Dangers of Traveling in Space
Space is far more dangerous than most of us think and this is what will make it very dangerous for us to travel in it. There are so many dangers it is hard to say any particular one is the most dangerous and this is only the ones we know about. I suspect there are far more dangers than just the ones we know. The worst case scenario would be space is so dangerous for us to travel in, we won’t be able to go anywhere except for maybe the planets and moons in our solar system, if even them. Even in our own solar system there are dangers. Solar flares release all sorts of energy and they come in many different sizes. They contain Gamma rays and X-Rays among other dangers. If a large enough flare got close enough to our spacecraft and it had a human crew onboard, they would be subject to massive amounts of radiation. This would be true in other solar systems as well and the more powerful the star the greater the chance of a large solar flare being created. The space station is within earth’s protective shield from radiation, no such protection is available yet for spacecraft.
The human body is not built to travel in space, especially on a craft without some sort of gravity device. This has been demonstrated many times over when astronauts and cosmonauts come back from stays on the space station. Some are so weak they have to be helped out of the returning rocket. Keep in mind these are people who had been on a rigorous exercise program and spent hours every day trying to stay in the best shape they could under the circumstances, but they still lose bone density. Another risk for a lengthy trip is our own natures may betray us. Being cooped up with others without being able to get away for a time could cause friction among the crew and as time goes by this fraction could turn into hostility and maybe even physical aggressiveness. The last thing a crew needs are its members fighting with each other and endangering the mission.
When one traveled on the oceans to the new world there was no hope of being rescued if something went wrong. This problem still exists today. Since the beginning of the space program manned missions into space have no backups with the exception of being rescued from the International Space Station which has a life boat vehicle attached, but it is extremely close by, by space standards. A small ship carried by a larger one would not be feasible today for several reasons. Space travel takes a long time and a small ship might be much slower and have no shielding therefore not only putting the crew at risk from radiation, but not being able to hold the rations needed for the trip home unless it was used within a few days after launch. The crew of a spacecraft needs clean air to breathe. On a long trip, say to Mars or beyond, there is a certain amount of risk something could go wrong. While we have a lot of experience with a system like this, you never know. How many refrigerators break down every year?
Moving out of our solar system exposes our space craft to many more dangers. Picture the speed which would be needed to reach our closest neighbor Alpha Centauri. Some scientists think we might be able to reach 1/10 the speed of light, but this would still mean it would take us 4.3 light years times 10 times to reach it or 43.10 years. Even if we could do this somehow with a manned craft, think about some of the perils. First of all our ship would need to be able to detect objects in our path as small as a grain of sand or even smaller and be able to instantly steer around obstacles. Remember the speed our ship is moving at and add the speed of the object coming toward us and you can see this might be an impossible task using today’s technology for a couple of different reasons. First of all we might not be able to detect this grain of sand sized object far enough away to prevent a collision and at these speeds it would tear right through our ship. Secondly our ship’s systems might not be able to react fast enough if an object was detected.
Tremendous explosions occur in space quite frequently and they can destroy planets and other objects in space for hundreds of light years and maybe even more. If our ship was traveling in space and became subject to one of these explosions it could kill everyone onboard. It is hard to imagine the scope of something like a super-nova explosion. These explosions travel at the speed of light so our ship might not be able to get out of the way unless perhaps it was on the very edge of the wave and could maneuver off the path. When Gamma-ray bursts were first detected, US scientists thought they were Soviet nuclear tests, but learned better. There are so many, one scientist has set his cell phone to go off every time one occurs. It is thought if a super-nova explosion occurred in our galaxy it could destroy the ozone layer and start fires causing mass extinctions, but it is believed the closest star this could happen to is already 150,000 light years away so we are safe.
Gravity could be very dangerous to our spacecraft. It seems just about every galaxy has at least one black hole in it. A black hole is an object in space which is so powerful, gravity wise, it has been said even light cannot escape from it, although some scientists believe they saw something which looked like light escaping one. Never-the-less if our ship got too close to a black hole the gravity might draw it in and no type of engine would be able to overcome the pull at a certain point. We don’t really know all the dangers which might threaten the crew of our spaceship, because we haven’t been out very far in space. Going to the moon is the equivalent to walking around a corner on earth. There may be plenty of other things waiting for us which could easily wipe us out.
