Comments on: Ep. 145: Interstellar Travel

By: Ed Culver

Ed Culver — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:37:04 +0000

Remember Project Orion? Somebody (iirc, Freeman Dyson) suggested a large ship powered by dropping h-bombs out the back; he figured about 100 years to Alpha Cen.

By: MattFenwick

MattFenwick — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:56:58 +0000

Quantum Tunneling???

By: Sam Bartlett

Sam Bartlett — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:47:42 +0000

One of the most fascinating books I have ever read is “The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel (Wiley Science Editions) by Eugene F. Mallove and Gregory L. Matloff. Although it was published in 1989 it still makes fascinating reading and is still relevant.

By: Scott Hodgins

Scott Hodgins — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:45:10 +0000

Interstellar travel will not be about humans jumping from Earth to other star systems in spaceships resembling aircraft or ocean liners. Interstellar travel will rather be about roaming colonies of humans, plants, and animals slowly (relatively speaking) meandering across the galaxy. We won't be travelling through space so much as living through it.

By: Thameron

Thameron — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:41:13 +0000

Sending live, fully grown human beings to another star system with the technology we know today or can project into the near (and even far) future is madness (and barring a major breakthrough hopeless as well). However if colonizing the galaxy and seeding it with terrestrial life is the goal that goal can be accomplished much easier by quite literally sending seeds. Then the life is created with local energy sources and materials. As far as I know there are no physical laws preventing us from creating seeds which can grow plants that gestate human beings (or whatever sentient form of life we choose) and we could either encode their memories genetically, include it on the transport ship or broadcast it to them from Earth. Either way we are spared the difficulty of sending a fully grown human being to another star.