The problem with space travel is not that the distances are so far; the problem is that we are so short lived. amirite?

Sorry bro but I think the distance is the biggest problem

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Within our local galaxy cluster, no distance is untraversable. Once an object in space has been set in motion, you barely need to continue applying thrust to keep it in motion, so the bigger long-term challenge is having something alive to experience visiting the destination.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You think wrong.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

At near light speed distance becomes an absolutely meaningless metric. A huge misconception is that it takes 15 light years to travel 15 light-years at lightspeed.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

A light-year is the distance light travels in one year. So if you are moving at the speed of light, it would indeed take you 15 years to travel 15 light-years.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

from earth's perspective, actually. from your perspective, 0 seconds

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Unless we find a way to bend space/time. Then we are literally controlling the length of our lifespans.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Gravity will bend it

by Anonymous 1 year ago

If you could live long enough you would lose interest way before you got there. It's literally just too damn far.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's why Sci fi invented "hypersleep."

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Shameless plug for the movie *Passengers* on Netflix, which I just watched. Waking up alone on a generation ship with 5,000 other people due to a malfunction, and discovering that you're 90 years away from the destination.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Those are literally the same problem.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The problem isn't that I don't have enough money, it's that the stuff I want is too expensive.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There galaxies that are moving away from us faster than the speed of light. The distance is so far and increasing that it is impossible for light to even reach it. No matter how long you live you could never travel that far even if you traveled at the speed light.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

we can't even leave the local group iirc

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Things aren't moving faster than the speed of light. That's literally impossible as far as human understanding. We just weren't able to observe the galaxy for much of our history, so most things we can observe now are remnants of the past that we see through their residual light and radiation.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Couldn't it also occur if they're comparing in relation to Earth that we're traveling away from it. Similar to two cars driving 50 mph away from each other. An observer would see the opposite car traveling 100mph. Two objects could combine to be over 1 ly speed that way.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Someone drank too much space science coolaid.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Coolaid implies hes anutter and wrong. Hes correct tho, you can measure it

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Ya but what If i traveled at 1.1x the speed of light?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Astrophysicists don't want you to know this one weird trick

by Anonymous 1 year ago

While you're at it, show me that camera with a picture of you from when you were older

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yeah but the first step of space travel is our own galaxy which doesn't have that problem but it's still seemingly impossible even with future tech

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Theres a moral question about this. If you send people off into space, to go somewhere that would take generations, is that ok? Peoples whole life is spent only making sure that the next generation can be born to continue the journey. No other life goals, your wants and dreams don't matter. Only continuing the population to ensure the journey carrys on. Is that living, or is it more akin to breeding live stock for a singular purpose? To add to this, your dooming future generations to a cause they didn't sign up for.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

A distance being short or long is based on the time it takes to travel it (and is obviously relative). Europe is far from the US because it takes a long flight to get there. Mars is far from Earth because it takes a long time to get there. If you could fly from LA to Germany in 30 minutes it's no longer all that far away.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's all relative bro.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Even if we lived long, people wouldn't want to travel hundreds of years. People get irritated when they need to get on a plane for 6+ hours

by Anonymous 1 year ago

No. The issue is definitely the distance. Spaceships don't run on human energy

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Most of the energy is usually spent on escaping earth's gravity, after that it runs mostly on inertia and requires only some energy for some control.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

So it would produce light, breathable air, heat, maybe food, maybe gravity from "inertia" ?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's not that the glass is half full or half empty, it's that it's twice the size it needs to be.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is like saying when d = r*t, t is the most important variable. Scratch that, that literally what you're saying

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Bro do you understand what a *lightyear* is? You know how physics breaks down if you approach the speed of light? The issue is distance man

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Thats literally the same problem. if we only lived for 35 minutes then the distance from america to europe is a problem.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

so then it is the distance

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's why life extension science.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I feel like it's actually that we're fragile, Earth-dependent sacks of meat prone to intense, untreatable mood and health fluctuations brought on by the very conditions required for long spaceflight (radiation, isolation, claustrophobia, malnutrition, loss of internal reference to time, weightlessness, etc).

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I feel like it's actually that we're fragile, Earth-dependent sacks of meat prone to intense, untreatable mood and health fluctuations brought on by the very conditions required for long spaceflight (radiation, isolation, claustrophobia, malnutrition, loss of internal reference to time, weightlessness, etc).

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nah, it's the distances(and a variety of other concerns.)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I think the main problem is we're not advanced enough technologically to travel at light speed yet

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Light speed would barely be scratching the surface. We need worm holes to be an actual thing to have a chance

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I mean if you gave me a few thousand years I could probably build you a pyramid bigger than anything ever built all by myself. That doesn't mean our biggest issue when building a pyramid is that we don't live long enough.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Guess we need to level up our lifespan game, huh? Pyramid scheme for immortality!

by Anonymous 1 year ago

i wonder if a space race would evolve to live longer

by Anonymous 1 year ago

AI will spread the galaxy

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Only if they can maintain themselves

by Anonymous 1 year ago

no its that we dont have enough energy to get there in a reasonable time. Fusion energy would allow us to travel to mars and other planets a l ot quicker

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Even if we lived to 1000 how are we going to transport all the fuel, food and etc ?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The problem is we can't travel faster than light yet

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Because my lifespan is only a day, traveling across 3 states is not the problem

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Light speed travel actually slows cellular aging so the problem is not necessarily our lifespan. If you take a spaceship and go in a loop from Earth and back to Earth, at the speed of light for ten years, when you come back, 100 years would have passed on Earth.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I say rate is the problem

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Once again pointing out, going at light speed would make us all reach any destination in what feels like 0 seconds to us. If we travelled 20 light years at 100% the speed of light, it would seem to a human on earth that it took 20 years and it would seem to us like it took 0 seconds. However, due to the expansion of the universe, some objects are moving away from us faster than light speed which means we will never be able to reach them until we learn to bend space time which which isn't happening any time soon. It is, in fact, a matter of distance, not our lifespan.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me."

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"the problem with spacetime travel is not that the space is too long, it's that the time is too long' Space is time bro.

by Anonymous 1 year ago