Editor's Blog Jun 28th 2012
Space Travel
Imagine if you wish, a giant star ship hurtling through space at 67,000 miles per hour, not exactly light speed but then again it doesn't need to be fast. The star ship needs to spin on its axis at 1070 miles an hour to maintain normal gravity.
The shape of the star ship is spherical, as this is the best shape to afford the most surface area. Encased in a state of the art shield, it can deflect or absorb most space debris it encounters.
Continue to imagine this interstellar ship making it's way through the cold expanse of space; no one is driving as it is on autopilot, the trajectory pre programmed. The crew, busy with the mundane task of living on the giant ship, the circumference of which is just under 25,000 miles.
The crew has everything they need for the voyage, air, water, food and the right environment, but the resources are not infinite.
Over the eons the crew has gotten larger, placing a huge strain on the ships available supplies and even though much of what is needed is grown, there are just too many mouths to feed.
Vast tracts of the ship are uninhabitable; the actions of crews past and present making their mark over hundreds of thousands of years. The air quality getting fouler by the day. This star ship will continue on it's path for another 500 million years or maybe more, as the main propulsion system is a thing of mystery, not created by the human crew.
The crew understands that they will probably see themselves back where they started. With an average life span of 85 years, they will return 85 times to the start. If you have not figured it out yet, the starship is earth. Not a straight line ‘A to B’ kind of space ship, but a space ship nonetheless.
With NASA in financial denial, it will be up to private entrepreneurs to start the space race again. But whatever you know about warp factor capable interstellar craft, I think that faster than light travel will not be possible. And if we are going to have any chance to populate far away planets before our one is consumed by its dying sun, we may have to look at nature to give us the solution.
The solution is to build a spherical ship with a propulsion system based on solar sails and hydrogen; the most abundant element in space. Taking everything they will need to get where they need to go. Speed will not be an issue as the original crew would not reach the final destination, but they would rather be the descendants of these pioneers.
What an adventure that would be, the final generation of ship dwellers arriving at their destination. New worlds, new life.
You may be thinking what got me mulling about this? And no, contrary to popular belief, it's not shrooms. Let me explain, my last adventure saw me travelling for the first time with my daughter over a distance with only a direction in mind, cocooned in our car with everything we needed, not caring where we were going, but happy to be travelling.
I have seen in my daughter the wanderlust that has accompanied me for over three decades, as I get older I will continue to travel but at some point I will have to stop and she will take over, such is life.
Ed.
