MARS and back in 2 days...

[ResinRat2]

Yes Stefan, I too was excited about what the Mars rover showed. Once they solidly confirm evidence of water on that planet it is time for us to start going there and doing some terra-forming. Mars needs to be converted for human habitation, and with our population growing it is the best direction to reach for. A faster way to get there would really help out.

Steven Hawking once mentioned that we need to be a two-planet race of beings. I couldn't agree with him more strongly. A whole planet waiting for us to subdue it. What an exciting concept.

Isn't there an easier way to warp space?

[exxcomm0n]

Folding space is a concept that has been around for a long time.

The idea of having a sheet of paper and traveling from 1 opposing corner to the other is the longest path of travel.
Concepts have been conceived (but not explored or proven) that if instead of drawing a straight line and traveling that line from corner to corner, that instead you curl the paper to bring the corners together and make the starting point almost (if not exactly) the same place as the destination.

Any travel of any type has 3 principle factors.

Speed.

Distance.

Time.

The 1st two are completely dependent on the 3rd.

Speed (in Einsteinian terms) has a direct relation to time.

I don't think we need to investigate the propulsion or gravitational means as much as we need (for our short longevity) to manipulate time (wormhole, timewarp, etc.).

This does NOT mean that gravity doesn't have something to do with time!

Gravity and magnetics share the same types of effects. Effecting matter at a distance as long as the matter is within the field of influence.

Magnetics have a small range of things that they can influence immediately, but gravity effects everything (we know of) always.

Just as I propose that electricity and magnetics cannot be completely divorced (in fact, I can't think of a way that electricity being used does NOT also create magnetic field), I theorize that energy, magnetics, and gravity may be different states of the same thing.

Since temperature is the gradient that we use to manipulate the state of a element (solid, liquid, plasma, gas) perhaps there is a different gradient we have not yet discovered that changes energy state (null, potential, realized, constant, etc.)

Wood is an matter that gives no heat or light until it changes state from matter to energy through chemical reaction.

What is necessary for the change of state in gravity (time)?

We answer that question, and the stars are ours.

[utilitarian]

Isn't there an easier way to warp space?

Are you finding our current techniques for warping space to be too crude?

I will add one thing - excomm made a great point about speed and time.  If we can make a spacecraft that approaches the speed of light, then time will pass very quickly for the people on board.  This does not help people back at home, but at least it may be feasible to send people to far destinations and have them arrive within a reasonable time, at least relative for them.

This does create interesting problems down the road.  Even if we could successfully colonize another star system, there would be virtually no communication back and forth.  Who wants to wait 100 years for a response?  Though I suppose the colonists could continually send a broadcast to appraise of their progress, and we could send them news from Earth.

A funny thing would of course be if during the voyage, we did come up with a way to bend space.  The colonists would arrive to their destination with us already there.

[Freezer]

Lazar has explained it in his video a while back.  He was the guy who talked about element 115 when it wasn't official.  I think the craft work just as he states in the video, by creating a distortion, in the direction they wish to go, continuously falling into a localized area of gravity.  I think he saying that 115 was used to access the gravity wave, and channel and direct earths gravity, while on earth.  I don't think anyone in the mainstream has actually created a gravity wave, that would be a pretty interesting experiment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdoXhimf9oc&feature=related

[atlantex]

Why building a complicate device to travel. What about astral traveling, I'm practice this for years with some good results but far far away from traveling outer space.

I recommend the books of Robert A. Monroe to get a good overview.

That's hopefully the way the people will go, once the avarice and inequity is gone some day... (whould love to live in the startrek time)


Ahhh almost forgot, for those who are scifi fans, take a look at the "Takeshi Kovacs" book series, written by Richard Morgan, available in english and german and also as audiobooks. It's the best series I ever read.


cheers,

atlantex