Traveling Through Space We want to explore space, we have exploration in our blood. Humans seem to be genetically inclined to explore, and in a way that is why travel is so popular. It is a way of seeing things we might never have seen before, which after all is the basis of exploration. If we want to see things no humans have seen before there are only two ways to do this. One is to go to the bottom of Earth’s oceans, or get off the planet earth. As you can see this will be impossible for most of us. Many of us are not too picky however, and would be glad to settle for seeing others doing this and sending back photos, and talking about their experiences when they return. If we are going to explore space we need better ways to do it. Some day people in the future will laugh at videos of us using three stage rockets to get off the planet. The idea of using drop away boosters, which in many cases are expendable, is just a sheer waste. To be serious about exploring space we need a one-piece ship which can get off the planet. Recently there has been talk about space travel having an effect on the gut bacteria we have in our bodies, and the harm which would come to it from space travel. When Scott Kelly who had an identical twin returned to earth after an extended stay on the International Space Station, many different medical tests were performed on him to see what had changed. These tests compared his body and its functions to those of his identical twin brother Mark. Some of the changes which were found left the scientists wondering what they really meant to the long-term health of Scott Kelly. One of the things which was found was a shift between the two main types of gut bacteria, and the changes in the population numbers. What caused these changes, was it radiation or lack of gravity? Maybe it was something else we are not aware of. It just goes to show there is a lot about not being on earth which we can’t quite grasp the ramifications of yet. For all we know getting off earth might extend our life. If we are going to travel in space and explore it, we have to be ready to experience the unknown. Things might happen which we least expect. Being an astronaut or cosmonaut could turn out to be even more dangerous than expected. A spaceship might be safely cruising along, and the next thing you know might get stuck in some sort of powerful gravity wave from which it cannot escape. Our ships have to be as powerful as we can construct them. They also have to be so fast we really can’t imagine the speed they would have to be capable of today. I have talked about this before. The Milky Way is just one galaxy out of billions. It is believed to be 100,000 light years wide. Even if we were able to travel at the speed of light, we couldn’t get near traveling across it and truthfully this is unacceptable. Let’s speculate, and see what would happen if we could travel 100,000 light years in a year. If we wanted to go to the nearest galaxy the distance would be 2.5 million light years. It would take us twenty-five years just to reach it. This was just an exercise to show you the absurd amount of speed we would need just to get our exploration boots on. We know Einstein said a vehicle could never reach the speed of light, so does this mean we are stuck in our solar system? That is a good question, because Einstein was mostly correct about such things, but we have to pin our hopes on he was wrong. Perhaps we will find some natural phenomena which breaks that speed, and we can learn from it. Wait a second there was one which did travel faster than light, if we believe the scientists and it was the big bang. The big bang was the method science claims created the universe. It is a sort of super explosion which shot out matter. Another thing which seem to defy Einstein’s statement is quantum entanglement. This is when two electrons are entangled, and changes to one are instantly picked up by the other, no matter how far away it is. Some think there are also other methods, one of which might involve negative matter. Perhaps we will be able to use one of these methods to gain the speed we need. Think of this, a spaceship is traveling through the galaxy, and is powered somehow by quantum entanglement and can instantly appear anywhere in the universe. It might turn out we wouldn’t even need spaceships anymore to do this. Maybe a device attached to some sort of spacesuit would be sufficient. Yes, I know this sounds like pure science fiction, but quantum entanglement is a real thing. We are not built for space travel. Our bodies are not robust enough for what lies out there. Despite this, perhaps methods can be developed to protect us from those rigors. One idea might be a spacesuit which is really a robot with all sorts of protection for the passenger inside. It could have radiation protection, strength and ways for the occupant to take care of his or her needed functions. I don’t know if a human would be able to stand it very long inside one of these things however. Development goes in stages, so first we will probably have to develop enough speed so we can get around our solar system, before even thinking about going to the next one. This means we would have to be able to reach the furthest planets, dwarf planets, asteroids and moons in a reasonable amount of time. It seems to me 10 percent of light speed would be required to get around the solar system in a decent amount of time. It takes light 5.5 hours to reach Pluto from the sun so at 10 percent light speed we could get to Pluto in a little over two days. We are finding dwarf planets out much further, and some are said to be eight times further away than Pluto. There is no doubt we have a need for speed.
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