by shields all objects will disintegrate and rip the ship and crew apart.
Back to radiation: With 2 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter in space, at light speed the radiation exposure increases 100,000% PAST THE LETHAL LIMIT for humans. We would die of radiation exposure immediately. It would also destroy electronics on board. And NO, building an artificial force field is not going to work either. At light speed it will be useless. Also no force field of any kind will work or be able to work at such a high speed.
2) Still doesn't solve the unfilterable radiation problem, space debris problem, emotional toll, and cost. Granted things WILL improve in the future. They usually do. The problem is, we're both assuming that we will still be around long enough to figure this stuff out. Yes, we humans are smart and resilient but we live in an opportunist world where the longer any species stays alive (humans) the more counter-species (viruses/plague/bacteria) evolve to feed off of and kill the former species. We've extended our stay for quiet a while and are just now starting to feel our eventual fate with the rise of super viruses, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and super flus. And it will only get worse. As we evolve our microsized enemies do too. Lets not forget we're also self destructive.
3) Agreed, we could create habitats that don't kill us but this is assuming we actually reach another planet. Which just isn't going to happen.
4) We would go visit a society that was in its early stages of development just to see how they do it. At the cost of trillions of dollars and the lives of thousands, possibly millions of people over the course of thousands or millions of years. I don't think so.