Commentary: This posting is in a series of posts summarizing the book, "Lights In The Sky and Little Green Men" by Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark. Hugh Ross is a scientist in physics and Clark has a PHd in political science. The other authors specialize in social sciences, philosophies, and international relations. The full series can be reviewed at UFOs an Alternative Look.
Interstellar Space Travel
Hugh Ross writes that images of Star Trek’s Enterprise zooming at warp speeds around the universe coupled with the Apollo space missions during the late 1960’s made the realization of aliens travelling through space even more possible. The common man pondered if life did arise somewhere else and had the same curiosity to explore space as we do. What kind of technology would they need? Ross reflects that space travel is more about the laws and constants of physics than any technology which can never overcome those laws.
Scale of space travel
The vastness of space is not comprehensible by human imagination. For E.T. to travel on the fastest NASA spacecraft ever built it would 112,000 years to travel from the nearest star to reach the solar system. Even traveling at half the speed of light it would take nine years to make the trip. Given the requirements for life to exist discussed earlier, there are no possible stars within 50 light years that meet the requirements for life. Thus, space travel would have to be much longer than the nearest star.
The hazards of any trip are enormous. The spacecraft would have to zigzag through space avoiding neutron and supergiant star radiation, nova and supernova eruptions, Stay in the plane of the universe, and avoid dense dust fields.
Communications with the home world would be assumed as well if a space traveler. However, a SETI scan of 202 solar system type stars within 155 light years indicates no intelligible signals.
These numbers now push space travel out to 230 light years away when considering the zigzag flight path necessary to reach Earth.
The speed of space travel
This poses many problems. The laws of physics prohibit travelling faster than the speed of light. At the speed of light the energy required to move the mass is infinite. At half the speed of light the energy required 170 million times more than NASA’s faster spacecraft.
Other mass problems arise. Engines require mass to operate. At higher speeds the mass required is exponential more. The spacecraft’s mass increases geometrically in relation to the payload.
Speed also increases the risk of collisions with space debris. To protect against this requires mass and also increases the mass of the spacecraft. To protect against radiation mass needs to be added because the radioactive particles erode the spacecraft surface. Conservative estimates regarding space travel speeds are at 1% the speed of light. Otherwise, the dangers of space increase dramatically and the response to counter these dangers is prohibitive of travel.
Wormholes
Wormholes are the outcome of highly imaginative and technically trained space travel enthusiasts suggest that advance aliens pass through wormholes to distant locations in space. This idea offers no help in solving the distance and time problem.
A worm hole occurs when mass of an object causes the curvature of space to increase to a point of a singularity that connects to a like event somewhere else in space. The resulting ‘tunnel’ would allow a travel to short cut space and time.
Ross questions the practicality of this event citing the best established models demonstrate that the regions of space connected are already close. Hence there is little advantage to a wormhole. Moreover, the probability of two blackholes connecting in this manner is nearly improbable. The greatest evidence against a wormhole is the physical laws of matter would preclude passage without destruction.
Multi-generational Travel
Ross postulates with such long distances and expansive time frames, space travel may require many generations. Ross argues the best life span for carbon based life is about 1000 years even if hibernating. Ross concludes that the generational progeny would most likely become confused and the original mission would be lost. Survivability would be nearly impossible since a single ecological disaster could wipe out the travelers.
Machines versus aliens
Given the risks, distance, and time involved aliens would most likely send machines rather than themselves. The bottom line is that the physics of interstellar space travel make the sentient life form travel impossible.
Commentary:
While fantasy charms us with fanciful off world tales and adventures, the reality of space travel under the current paradigm is nearly impossible. Humans may travel short jaunts to the Moon or even Mars in the future under variations of the current technologies and known physics. It is doubtful that humans will be physically capable of traveling beyond those limits since the speed of light is a limiting factor. There cannot be the mach equivalent in light as in sound. Sound is a particle wave having mass whereas light is electromagnetic wave that is not only massless but also behavorially distinct from particle waves.
However, all particles are in instantenous communication faster than the speed of light. Gravity affects all particles instanteously. Perhaps as we begin to understand the mechanics of gravity some aspect of its nature can be exploited for human interstellar space travel. That was the hope of wormholes but the mechanics and practical application are not feasible.
Likewise, based on mathematical interpretation of the theory of relativity nothing can travel remotely close to or at the speed of light. Nonetheless, we have a wave-particle theory of light and light itself travels at the speed of light. Perhaps the particle collapses or attenuates into a waveform. If we understand how this occurs perhaps something like a Star Trek Transporter will become possible. People will travel in directed beams in this case.
References:
Ross, H., Samples, K., & Clark, M. (2002). Lights in the sky and little green men: a rational christian look at UFOs and extraterrestrials. Navpress. Colorad
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