There's a definite problem with interstellar long term space ship travel. First of all it would take lots of resources and thus money, the amount of metal and other nonrenewable resources needed to make it big enough would be incredible.

First of all, you'd need to create a artificial ecosystem involving quick growing plants that have a high photosynthesis to volume ratio, As well as a system to keep them reproducing and growing, as well as plants that would be used for food, materials and medicine.

You would need a bacteria and decomposer system going to naturally break down toxins and pollutants and contaminates in the water, so sewage could be be filtered and the water reused, as well as for trash, basically a compost pile with different stages, so all matter is recycled.

You'd need some sort of renewable energy source like something working off the spaceships own gravity, plus solar panels.

You would need mini factories, for the production of medicine, food, equipment, clothes, all products needed.

The ship would need Hospital bays, methods of transport, and lots of places for the huge population needed to keep everything running to live.

Of course a great deal would be done by the technology, all automated, but you would need people to repair and operate and monitor some of it at least.

This big hulking thing would need multiple huge engines and systems and defenses and thrusters, which would require lots of power to get it going and maneuvering, all of which would need to be run by electricity. All of this and other computers and servers and parts would take up considerable amounts of room.

All of this, would require world cooperation, sharing of resources, extensive mining and extracting, destroying our earth to make a new home, We would need to do all this, for hundreds and hundreds of years of work, while still having our economies and governments... Extremely unlikely.

Now here comes the worse part...

The space ship would need to recycle all it's matter, so when parts break off or are destroyed in space, that matter is lost. In order to stay sustainable it would need asteroid and other space rocks mining systems, and it's not sure if youd be able to extract the matter you need, or if you even have discovered this element before. You would need the machinery and factories to make parts to repair and make things.

Why all this sustainability and recylcing you ask? In interstellar travel you cant have a transport bringing materials from the home planet to the ship, at least not while the ship is far away or moving away. You can't just stock pile everything you need, because at the distance and speed you would be going it would take millennia and millennia to reach the destination, generation after generation of humans, meaning you would need a darwinistic nazi society to kill off any genetically inferior humans to ensure that bad genes did not contaminate the gene pool and make the population all susceptible to those genetic illnesses. Same with all organisms on the ship, to prevent them from being all susceptible.

All this would be required for us to explore the galaxy, all this for interstellar flight. A single thing could end it all. In the end, it is highly unlikely it would ever happen. The problem with the speed of light is, how do you know if what you are heading for is still there by the time you reach it? Going faster than the speed of light would have serious implications if it was actually possible...

Sorry to ruin those sci-fi dreams...  

What's the point of this thread...  

I agree.. With higbey!  

I read the last 2 paragraphs and I agree.  

NU! U LIE! i wach da sta wers an it sho dat it possinle an i can b Jedi and admin haha.  

Posted by Blueh

NU! U LIE! i wach da sta wers an it sho dat it possinle an i can b Jedi and admin haha.

0mg ya now u mak me beliv ya we be jedi msters  

Higby iz fiding us with liez we ar not mindles R0b0otz of the prepegenda!!!!!!!!!  

ya we be jedi we stop hibgy join us dimentio. i dun evn uderstend some of teh wrds he used.  

I fully agree. I have always been sort of a fanatic of space. This post was logical and informative. +rep.  

the moon and mars are realistic targets

but that'll be in the far future, not anytime soon. perhaps you should stop wasting billions trying to fight off 3rd world scum and invest even 10% of that military budget into your NASA programs.  

chrono you speak the truth  

Posted by Crono

the moon and mars are realistic targets

but that'll be in the far future, not anytime soon. perhaps you should stop wasting billions trying to fight off 3rd world scum and invest even 10% of that military budget into your NASA programs.

Your post has made me wonder why we even bother over in other countries, and why the hell we have such a massive defense budget and crap budgets for everything else. What benefit do we gain from being over in Africa instead of investing that money into science and developing things like new medicine and FRICKIN LASER BEAMS. If we had FRICKIN LASER BEAMS, we wouldn't need all the defense spending because nobody messes with FRICKIN LASER BEAMS.

My point is, I agree with you.  

actually we have something already equal to a lazer gun, a gun that can shoot lightning is being developed, for tank destruction and blowing up carbombs or whatever.  

Posted by Higbey

actually we have something already equal to a lazer gun, a gun that can shoot lightning is being developed, for tank destruction and blowing up carbombs or whatever.

Lightning. A gun that shoots lightning. See, we get cool stuff with science. Give science more money, and they can make cooler stuff. Being all annoying and getting our own people killed in Africa gets us no cool stuff.  

Even if astronauts could sustain themselves indefinitely while on a trip to more distant plants it'd he a huge sacrifice because of the time it takes. Whoever would decide to go would probably not see their family for many decades, if ever again. To the outer planets it would practically be a suicide mission in the name of science.

Astronomy is insanely awesome but equally frustrating. Much like geology, first-hand results/data takes a very long time to harvest, and the data that can be is usually miniscule in the grand scale of things. When almost everything around you has lifetimes of billions of years and even the entire lifetime of humans themselves as a race is but a fraction of a fraction of the lifetime of even Earth... it's hard to really ever know anything.

It's exciting to see all the new stuff that science discovers, but also it's saddening to know there is a lot that I will never see happen. Most experiments involved with space take generations or more to reap the rewards. There's just too much to try to ever know over way too long of a time.