Star Trekking –
There is an element of suggestion that goes:
If an alien species were to look down on our world, and assuming they had the capacity (in as much as the technology possessed by anything capable of reaching planet Earth would be incredible) whereby they could measure life on planet Earth, then they undoubtedly would.
Conversely, our technology, our resources and our knowledge limit us to travel (with man on board) only to the moon and back. That’s a quarter of a million miles of space travel.
Planet Mars is said to be doable, and would be with the right equipment. The hardware for such a challenge, although in progress, is not there yet. Neither in fact are the people who would have to endure such a challenge. That trip in itself would involve approximately seven months on a space craft – each way.
Recently, wannabe astronauts and cosmonauts wishing to sign up to the Mars project were sealed into a specially constructed chamber built to replicate a space ship for seven months or so just to prove that it was possible to live for that duration of time in the company of several other astronauts for that amount of time in the conditions expected of such a trip.
Travel issue number two: To make it back to planet Earth from Mars, any astronaut would have to wait a further year and a half or so on planet Mars before even attempting to come back because of planet alignment:
Orbits –
Planet alignment is easy to understand when looking at the orbits of planets around the sun. The planets are arranged at different positions to each other, all circulating the sun at their own speed. Some planets are closer to the sun and some are further away from the sun.
Planet Mars is further away from the sun than planet Earth. As Mars orbits around the sun at a slower pace than Earth, it subsequently has a longer annual year than Earth. Therefore, planet alignment between Earth and Mars only happens at one particular time in one whole orbit of the sun by Mars. And it’s about a year and a half apart – give or take.
So, if attempting to rocket towards planet Mars, theoretically it would make sense to do that when planet Mars is closest to planet Earth, right?
Well no actually.
Travel issue number one: Because planet Mars travels faster than our fastest space craft (approximately we’re looking at maybe 35000 mph for a man made space craft whilst using extra thrust, versus nearly 54000 mph for planet Mars), man doesn’t start with an advantage.
But Mars travels in its own circular orbit around the sun at a slower pace than Earth. So at launch, the space craft would need to be in a position whereby it could realistically head straight towards planet Mars on the closest and shortest possible planet to planet trajectory.
Right again, yeah?
No, not exactly.
Here’s the score: The practice works whereby planet Mars could catch up the man made space craft. Weird eh? But true. Planet Earth has to be directly ahead of Mars when the rocket is launched.
Just when you thought it should be the other way around, it stands to reason that Mars needs to catch up with a slower space craft. Mars is a whole lot faster.
Forget the fact that planet Earth travels really fast (over 66500 mph) whilst planet Mars travels slower. The fact is that a space craft travels slower than either.
What would be required for any space craft would be a lift off from Earth whilst Mars was approaching Earth from behind. Effectively a slingshot from Earth to catch up with Mars. A calculatable time for a craft to rendezvous with Mars on the intercept would dictate how far from behind our Earth, planet Mars would need to be.
This would then give the space craft the advantage it required to reach Mars just as the red planet approached the space craft from behind, before Mars disappeared further into its own orbit of the sun.
So if we wait until Mars is at its closest to earth, we’ve already lost the race because we can’t catch it up.
From speeds alone, (at our current pace) space travel to Mars is not doable. Utilising planet alignment however, it is. Planet Earth to planet Mars.
Proximity –
Even from the nearest similarly Earth like planet that we know of, (Proxima b) it would take thousands of years to reach, measured in our years at our pace.
If aliens have machines that can travel at say – 100,000 miles per hour, they would also need to spend thousands of years on a space ship to get here. And that’s just assuming the travel is from Proxima b. There are other habitable Earth like planets out in the Universe that are even further away from planet Proxima b and planet Earth and of which to get from would involve hundreds if not thousands of years couped on a spaceship to fly from just to reach Proxima b, let alone to here.
And this is years as we know them. Not to be mistaken with light years. Proxima b’ is only 4.24 light years away. If you were to think: ‘ok, that’s doable!’ Think again. Hyper-sleep and warp speed all sound like a viable option, it’s true. Like science fiction however, that’s exactly what they are.
Because a light year is a measure of distance as opposed to a measure of time, it would therefore take a space craft whatever duration of time to cover that distance at whatever speed it would be capable of, divided into that distance. One light year is roughly 6 trillion miles.
From ‘Proxima b’ to planet Earth is approximately 25 trillion miles away. The sun is only 93 million miles away. The edge of our solar system is a further 97 times more from the sun than it is to get to the sun from Earth in the first place – 9 billion miles away in total from here.
Assuming a space craft could reach 18000 miles per hour (which space shuttle could), then divide that number into 25 trillion (a trillion has twelve zeros) and there we have it – hundreds of thousands of years.
So hyper space and hyper sleep and warp speed seem inextricably linked, wouldn’t you say?
Of course.
Unless a human being has a lifetime of say around 800,000 years or so, a trip to ‘Proxima b’ is not even worth thinking about at man’s current doable speed with the current technology.
Voyager –
Then there’s hyperbolic, well the universe is measured in elliptical geometry to put it bluntly, and that means everything needs to be thought about as curved. Consider this with planet alignment. Planets spin around on themselves and they also spin around the sun. It’s all circular.
An alien spacecraft therefore would need to be capable of at least hyper speed (a fantasy interpretation of fast.) So, at the speed of light; which is 670,616,629 mph (yes, that’s over 670 million miles per hour), it would take 4.25 years to travel 4.25 light years.
Simple.
To further simplify: at roughly 35000 mph (the speed of Voyager 1 & 2) a spacecraft would take 80,000 years to travel two light years.
Right now, after 42 years of travel, both Voyager 1 & 2 have now travelled billions of miles; twenty billion for the former. Remember: a billion is equal to one thousand million – and that’s zero to the power of nine.
But, in their favour, both Voyager space craft never travelled in a straight line. A few orbits of a few planets along the way and the result is where they are now. However, what’s a few billion miles, it’s a drop in the ocean when looking at the vastness of interstellar space.
If either Voyager had travelled in a straight line they would be further away, but would have covered less miles.
Star Trekking –
So, an alien lifeform would probably have the technology to predict through measurement of scientific data and coverage the largest lifeform on planet Earth. And it wouldn’t be the birds. Or the human race.
It would be insects. If every insect represented a red dot on a scope they would out number everything.
OK, so that’s all very well, but why and where do birds figure in there? Well as birds have the power of flight they deserve a mention when it comes to flying.
And they (the birds) eat insects.
Here I’m listing a flight of fantasy, and wishful thinking, and man’s natural desire to progress. Man wants to fly, but can’t do so on his own.
Birds on the other hand are natural fliers. They do however conduct what to us is a flight of fantasy. Something I guess we wish we could do. A few thousand miles on a couple of flapping wings is an envy for sure.
And they feed on insects.
That makes us really lucky to be able to observe birds, here in God’s garden.
Space –
Without super large telescopes, massive computers, incredible software, scientists and astronomers, I tried to come up with a reasonable answer as to whether there is alien lifeforms out there – in space. More to the point whether they are here on planet Earth.
Starting at point zero (the big bang) there is no life. Here I’m supposing there actually was a big bang to start with. It’s only science theory that says there was.
NB: One thousand million equals a billion.
Animal life:
About 610 million years (just over half a billion years) old is the oldest animal ever found on planet Earth. Actually, it can only loosely be described as an animal, because in the way that we know animals there was absolutely no resemblance. It was not life as we know it, it was more like a multi celled organism, a bit like a germ.
Dinosaurs however only go back less than a quarter of a billion years.
I guess one important fact is that the dinosaurs ruled planet Earth for millions of years between them.
Big Bang:
That explains life on planet Earth, very vaguely.
Crucially, the following is only a theory, with certain facts added in.
If you were to assume there was a big bang that created the Solar system; that means everything goes back to four and a half billion years as point zero. At the start, life just wouldn’t exist – in our solar system.
That might explain our solar system, but it goes no way to explain any others. There is an uncalculatable amount of solar systems in the universe.
Elsewhere in the universe, planets would need to evolve from a burning gaseous world just like ours did. Each life sustaining planet would need to have water as an element (the single most important element for life), from which evolution could progress to single celled life forms, to multi celled life forms, and eventually to life – in whatever form. Plants to start with would be a good one.
Because life as we know it (living, breathing, walking, swimming) on Earth didn’t get going until a quarter of a billion years ago, that leaves four and a quarter billion years of planetry evolution before anything gets off the starting blocks, and I’m assuming the same rate of planetry evolution applies to every planet out there. But this would have to refer to the whole universe as opposed to our solar system because we know there is no life on any other planet in our own solar system.
On worlds elsewhere, the atmospheres could well be very different. What could be breathable for one being could be poisonous for another.
And here is problem number one: Who didn’t think to involve the whole universe when considering life on other planets. Our solar system is ginormous, but the universe doesn’t end. The universe is bigger than anything. It is infinity.
Beginnings –
At the start, (the part where a planet can actually sustain life with water and so on) life just isn’t established enough in its ability to move on, unless other planets missed out the dinosaurs. Consider this amount of time to involve the whole universe, just for ‘supposed’ sake. And that’s assuming those other worldly planets are anything similar to ours.
In some ways they would have to be similar to our planet because the same metals are born from supernovas as those that we have here on our own planet.
Let’s assume there is a world out there somewhere, running at the same rate of evolution as ours. Let’s also assume there was a big bang in their own solar system; which in turn would mean their planet was at the same evolutionary marker point as ours at the same time of evolution as ours, only in a different solar system at a completely different time. Life is created and forms and it’s a highly intelligent breed of alien being capable of incredible technology off the starting blocks.
They’ve had quarter of a billion years to get things right, assuming there was no other type of life on their planet before themselves. Based on that the chances of them developing a form of speed (be it propelled or otherwise), dictate that in order to travel to another world light years away gives them 250 million years to do so.
I suppose that’s doable. With 250 million years for a living being to evolve, I reckon they’re going to know a thing or two about speed that we don’t. And that’s of course bearing in mind that their planet is most definitely in a different solar system than ours and most definitely at least 20 light years away at the closest. Referring to and accepting that this planet – Gliese 581 (the closest after Proxima b) is capable of harbouring any type of life form. We know there is no other form of life in our own solar system.
Then suppose the universe always was out there (let’s face it, it must have been), in that case there are worlds out there that must contain life forms in states of incredible advance to ours.
Just try to think about that and it’s all a bit too much. The universe has always been out there!
That’s a difficult one to start with. The astronomers would have us believe that the solar system is only 4.5 billion years old. It’s also only got another 4.5 billion years left. This is when our own sun will go supernova and the Earth will be consumed.
All said and done, it’s more than possible (more like a fact) that there are worlds out there whose life could go as far back as infinity.
We don’t know that before the so called Big Bang there wasn’t any life in this solar system of our own. Maybe there was.
The more you think about space the harder it gets to accept it. If the Universe wasn’t there at say around 20 billion years or so ago, (as astronomers would have us believe) where was it? If it wasn’t there, what was in it’s place? For it to exist there had to space around it for it to expand into. At least that’s how it seems we are educated to think.
To make things worse, some say the Universe is accelerating away, some say it’s decelerating, some say it’s getting bigger and some say it’s getting smaller.
Probably best to accept that it’s just always been there. And if that’s the case, our life here on planet Earth is extremely infant. Our human race hasn’t been in existence for very long at all.
The Egyptian pyramids were constructed about 5000 years ago, same as Stonehenge. That makes any civilisation in the UK as ancient as that in Egypt.
We mostly accept that there was a big bang?
What if planet Earth was created as a result of other circumstances? We have to accept that the Universe has been in existence for ever.
Huh ……………………………. I’m not sure I can compute that. Or, maybe I can, because it’s a lot easier to think that the universe has always been in existence than one day it just started about twenty billion years ago.
Even though our minds are programmed to compute to finite – not infinity, the universe represents infinity in itself.
So if the universe is merrily trundling along as usual and always has been, there’s going to be worlds out there that must be mega advanced.
That said, they’re light years away. As we know, a light year is roughly six trillion miles.
Think of the Universe as a huge dotty cloud and imagine that cloud to be the size of an A4 piece of paper – although with no end to it. On that piece of paper is a small dot the size of a pin head, and that is our solar system.
There’s thousands of solar systems out there, millions even.
We also have to bear in mind that stars go supernova – eventually. That means that any planets in those solar systems get wiped out.
As it takes hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years to travel anywhere in space, is it then even worth bothering with. Other solar systems out there have approached, reached, surpassed and are in the middle of their own sun in a state of supernova. If an alien force decide to travel somewhere up to and beyond whatever time it takes to go from one habitable planet to another – light years away, they may not even have a planet to return to.
It’s worth remembering that the speed of light plays an important part here. If the Hubble telescope picks out a star going supernova and it sees the light, and that star is a thousand light years away, that meant that the star it spotted going supernova did so a thousand years ago.
Betelgeuse –
When Betelgeuse blows, that will be one hell of a supernova. It’s situated in the ‘Orion the hunter’ constellation and is 724 light years away. That’s a long way away. As mentioned earlier, Proxima b (the nearest Earth like planet) is 4.25 light years away.
Betelgeuse will go supernova, that’s a given. It’s just a matter of when. Because it’s a red star its already started to degenerate.
Data from on-line suggests it could go supernova in the next minute, or it could be in a million years’ time. When it does, there will be another sun in the sky during the day. It won’t shine down warmth the way our sun does, even though it is a thousand times bigger than our sun. There will however be a display like never seen before.
And just to add wonder to the scientific reality of space; because Betelgeuse is 724 light years away, when it explodes – the visual reaction from here will be 724 years after it went Supernova. It might already have done that.
Light speed –
As light speed equals around about 670 million miles per hour, that’s probably too fast to navigate to. I read on line that scientist reckon if travelling superfast in space, the chances of bumping into something are negligible.
What? How can anyone say that. The speed of light is all very well if we’re talking about the spectacle of light itself, because no matter what obstacle light hits it makes no difference to anything, other than it creates light.
Light can’t hit something and create a bump.
OK, so granted: way points could be plotted in advance to avoid planets, at least in this solar system, but, planets have a gravitational pull and that in itself is massive.
I wouldn’t like to bet that any trajectory course outside of our solar system even could be plotted. The distances are so immense. So to put someone on a spaceship aimed at planet Gliese 581 for instance (supposedly an Earth like planet) at 20 light years from here at hyper speed (lets imagine that to be 670,000,000 miles per hour) then apart from it taking 20 years to get there, things back here might well have changed from when they left.
Communications between base and the star ship itself would seem difficult to contemplate.
To spend twenty years on a spacecraft would mean that something like a supposed hyper sleep would have to be devised.
Plus, how could they be guaranteed to miss hitting everything out there; such as asteroids and floating debris.
Unless there was a computer efficient and capable enough of thinking at the speed of light, it would seem hardly possible to travel at the speed of light.
As the geographical positions of all planets and asteroids is unknown, it therefore seems impossible to be able to navigate at the speed of light.
Space craft construction –
I can’t imagine any form of life being able to construct a star ship capable of 670 million miles per hour. I wouldn’t imagine there is a material that could handle that in terms of metallurgical make up, or any other come to that.
And, well, ……………… I’m not sure. Warp speed was amazing in Star Trek. Could it work though?
But hang on a minute, there’s no friction in space. You could fly a brick wall at 38,000 miles per hour and it would slice through outer space as well as a cruise missile.
So if a star ship is belting along at warp speed and this speed happens to be 670 million miles per hour, the next question could be – how did it ever get to go that fast? If the ship went from stand still to light speed in the click of a finger, would that not mean a ‘G’ force on an unimaginable scale.
I watched many a Star Trek episode when at the decision to go to Warp speed, Spock was actually standing up at the time. Surely at a ‘G’ force such as the speed of light would create from zero to maximum speed, would have left Spock as a splat on the nearest wall.
Orbital speed –
Can we compare our achievable speeds to that of nature? Specifically planets. Short answer is yes.
This would seem to be the case if looking at the speeds of planets in our solar system and the speeds at which they orbit the sun. We have nine planets and the further out they are the slower they are i.e:
Mercury = 107, 082 miles per hour. Closest.
Venus = 78,337 miles per hour.
earth = 66,615 miles per hour.
Mars = 53,858 miles per hour.
Jupiter = 29,236 miles per hour.
Saturn = 21 675 miles per hour.
Uranus = 15,233 miles per hour.
Neptune = 12,146 miles per hour.
Pluto = 10,444 miles per hour. Farthest.
Although technically, Pluto isn’t classified as a planet any more.
If you grew up thinking Pluto was a planet (I’m sure we all learnt that at school), think again. It’s not, apparently.
Pluto has a bunch of moons accompanying it around the solar system with random and chaotic orbits of Pluto itself. Maybe or maybe not anything to do with the fact that although all other eight planets in our solar system spin from West to East, Pluto’s rotation is retrograde to all the others in that it spins backwards from East to West. Weird!
Anyhow, Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a dwarf planet. Its size is not that great. Pluto’s diameter is 1,473 miles. It has a bunch of moons, the biggest of which – known as Charon, is 750 miles in diameter. That makes one of its moons almost as big as it is itself.
Pluto still is a rocky, icy planet all said and done, just not classified as a planet.
That’s weirder still in my opinion. The name planet derives from the ancient Greeks word – meaning ‘wondering star’.
Therefore, in consideration of: planet Earth spins at 1,000 miles per hour, for instance. Not to mention the speed it orbits around the sun; which is approximately 67,000 miles per hour.
It might be worth a thought; if we could travel faster than the planets (which we can at present – around a half of them at any rate) and then include that to say – light speed, would that obscure the elliptical geometry of relative travel in outer space. Would that mean we could bend any star ship around a planet without gravitational interference.
I wonder!
In other words, if we could travel at the speed of light, would it not then seem possible to avoid the gravitational pull of a planet in the same way that a space craft of manufacturable speed right now can be programmed to hit the gravitational pull of a planet to speed it up.
I’m guessing the answer is yes.
There is another theory out there which to me makes more sense. So in light of the fact that we, as a people, seemed to have been indoctrinated over time to believe that the Universe is expanding, on the other hand, no sooner have they convinced everyone that the Universe is expanding than they more or less retract that statement to then have us believe it is shrinking!
Well what’s it going to be? Is it one or the other? Or, is the Universe just happily there. It seems to me to be a far more sensible mind set to believe that Galaxies just meander like microbes in an endless pond.
With this in mind, the evolution of planets; going back in terms of time, is endless.
Forget four and a half billion years. Assume whatever number takes your fancy. It can literally be anything.
Let’s say – One thousand billion years.
That puts things into a different perspective. There would be planets out there sustaining life in whatever forms and some of it would be so advanced we would probably and simply be unable to fathom it out. With this in mind then alien life forms would have access to speed as we don’t know it.
Conversely, astronomers also say that by measuring supernova’s they can determine that the Universe was only a third its present size at 10 billion years ago. Proven to be because a star went supernova ten billion years ago and the Hubble telescope picked it up recently. That is how long it took for the light to reach here and the light was travelling at light speed. Using their measuring apparatus they then determined that the Universe began one day!?
I mean, come on.
Just believe whatever you want to believe.
It’s a minefield of information that is both inconsistent and validated at the same time.
UFOlogy.
Documented evidence exists of UFO’s. However, it being documented doesn’t mean it’s verified. If it can’t be verified (and it can’t) then we must be a bunch of crazies even to believe such a thing.
So how would an alien life form get here? There would have to be a fuel that would enable that!
Of course.
Not forgetting that if alien life forms have visited this world, they come from a colossal distance away. It would then be fair to say that they may have a very different type of fuel available to them. Different world, different make up, different everything, Right?
Wrong. In terms of metals and gasses, their worlds would likely to have the same as ours. It would be even more difficult to imagine how a widespread universe could possibly contain zillions of planets, all with differing metal make up and containing different gasses.
Correct though – in differing proportions of, I’m guessing.
According to the scientists, the universe contains all these elements i.e Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Sulphur and Helium for instance, that we have right here on planet Earth.
It is not even a fair bet that any alien fuel would be nothing like we ever could make ourselves. Just to travel light years would take a very special type of fuel. Well we have something that is pretty special ourselves.
But it might not necessarily be the type of fuel in as much as how it was harnessed to create speed.
There is only one fuel source so widely known, accepted and capable of sustained power.
could it be solar, I wonder?
After all, the sun shines all the time and all that is required is a way of capturing that sunlight.
Except, if travelling from one solar system to another, there’s going to be gazillions of square miles of empty space where there isn’t any solar system, so therefore there isn’t any sun, just empty space. That means no solar power. Even at the far reaches of our own solar system there wouldn’t be enough sunlight to power Voyager, let alone a space ship the size of a town.
As in our very own Voyager space craft that have both now exited our own solar system; they don’t even have solar power. Solar power simply wouldn’t be powerful enough to sustain the requirements of all the instruments on board.
Voyager uses radioactivity from Plutonium 238 through Radioisotope Thermoelectric generators. Basically these are radiators with decaying Plutonium on the inside and ridiculously cold temperatures on the outside, allowing RTG’s to generate electricity.
Even this form of power is not huge, but enough to power everything, (or certainly as time and distance goes by, then enough to cope with the desired instrumentation by NASA to be left functional) aboard Voyager for a very, very long time.
In order to conserve power (taking into account the fact that Plutonium decays over the years) for vital instruments such as transmitters and preferred scientific instruments; individually picked instruments have been in order of importance shut down for years now – from time to time, in a particular order thereby allowing NASA to maintain desired scientific analysis and more importantly communication channels.
Eventually, in the next decade, the Plutonium will decay so much as to be useless. Voyager will eventually outlive its scientific ability and its communications ability. Both Voyager space craft will just keep flying through space for ever. They will never stop.
By all account they have little chance of ever hitting anything.
These space craft have though already been in contact with space dust and gases (source on-line); which so far have rendered them no harm. That said, anything the size of a ball bearing could destroy instruments, or even disable the space craft.
The chances of either Voyager not hitting anything cannot be guaranteed.
However, due to the uncomprehendable distance between star systems and the fact that there is so little in-between them, the probability of physical contact with anything else is apparently low. Voyager’s 1 & 2 just won’t ever stop.
Alien –
Some of the many documented instances of strange occurrences involving unidentified flying objects were specified as being over ministry of defence establishments from which theories remind as to ‘how’ did aliens actually get here in the first place, assuming they did.
I guess MOD sites would be of particular interest to UFO’s, seeing as they being of an alien kind and if here in the first place, then they would have the technology required to analyse anything they wanted from us here.
If anywhere is going to be the hub for something unusual then why not MOD sites. Not just in this country, but in others too.
Back in the days of the cold war the missile silo was no big secret. Constructed for one job and one job only, the only sites in fact (apart from submarines) to house multiple nuclear tipped rockets in a state of perpetual readiness.
Nuclear tips equals nuclear fuel.
Fuel –
At this point is where if considering interspace travel, how would it be fuelled. There could well be some fuel sources as yet untapped by the human race that could answer that problem, although that seems unlikely, certainly at the present.
A fuel for power is one thing, but I’m sure there would always be a good reason not to use that particular type of fuel for whatever reason i.e. storage of it on any space craft to mention for one, and any other of many possibilities too logical to mention.
Fossil fuels – no. Electric – no. Rocket – no. Solar – no.
Nuclear – why not.
Well that speaks for us as human beings on planet Earth, but not for anything else from another world light years away.
Solar extremes –
It took Voyager space craft 42 years to reach the end of our solar system from planet Earth. That equates to 42 years to go 9 billion miles at 35,000 miles per hour – diversions accepted.
Voyager space craft (having recently exited through the edge of our solar system), use two types of fuel: one type for jet thrusters and another type for heating electrical instruments.
The thruster fuel is Hydrazine. This is made up of a mix between Hydrogen and Nitrogen. Very flammable, very toxic and very difficult to store. That said, not impossible.
But these craft don’t require much in the way of thrusters (except for various planetry orbits along the way) because the initial boost from planet Earth is mainly the thrust required – due to there being no gravity in space, to just keep it going that fast for ever. In other words the speed at which anything leaves planet Earth is the speed at which it will maintain without being fuelled any further.
In the case of Apollo 10 – the fastest, (to date) vehicle to have left planet Earth, did so at 24,791 mph.
Other sources of increased speed for Voyager space craft were the orbits around these various planets whereby the voyager was able to gain speed using a slingshot effect from that planet. Plus the use of its on board thrusters.
It was further determined that the economy of voyager using Hydrazine for its jets (and the infrequency of the use of Hydrazine) was calculated at 30,000 miles per gallon.
So there wouldn’t be a vast amount required. At least not for these space craft.
For interstellar travel however there would because interstellar travel would require start stop procedures at the other end of the journey and a much, much bigger space craft. And anyway, it wouldn’t necessarily be a renewable source of fuel.
Although theoretically it is possible to collect Hydrogen from outer space, (source on-line), it’s also not guaranteed that whilst it may be possible to get to another star from here; upon reaching another planet (which would be many light years away), it could not be guaranteed that Hydrogen could be replenished at that planet. Plus, in order to be able to collect Hydrogen from deep space, the space craft would need to be going at the speed of light in the first place.
Seeing as Hydrazine is a mix of Hydrogen and Nitrogen and storage of it as a fuel is minutely scientific, it may not be viable at all.
Then there’s the Bussard ramjet. A visionary idea of compressing Hydrogen from deep space at high velocity, (therefore massive speed is needed) into a progressively constricted magnetic field until thermonuclear fusion occurs. The magnetic field would then direct the energy as rocket exhaust in the opposite direction to the intended direction of travel.
Unfortunately for this idea (which is a great theory), analysis by scientist discovered that the losses involved from compressing protons to fusion densities was greater than the power that could be produced by a factor of about 1 billion.
It was also discovered that deep space has a much lower density of Hydrogen to begin with.
Alien speed –
So when looking at UFO’s, the question remains: not only – were they here? but if they were, how?
When viewing footage, or constructed footage from eye witness accounts, these extra-terrestrial vehicles do seem to be capable of extreme movements at eye wateringly high speeds. In fact, analysing further, the actual movement of those vehicles is so fast it can’t be either seen or measured at all; which analysing further may suggest the speed of light. And if this is the case, how are they capable of attaining the speed of light as quick off the stops as the speed of light in the very same way as if you were to shine a torch onto a surface the image is immediate.
Beyond imaginable –
Is speed achievable beyond the speed of light?
In as much as a transportation mechanism entirely different from anything presently and currently envisaged, maybe. Let’s not forget that before breaking the speed of sound was achievable (accomplished by Chuck Yeager in 1947) theories then suggested the human body wouldn’t be able to take it.
There are several theories from top scientists (source on-line) and both are suggestive in their content.
There simply is no knowing whether man could ever travel at the speed of light.
When it comes to another life form, an alien species, we have even less idea, or to be precise – none at all.
Beyond the speed of light is another realm altogether. Seeing as it is not possible to travel at the speed of light (in as much as we know it), what lies on the other side of that cannot scientifically be calculated.
Einstein’s theory of special relativity suggests nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This theory shows how concepts like speed are all relative i.e: A moving observer will measure the speed of an object to be different from that of which a stationary observer will. Furthermore, relativity revealed the concept of time dilation; which says that the faster you go, the more time seems to slow down. Thus, if you were to imagine the crew of a speeding spaceship, they may perceive their trip to another planet to take two weeks, while people back on Earth would observe their trip to take twenty years.
Einstein’s theory cannot describe massive objects moving at the speed of light. It’s all about maths where physical properties can’t be defined. Although one can theorise.
Other scientific theories suggest that as a spaceship travelling at super light speeds accelerating faster and faster, it would lose more and more mass until at infinite velocity, its mass became zero.
However, if looking at Einstein’s theory and specifically his equation E = mc squared, according to that equation where E = energy, this then equates to energy having the same physical entity as mass and can therefore be changed into each other. Because of this equivalence, the faster an object moves, the greater its mass becomes. This only becomes noticeable the faster an object moves, such as aero on a racing car which will pull it down as it goes faster and the effect will be to increase the weight.
Then, if an object moves at the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite, and so does the energy required to move it.
For this reason, no normal object can travel at the speed of light.
But this doesn’t touch on forms of transportation that are not seen as speed so much as for instance teleportation.
OK, no such thing.
Yet!
I think it’s fair to assume that it is possible to move objects at the speed of light. Just not with our technology.
Who knows in the future. Science can reveal some pretty amazing concepts that with the advance of technology become real. Holograms are so futuristic to the point of being almost real. There’s 3d printing, artificial intelligence, robots making cars, drone science, cloning and so and so on.
Fuel –
Following various accounts of alien contact, and specifically the visits over MOD sites worldwide, it’s worth mentioning that linked together these accounts bear some interesting similarities that could point to fuel.
All three of these sites were home to nuclear missiles and all three sites were (for want of a better way of interpreting the alien visits) interrogated in a very alien way.
Light beams, or beams of an unknown variety, shining down from the alien space craft directly onto the missiles below were observed.
Was it to refuel? Who knows.
There of course has to be a useable fuel source available for the UFO’s involved, from whatever time zone and place they come from to be able to arrive here in order to create these so called observations in the first place.
In the case of the alien encounter over an MOD base in the Ukraine, the nuclear missiles were switched to armed and ready to fly by forces unknown. A virtual state of Armageddon was only avoided by the same forces that activated them in the first place. There was no answer to any of it apart from the fact that UFO activity was recorded right there.
The case over the USA was the same as the case in the Ukraine.
The visit over an MOD base in the UK also resulted in an interference with missile programming and some type of downward beaming device. The alien space craft then rebooted all the missiles back to original spec and cleared off.
Alien –
From one logged UFO sighting visit in the UK there was an unexplained sinister occurrence whereby one person was found lying dead in a field, eyes staring into nothing. He had scarred tissue around the neck and there was a substance on his neck. The substance does not originate from planet Earth. It has never been identified. It is an unknown substance.
There are loads of other incidents which leave behind unexplainable phenomenon.
I guess it’s all down to the individual as to whether there could be any belief in any of it.
If looking at various UFO sighting incidents there does seem to be some very real possibility that this world could have been visited before.
More often than not, opinion seems to identify sightings of alien beings as being short, weirdly shaped head, no mouth, no ears and eyes of a strangely huge and non-lidded blob.
Does this sound anything like insect by any chance?
Check out insects and watch how fast they can fly without artificial power. The tiniest of insects can jump, or fly out of sight in a millisecond. With this in mind it would seem possible that no matter what extremes of speed they encounter, they can handle it.
And ok, aliens have ships. But so what. Life from another world could have had billions or even zillions of years of technological know-how behind it.
One thing that doesn’t change however is the sheer distance between solar systems and planets. A light year is a light year, no matter where the planet might be. Six trillion miles is always going to be six trillion miles.
Can a space craft travel by teletransportation though? Now that would shake things up a bit – if there were such a thing.
So if looking at this in a very pragmatic way, warp speed cannot exist. If this is the case, then UFO’s may be a figment of the imagination.
It seems unlikely that any craft can be moved by an unknown but envisaged form of speed that is not speed at all, as we know it.
An article of material make up would contain a molecular structure. An article of living flesh would also be made up of a molecular structure. The idea of being able to move living tissue through some type of beam simply is not credible – to us. That in itself lends more credence to the speed of light. If mass at infinite velocity equals zero, then why not.
It’s all just so ……. Ambiguous.
It would seem that it is too easy to report the sighting of a UFO without considering all the other relative factors around it such as travel and distance.
Taking the Roswell incident into consideration – the famously documented and debated UFO crash in New Mexico, (coincidentally also in 1947, the same year as Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound in a jet), and by all account it was just a weather balloon crashing onto a ranch. It was enough to get people talking and seeing things.
The only way to believe the UFO theory is to have seen one.
The thing is, at least some of them could have been genuine sightings.
How would we really ever know. Compelling evidence exists on the one hand, and on the other there isn’t enough public scrutiny of it all – I suppose. Everything is kept under lock and key it seems.
My story relies on a visual experience. The object couldn’t be identified, it therefore was a UFO.
And along with that sighting was included an incredible turn of speed; something out of this world. A speed that could be seen. A movement that was speed as opposed to an object there one second and somewhere else another without any movement viewed what-so-ever. The difference being with my believed observation as opposed to that of some from documented air force pilots and commercial pilots for instance was that those observations by those pilots included speed of unidentified craft as being unmeasurable by any instrumentation to hand at the time because it was just too quick. The object observed couldn’t be seen to actually move, but just appear somewhere else in an instant.
Whereas from my own observation the speed was visible. Because the speed was visible is where cause for argument against my UFO sighting could gain ground, I suppose. But then as much as UFO sightings are well known, the fact that the speed of the alleged craft is probably not the first thing one might expect to hear about when listening to accounts of UFO sightings, lends ground to the fact that mine was a genuinely unexplainable sighting. For me, I know it was. I would only be fooling myself if I were to imagine what appeared that day.
In the sky was a triangular air craft. I’m only saying aircraft because it was high in the sky and stationary.
Measuring the speed of the unidentified craft was of course not possible for me, at least not in a verifiable format. There was plenty of time enough however to observe the acceleration of this aircraft from a standstill whilst it was up there in the sky.
That was probably the single most peculiar thing about the sighting. The air craft was stationary when at first it was spotted. The year was 1999.
Oh, but it could be argued that it’s not as though the air force doesn’t fly their own aircraft that are able to hover in the air.
What, in 1999?
And you could say ‘Yeah, why not, the Harrier.’
This sighting of an unidentified flying object refers to a triangular shape aircraft a bit like an arrow head. Call it a delta wing if you like.
The Harrier didn’t have a delta wing, or swept wings. The Harrier was a fixed wing VERTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) aircraft.
Whilst the Harrier could opt to hover in mid-air, there would have been two very distinct phenomenon attributed to it whilst doing so – firstly a massive amount of noise, and we’re talking about ground shakingly loud, and secondly a heat dispersal haze which would have definitely changed the atmosphere around it.
Neither of these events were apparent on that day. And if they had have been evident they would have been noticed, no question.
Aircraft make aircraft noise.
So the air craft was a triangle shape. It didn’t resemble a disc like object in any way. It was stationary in the air in a perfect state of calm stillness.
When it moved it did so in a forward direction. Once under way the acceleration was like nothing any jet plane could replicate, until it disappeared beyond sight.
There was no noise, no in-balance and no visible exhaust plume of any type.
I never reported this, I didn’t have to. Various local and Southern media channels streamed it out, stating that telephone lines were red hot that day to police and alike with reports of an unidentified object in the sky.
Of course, nothing was made of it. There was no evidence.
It’s not something that you can go home after work and relay to anyone within hearing distance and say ‘heh, guess what, I just saw a UFO’.
Who’s going to believe that.
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