Higher time warp and hibernation instead of magic, unrealistic "warp drive o.O".

[leax256]

you do realise the only form of "hibernation" tech we have is cryogenic sleep and we aren't even sure they can be revived, so yea...

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

you do realise the only form of "hibernation" tech we have is cryogenic sleep and we aren't even sure they can be revived, so yea...

yeah people who were tested and wanted to be put in cryogenic sleep won't come back.. If you unfreeze them the'll break into pieces and well won't be alive.

[Sean Mirrsen]

yeah people who were tested and wanted to be put in cryogenic sleep won't come back.. If you unfreeze them the'll break into pieces and well won't be alive.

More accurately they'll unfreeze into rapidly dying vegetables, because of cellular damage, as even with measures taken against fluid crystallization it's pretty much impossible to fully remove. Last I checked, anyway.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

More accurately they'll unfreeze into rapidly dying vegetables, because of cellular damage, as even with measures taken against fluid crystallization it's pretty much impossible to fully remove. Last I checked, anyway.

Quite sad, They can't die and is trapped in an eternal dream.

[AngelLestat]

Sean Mirrsen

I personally find the problems people have with violating causality hilarious. Even putting aside the notion that quantum entanglement is a thing that sort of exists.

Quantum entanglement not violate causality. The effect seems to be instant, but you can not use it to communicate usefull information.

And here is the key, the information is the one that has problem with the speed of light. But well, information is almost everything, 1 atom is information, becoz it has a position x-y-z, spin and electrons.

communicate information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

Observers don't go into different universes. Everyone observes the outcome of the decision made. To some, it is correct. To others, it is in error.

http://www.phys.vt.edu/~takeuchi/relativity/notes/section10.html

|Velocity|

probably some massive mirrors maybe 1000 km across to keep it focused on a distant spacecraft.

The fact is that you dont really need huge sails or lens to focus.

In Robert Forward`s idea (1980) he use really big sails and focus lens because he use aluminum.

Now there is new materials like dielectricts or carbon nanotuves sheets who bring miracles improvementes.

The sail it does not need to be big with today materials. The only purpose to make a sail big would be linked to the problem of aim. But we are talking about 0,5 or 1 km sail.

And to make fusion rockets a posibility in the game, we would need to forget that bussard ramjet is not feasible (more drag than propulssion), and incorporate to the game with some bonus parameters to at least acomplish 0,4c and the chance to use it as brake.

This will keep the balance with the game, because we can said that bussard ramjet only would work for speeds fasters than 0,05c.

Having that in mind, can not be used to in-system transfers. So the balance remains.

Brody_Peffley

Uhm I hope you know that NASA is currently developing new technology for warp drives using negative energy which there trying to make.

I have a challenge for you. Try to find the source of that information

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

Quantum entanglement not violate causality. The effect seems to be instant, but you can not use it to communicate usefull information.

And here is the key, the information is the one that has problem with the speed of light. But well, information is almost everything, 1 atom is information, becoz it has a position x-y-z, spin and electrons.

communicate information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

http://www.phys.vt.edu/~takeuchi/relativity/notes/section10.html

The fact is that you dont really need huge sails or lens to focus.

In Robert Forward`s idea (1980) he use really big sails and focus lens because he use aluminum.

Now there is new materials like dielectricts or carbon nanotuves sheets who bring miracles improvementes.

The sail it does not need to be big with today materials. The only purpose to make a sail big would be linked to the problem of aim. But we are talking about 0,5 or 1 km sail.

And to make fusion rockets a posibility in the game, we would need to forget that bussard ramjet is not feasible (more drag than propulssion), and incorporate to the game with some bonus parameters to at least acomplish 0,4c and the chance to use it as brake.

This will keep the balance with the game, because we can said that bussard ramjet only would work for speeds fasters than 0,05c.

Having that in mind, can not be used to in-system transfers. So the balance remains.

I have a challenge for you. Try to find the source of that information

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warp.html here you go.

[AlamoVampire]

gonna be blunt: a true, actual warp drive is not magic at all, it is simply beyond our meager capabilities and understanding of any form of physics at this time. In time it will be no less magical than our smart phones are to us today or our ability as a species to go to the ISS or fly from New York to LA or to London or where ever. It is shocking the amount of stuff that Mr. Roddenberry predicted with the original Star Trek. Hand held communicators at the time were 'sci-fi magic' but today:

The communicator of science fiction:

the communicator today:

or if you like, from ST-TNG the humble PADD:

to today's IPAD:

as you see, what you so readily dismiss as magic, is more than possible, it WILL happen. Right now, people say we cannot exceed the speed of light. this, for now, is true, but that is ONLY because we do not yet know or can even fathom the physics needed or the technology needed to make this possible, one day, we will, and we will look back and say, how did we survive with out it?

[Sean Mirrsen]

http://www.phys.vt.edu/~takeuchi/relativity/notes/section10.html

The first one is a case of light lag - or perhaps more accurately, light warp. An arrow traveling faster than light would strike the target faster than the light reflected off the position of the shooter - to anyone watching the target, the arrow would strike before it was loosed.

The second one, as it seems to be the case with all train examples here, is flawed. Instantaneous communication between all points means that all points receive a message at the same time. From the observer at C, A has not yet sent a message when he needs to relay a message from B to D, whom he knows will sent the message instantly - from the PoV of C, A receives the message before he sends it. From the PoV of B, A, and D, A sends the message and immediately receives it, despite D doing nothing from the PoV of B, and C not yet existing in the PoV of A.

For people studying in a field where all reference points are said to be equal, they don't seem to accept the curious notion that there exist points of view other than theirs that may be just as correct.

[Person012345]

No. You missed the point of my thought experiment. My example concerns FTL communication. The spacecraft in the middle of a warp bubble does not accelerate, that is true. This means that the FTL warp drive spacecraft does not face the traditional barrier to FTL travel- that it takes infinite energy to accelerate up to the speed of light. HOWEVER, the FTL warp drive still represents a FTL communication method, regardless of the fact that the spacecraft does not accelerate. The warp drive ship gets from point A to point B faster than a beam of light, and the inhabitants of a warp drive ship can communicate information about point A to the people at point B faster than a beam of light can. Thus, it violates causality.

Causality isn't a proven fact. It's an intuitive thing. I have no problem with things violating causality given that causality is just something that "makes sense" and the universe is actually rather full of nonsense.

[AngelLestat]

Brody_Peffley

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/te...warp/warp.html here you go.

Really? that is your link?

It does not said NOTHING about your claim.

It said: "This web site focuses on the propulsion related issues, explaining the challenges of interstellar travel, existing propulsion ideas, and the possibilities emerging from scientific literature that may one day provide the desired breakthroughs."

First, is just a website, second it does not said nothing about warp drives researchs.

Keep trying, when you find a source, post the link and dont forget to quote the text where it mention the things that you are claiming.

AlamoVampire

Ah of course, that was a really hard assumption in that time.. or not? We already had communications satellites, we had woki tokis, soldiers at war use big radios (of course they need power to transmit the signal very far, not like now with millions antennas).

Additionally if you have a communication devides it will be a good assumption to use it with your hand, like all other tools that we have.

But taking that only "hit" between hundreds of fail assumptions, then it must be enough evidence to said that warp drive would be true

Sean Mirrsen

First, things can be measure, so there is not bad interpretations.

But lets said that if for someone the bomb explotes and from a different point of view it does not. Then the universe split in 2 new temporal path, so we would have almost infinite universes taking each case and choices.

It can be.... it does not have any logic, but lets said that is like that.

Then to make warp drive a feasible idea, you need to break 5 more laws and all the technical problems. Good luck with that

But lets assume that you can break all the laws. This mean that you are in a technology level where everything can be possible. Where we left our corporeal shape behind, to become something beyond the understanding.

Then we can cross from universe to universe, and we have different ways to accomplish all our needs. This mean that maybe it will be pointless to travel using warpdrives. Maybe there is not reason to travel then.

So all becomes magic and nosense from our point of view. So it will be boring as hell because we dont have any common ground to relate it with the live we know.

One more thing.

We can find FTL in all space games, is nothing new. But you can not find any real interstellar propulssion system in any game.

And KSP already choose the real physics path. Where all the rocket sicience can be applied to what we real do in KSP.

[Sean Mirrsen]

First, things can be measure, so there is not bad interpretations.

But lets said that if for someone the bomb explotes and from a different point of view it does not. Then the universe split in 2 new temporal path, so we would have almost infinite universes taking each case and choices.

It can be.... it does not have any logic, but lets said that is like that.

Then to make warp drive a feasible idea, you need to break 5 more laws and all the technical problems. Good luck with that

But lets assume that you can break all the laws. This mean that you are in a technology level where everything can be possible. Where we left our corporeal shape behind, to become something beyond the understanding.

Then we can cross from universe to universe, and we have different ways to accomplish all our needs. This mean that maybe it will be pointless to travel using warpdrives. Maybe there is not reason to travel then.

So all becomes magic and nosense from our point of view. So it will be boring as hell because we dont have any common ground to relate it with the live we know.

You are.. very hard to follow. Let's try to make sense of this...

But lets said that if for someone the bomb explotes and from a different point of view it does not. Then the universe split in 2 new temporal path, so we would have almost infinite universes taking each case and choices.

It can be.... it does not have any logic, but lets said that is like that.

Then to make warp drive a feasible idea, you need to break 5 more laws and all the technical problems. Good luck with that

The bomb either explodes, or it does not. A person either sees the bomb explode when it does, sees it later than it does, or only sees the crater after it's already exploded. If you fly away at superluminal speed away from an exploding bomb, you will see that it unexplodes and sits there (assuming some terrible things about how light works), but stop flying away and sit still long enough, and you'll see it explode again. It's pure propagation of information.

But lets assume that you can break all the laws. This mean that you are in a technology level where everything can be possible. Where we left our corporeal shape behind, to become something beyond the understanding.

Then we can cross from universe to universe, and we have different ways to accomplish all our needs. This mean that maybe it will be pointless to travel using warpdrives. Maybe there is not reason to travel then.

So all becomes magic and nosense from our point of view. So it will be boring as hell because we dont have any common ground to relate it with the live we know.

This is fairly moot given the above, but eh. The Multiverse may or may not exist until we've been there and went back, but I do believe it exists, and it has nothing to do with flying faster than light.

It's also a very, very boring place to live in after a while, though it is exciting for the first few perceived millenia or so. The principle of the thing is that the Multiverse is infinite. There is a universe where you spontaneously combust upon reading this. There is a universe where I am a ceramic-feathered duck that spontaneously ceases to exist at irregular intervals. There are an infinite amount of permutations, or at the very least infinite for all practical purposes, and each and every one of them has a right to being, although they do have wildly varying probability indices, so you could say that there is a whole lot more of the things that make sense than the things that don't. It's a curious place that you'll spend a lot of time exploring, but it will become quite boring after a while, as you will realize that everything already exists, and none of what you do matters, as you can't add anything new. If you choose to go to a universe, you will not actually go there - you will simply see a universe where a person that is an exact copy of you spontaneously materializes out of nothing, and starts doing the exact things you would have done if you went there.

But I digress.

One more thing.

We can find FTL in all space games, is nothing new. But you can not find any real interstellar propulssion system in any game.

And KSP already choose the real physics path. Where all the rocket sicience can be applied to what we real do in KSP.

Choosing the real physics path is no reason to abhor the theoretical and the fictional. Fun must come before realism, especially since KSP was never intended as a simulator.

[AngelLestat]

The bomb either explodes, or it does not. A person either sees the bomb explode when it does, sees it later than it does, or only sees the crater after it's already exploded. If you fly away at superluminal speed away from an exploding bomb, you will see that it unexplodes and sits there (assuming some terrible things about how light works), but stop flying away and sit still long enough, and you'll see it explode again. It's pure propagation of information.

Is still you who does not understand the causality principle or some relativistic effects.

It's also a very, very boring place to live in after a while, though it is exciting for the first few perceived millenia or so. The principle of the thing is that the Multiverse is infinite. There is a universe where you spontaneously combust upon reading this. There is a universe where I am a ceramic-feathered duck that spontaneously ceases to exist at irregular intervals. There are an infinite amount of permutations, or at the very least infinite for all practical purposes, and each and every one of them has a right to being, although they do have wildly varying probability indices, so you could say that there is a whole lot more of the things that make sense than the things that don't. It's a curious place that you'll spend a lot of time exploring, but it will become quite boring after a while, as you will realize that everything already exists, and none of what you do matters, as you can't add anything new. If you choose to go to a universe, you will not actually go there - you will simply see a universe where a person that is an exact copy of you spontaneously materializes out of nothing, and starts doing the exact things you would have done if you went there.

You understand all wrong. In that sentence I was not talking about multiverses... I was talking only about the technology advance that you need to make something like warp drive a possibility, and giving that technology level it will change all the things that we know, our vehicles, tools, culture, etc. in way so far of our imaginations. So there is no possible to have warp drive for one side and normal rockets or things that we know in conjunction.

And if you like so much all the nosense, then you have the debug menu option "alt f12" to turn off the gravity, collisions, infinite fuells and all the things that will make the game fun (in your opinion)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Is still you who does not understand the causality principle or some relativistic effects.

I understand the general principle of relativity and how it relates to causality et al. I am maintaining that the rhetoric that uses it as a weapon against FTL travel is in error. It's all about the points of view. From one both people that see different things are right. From another, all but a few are wrong. Ironically, our stances on the matter are the opposite of the points of view they represent.

You understand all wrong. In that sentence I was not talking about multiverses... I was talking only about the technology advance that you need to make something like warp drive a possibility, and giving that technology level it will change all the things that we know, our vehicles, tools, culture, etc. in way so far of our imaginations. So there is no possible to have warp drive for one side and normal rockets or things that we know in conjunction.

Like I said, that segment of yours was moot because there were no broken rules. You just mentioned all the different universes. I just happen to be very partial to the Multiverse, so it's rather a favorite subject of mine. It wasn't meant to contribute to the discussion.

And if you like so much all the nosense, then you have the debug menu option "alt f12" to turn off the gravity, collisions, infinite fuells and all the things that will make the game fun (in your opinion)

What I like is a fun and challenging game of starship construction, starship piloting, and exploration. I don't like pointlessly grinding towards goals, and spending time doing nothing important or engaging. The reason we have a compressed universe and ion engines a few hundred (thousand?) times more powerful than they have any right to be is because otherwise the game would be a drawl. The last thing I want to be doing is playing a realistic interstellar mission structure, decades apart between departure and arrival, all intervening time spent amassing resources in order to build just another probe to the nearest star.

I don't want it to be ridiculously easy either - Noctis gets old pretty fast, even with the naming. There needs to be a challenge in going to a different star, but not a challenge that would deter all but the most determined players due to the logistics involved in it.

Put it differently: It's possible to fly to, land on, and freely explore and do anything, on any body of the Kerbol system, using technology that, in career mode, will be at most midgame-tier. There are almost no more challenges remaining in this system that have not been done stock. By your proposal, the player would be stuck sitting on this level, doing nothing but waiting for tech to improve and for resources to accumulate, until he is able to build an interstellar ship - which will only deliver a probe. By any of the FTL proposals, the player would, after some preparations and obstacle-busting, be using his midgame tech to try and explore a whole different system, finding new things to do and new places to go, with the improving technology aiding him in the task. I don't know what game you want to play, but I'd rather play the latter.

[lajoswinkler]

gonna be blunt: a true, actual warp drive is not magic at all, it is simply beyond our meager capabilities and understanding of any form of physics at this time. In time it will be no less magical than our smart phones are to us today or our ability as a species to go to the ISS or fly from New York to LA or to London or where ever. It is shocking the amount of stuff that Mr. Roddenberry predicted with the original Star Trek. Hand held communicators at the time were 'sci-fi magic' but today:

The communicator of science fiction:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41-Uwy7wr9L._SX300_.jpg

the communicator today:

http://redalertpolitics.com/files/2012/05/cell-phone.jpeg

or if you like, from ST-TNG the humble PADD: http://www.trekprops.de/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/padd_history_4569.jpg

to today's IPAD: http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2013/02/macrumors-ipad5b.jpg

as you see, what you so readily dismiss as magic, is more than possible, it WILL happen. Right now, people say we cannot exceed the speed of light. this, for now, is true, but that is ONLY because we do not yet know or can even fathom the physics needed or the technology needed to make this possible, one day, we will, and we will look back and say, how did we survive with out it?

Sorry, but that's BS.

a) Warp drive, as conceived in Star Trek, is a fictional propulsion system. It's imaginary. Someone made it up to create enough material for the story. It's no better than any other fictional propulsion system out there, any time travelling portal, ship or whatever.

Just because the show's creators were smart enough to predict the miniaturization of the existing devices (something already in the progress at the time) and we now have even better stuff, doesn't mean a fictional propulsion system that is colliding with the known laws of nature is possible.

You just can not compare these two things.

Nature existed before Star Trek, and will not comply to it.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Sorry, but that's BS.

a) Warp drive, as conceived in Star Trek, is a fictional propulsion system. It's imaginary. Someone made it up to create enough material for the story. It's no better than any other fictional propulsion system out there, any time travelling portal, ship or whatever.

Just because the show's creators were smart enough to predict the miniaturization of the existing devices (something already in the progress at the time) and we now have even better stuff, doesn't mean a fictional propulsion system that is colliding with the known laws of nature is possible.

You just can not compare these two things.

Nature existed before Star Trek, and will not comply to it.

The Alcubierre drive is mighty similar to the Warp Drive. Not by far the same thing, but still. We know how it can be done. We don't know how to get there yet, but we're working on it.

And it's not about Star Trek, not at all. It's just the most influential of the fictional works. Or, one of the most. Many other fictional writers have described discoveries and devices well ahead of their time, and many things we take for granted today were deemed absolutely inconceivable mere decades ago.

Fiction really only really remains fiction until man looks at it and decides "I want one of those".

From there, it's a question of time and effort.

[lajoswinkler]

Yeah, we just need to find a way to curve the spacetime in a bubble. Just like we would need all the energy our Sun has ever yielded to accelerate a random vehicle to 0.999999 c.

To quote you: We know how it can be done. We don't know how to get there yet, but we're working on it.

I'm sorry, but it won't happen. Just because something works on paper as a thought experiment doesn't mean it will work in reality.

Going around the universe in a vehicle at 50 c, beaming to the planet surface or replicating a turkey in a second - those are made up ideas tailored for a TV series, and that's how things are going to stay.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, we just need to find a way to curve the spacetime in a bubble. Just like we would need all the energy our Sun has ever yielded to accelerate a random vehicle to 0.999999 c.

To quote you: We know how it can be done. We don't know how to get there yet, but we're working on it.

I'm sorry, but it won't happen. Just because something works on paper as a thought experiment doesn't mean it will work in reality.

Going around the universe in a vehicle at 50 c, beaming to the planet surface or replicating a turkey in a second - those are made up ideas tailored for a TV series, and that's how things are going to stay.

Do I really need to quote all the people who said similar things about the world being round, the Earth not being the center of the universe, flight, heavier-than-air flight, personal computers, spaceflight, etc.?

Star Trek transporters present a more nontrivial problem (one of essentially killing and replicating the person), but there is, fundamentally, nothing wrong with the principle itself either. It is, granted, a far more advanced technology than even Warp Drive - as demonstrated by the ST series itself, actually - but sooner or later those portable novelty 3D printers might learn to work with molecules instead of plastic pellets, and from there... who knows?

Yes, I'm aware of the Heisenberg principle et al that obstruct the creation of a true "transporter", but ultimately it's a technical problem - the principle does only mention "exact" values. There are always margins of error in technology.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Sean Mirrsen

[lajoswinkler]

Do I really need to quote all the people who said similar things about the world being round, the Earth not being the center of the universe, flight, heavier-than-air flight, personal computers, spaceflight, etc.?

Star Trek transporters present a more nontrivial problem (one of essentially killing and replicating the person), but there is, fundamentally, nothing wrong with the principle itself either. It is, granted, a far more advanced technology than even Warp Drive - as demonstrated by the ST series itself, actually - but sooner or later those portable novelty 3D printers might learn to work with molecules instead of plastic pellets, and from there... who knows?

Yes, I'm aware of the Heisenberg principle et al that obstruct the creation of a true "transporter", but ultimately it's a technical problem - the principle does only mention "exact" values. There are always margins of error in technology.

You don't, because those are failed arguments. Flat Earth was never a scientific theory. It was a religious dogma. Just like Geocentric system. Contrary evidence existed, but you had to keep your mouth shut to avoid being burned alive. Ancient Greeks knew the world was round and presumed at least the Sun was the center of the universe.

Flight was also never proven to be scientifically impossible, merely technologically extremely hard to accomplish.

Who ever said PCs were scientifically impossible? LOL

Scientific evidence against spaceflight also never existed.

Transporters will never be able to transport anything more complex than a small number of simple molecules. Stacking atoms in layers is the best we can hope.

You obviously lack an insight what a living organism is from a biochemical standpoint. Not only a computer that would have to store all the data from every particle would have to be larger than the Earth (I'm understating, actually), but the process itself could never ever replicate an exact copy of a tissue, let alone a living organism.

If you consider Heisenberg principle a technical problem, you aren't really aware of it. Sorry, but that's how things work. You, as many people out there, can't distinguish science from technology.

[AlamoVampire]

<SNIP>

it is closed minded people like you that would stagnate humanity and keep us shackled to this planet. What we see in Star Trek is a grand vision for what COULD be. Will it shake out to be exactly like that? Who knows, but to blatantly claim that we will never see technology that is like that, is well, foolish. Flight was nothing more than fantasy and something reserved for insects and birds until 2 very brilliant men in Ohio said: you know what? that looks kinda fun, bet we can do that! and guess what? WE DID. Jules Verne made wild claims in the 19th century about space travel, and MANY people thought as you now do that it would never happen and could NOT be done, and what have we done? Stepped foot on the moon, sent probe after probe after probe beyond this planet with 2 very nearly out side the reach of OUR STAR, again, something that a CENTURY ago was IMPOSSIBLE. Do not sell humanity short by claiming something is NOT possible. Hell, look at 20,000 leagues under the sea, impossible technology of underwater ships that stay down there for long duration. oh wait, we do that on a daily basis in the various Navies of the world or the various Scientific submersible vehicles used. They once said it was impossible to touch down on the bottom of the sea, and we sent a sub down to the bottom of the marianas trench and down into Challenger deep. They said man cannot travel faster than sound, that it was impossible to exceed the barrier of sound and we have world air speed records that show that it is possible and back in the day Chuck Yeager did just that, broke MACH 1. They said man cannot drive faster than the speed of sound, and yet: The official land-speed record (measured over one mile) is 1,227.985 km/h (763.035 mi/h) (Mach 1.020), set by Andy Green (UK) on 15 October 1997 in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA, in Thrust SSC. source: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/2000/land-speed-(fastest-car)

Soon, there will be an attempt to break 1,000 MILES PER HOUR on the GROUND, will it succeed? Who knows, but, NOTHING is impossible.

The day we stop and say something is not possible is the day we stop trying. The day we say we can not go one step further is the day we as a whole have given up. There is no goal that we cannot attain, nothing we cannot do if we put our minds to it. Humanity cannot nor shall it ever be shackled to a limit that some would impose on us, because it is in our very nature to progress, to strive for that next hill, to seek what we do not know. It is not in our nature as humans to say that what we have is enough, that we know enough. Never will the day come when we and our curiosity is satiated and we allow ourselves to stagnate, it is not in our nature. We are the curious, we are the intelligent, we are the ones who have stood up and said we do not know enough, that we want to learn more, that we MUST learn more. We are the people who will push humanity forward into territory never before conceived outside of science fiction and dare to make it a reality. We will never sit down and let questions go unanswered. We do not know what we cannot do, not because we have not done enough, but because we have not stopped to say that we cannot do something. We may not now know how to achieve what the authors of science fiction so readily give us, but we will one day find a way to make those fantasies a reality. That is our responsibility as sentient beings on this planet. It is our duty to step forward and say to each other and then into the stars and heavens above that we will not be denied our place in the cosmic chorus, for we will one day know how to sing you our songs of progress and that day will come sooner rather than later!

[lajoswinkler]

Who knows, but, NOTHING is impossible.

Keep dreaming.

[allmappedout]

Unfortunately, he does have a point. The required information required to store a person is staggeringly huge (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/31/beam_me_up_not_if_youre_in_a_hurry/).

Now, obviously, this is based on a limited (but almost unfeasibly large!) amount of bandwidth, but as you can see, it's definitely outside of our current and near-future reach. That's not to say it's insurmountable, but it's certainly going to require something outside anything we've currently thought of.

[Bacterius]

Keep dreaming.

What's wrong with dreaming?

[Person012345]

Transporters will never be able to transport anything more complex than a small number of simple molecules. Stacking atoms in layers is the best we can hope.

You obviously lack an insight what a living organism is from a biochemical standpoint. Not only a computer that would have to store all the data from every particle would have to be larger than the Earth (I'm understating, actually), but the process itself could never ever replicate an exact copy of a tissue, let alone a living organism.

Now you're just validating his argument about spaceflight and aviation.

[AngelLestat]

Ok. let's go back to the point of this discussion thread.

I think the main problem here is lack of knowledge about how much has to offer serius concept of interstellar propulsion. And the fact that light speed limit can be an advantage instead a barrier.

How much would we take to travel to the center of the galaxy "27000 ly"?

-With relativity at 99,999% light speed aprox 70 years.

-With imaginary FTL at 100c it will take 270 years.

And if you close more and more to the light speed you will reach a point that you will do it in just weaks. Of course the earth time lapsed it will be still 27000 years.

Sean Mirrsen

The reason we have a compressed universe and ion engines a few hundred (thousand?) times more powerful than they have any right to be is because otherwise the game would be a drawl. The last thing I want to be doing is playing a realistic interstellar mission structure, decades apart between departure and arrival, all intervening time spent amassing resources in order to build just another probe to the nearest star.

First, the ion drives thrust is higher than normal just because we can not have any engine "on" in the time warp designed by squad.

But you will notice that you burn xenon gas a lot faster than in real live. So is the same!

So if we had a different timewarp mode for some kinds of propulsions where structure physics is not taken into account then it would be no need to modify ion engines. In fact you can reach higher delta V with ion engines in real live than in KSP.

Also you are wrong about how it will be incorporate real propulsion system in ksp.

Yes! it will be a "little harded" than build an space station. But once you have all set up, then you can use it for any amount of travels that you want. And in the case that you dont wanna waste time in infracstructure needed, then you can download your favorite save file according to your tastes.

And is not only to probes!! Of course your first mission it will have a lot more of sense if you do it with probes. But if you want you can expand your collector and send kerbals.

Also we already need to set up a big infrastructure in space to send a manned mission to laythe, and the mission time it is like 4 years.

But it seems that you want a mission frame of 1 years without any infrastructure to send kerbals to other stars..

IS CRAZY!!!

lajoswinkler

You don't, because those are failed arguments. Flat Earth was never a scientific theory. It was a religious dogma.

Agree, but if they use those examples in benefic of FTL idea, then we can use thousands of examples where similar ideas (like FTL now) was claimed and prove wrong later. So we dont go anywhere following this path.

AlamoVampire

What we see in Star Trek is a grand vision for what COULD be

seriously? star trek a grand vision??

Of course, it can be entertaining and inspiring , like those tight outfit that the womens use

But if you wanna see "true vision", you need to read Arthur C Clarke, or Larry Niven, or Robert Forward, etc.

Even when I was little (8 years old ) I knew that star trek was not accurate at all with real science.

In case of Arthur C clarke you will see that anything that he wrote in 1950, was very accurate with 2000, and so go on. Why?? because he was a scientist, and he based his novels on real science.

Even 2001 space odysey was a lot more accurate then than to day hollywood movies.

A discuccion only has sense if we talk about things that we know, the technology is like a ladder, we can add one step if we have the one below. But we cant talk about a step at 300 meters high if we dont have any idea how would it be the middle steps to reach there.

[Kegereneku]

My biased summary of this thread.

Is KSP a space simulator dedicated to respect the actual state if physics ? No

Is KSP a video game where you play pretend ? Yes

Are the Developers willing to sacrifice fun for realism ? No

Have the developers cheated with physics for the sake of making the game fun ? Yes

What gameplay have been proposed so far for interstellar/interplanetary travel :

# Higher Time Warp

Concept : You just get access to another time-warp.

Pro : no change in KSP basic gameplay.

Con :

- If one mission necessitate 10 years of travel, you risk technological obsolescence.

- If you screwed up a design, you need another 10 years of travel to fix it.

- Some outer orbit object will ask for insane Dv budget (anything further away than Eeloo).

- Even if you build ship locally, Launch windows between outer planets can be many years apart.

- Reaching another solar system will still take absurd length of time unless you put it so close it will feel like magic or cheat.

# Better engine

Concept : You get some Fusion-like engine more difficult to use than conventional engine. (example : it can only burn fixed amount of time)

Pro : you avoid "magic" and keep using KSP's basic physics equation. It also allow you to build only one super engine and then refuel it.

Con :

- You have to severly limit those engines or orbital travel will become incredibly easy.

- You may end-up with absurd deltaV budget.

- Avoiding high-thrust ask for very long burn.

- Avoiding high-ISP still ask for unbearably big ship.

- If the only "super engine" is 10 years away it may take long to bring it back.

# Beamed Sail

Concept : You put many solar-powered-lasers around Moho, launch a tiny probe with a sail, then the game-logic sort of push it with laser while you sort of guide it.

Pro : you avoid "magic" and can pretend it's realist until you run the number

Con :

- Require KSP to simplify greatly the sail-based gameplay. (because KSP won't calculate 20 lasers or 10 years of continuous accelerations)

- Require KSP to simplify greatly sail-based designing. (because we are talking of 100km wide sails)

- It will ask for LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng (pseudo) physical acceleration.

- Require to launch hundred of large laser-sat on tricky orbit, or have the game pretend you did.

- Decelerating at your destination is tricky and make the mission globally 2 times longer.

- Any attempt to reduce travel time under 10 years or increase payload would make beam-sail overpowered and eligible to replace anything for interplanetary travel.

# FTL

Concept : The developer imagine a gameplay requiring to build fun things in orbit, when you use FTL travel you get an alternate gameplay made specifically to not break what you had before while making the gameplay more accessible and less repetitive.

Pro : You have fun, you avoid 150years long time scale, you keep using conventional engine, get a new gameplay and manned mission to "KSP-Pluto".

Con : It's like a video game and some players can't boast to have played 168 hours just to put a lousy rover on "KSP-Pluto".