Report We Won't Have Enough Power For Interstellar Travel Until At Least 2211

[The Helper]

Interstellar travel won’t be possible for at least 200 years, according to a former NASA propulsion scientist who has some new calculations. And by then, the spaceships we would design for the trip will be obsolete.

Forget cost, political will and all the other variables — simply obtaining enough energy will take until 2196, according to Marc Millis, former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project and founder of the Tau Zero Foundation, which supports interstellar travel research.

Millis did plenty of extrapolating to reach this conclusion, which he presented at an astronomy meeting in Prague last fall and posted to the physics archive this week. He crunched 27 years of data on energy trends, mission energy requirements, individual energy use and even societal priorities, and chose two possible trips: An aimless interstellar colony ship, and a 75-year-long mission to Alpha Centauri.

Millis examined the energy required to launch the space shuttle during the past 30 years, which is a fraction of the nation’s total available energy. He assumes the same ratio will hold for interstellar flight, as Technology Review’s arXiv blog explains.

For a 500-person ship on a one-way journey, Millis figures you would need at least an exajoule — that’s 10^18 joules — which is just a little bit less than all the energy consumed by the entire world in one year. For an unmanned ship destined for Alpha Centauri, you would actually need more energy, because you’d want to slow it down upon arrival at our nearest neighboring star. This would require 10^19 joules. Even without accounting for fuel, the 500-passenger ship wouldn’t be able to launch until around 2200 at the earliest, and the A. Centauri probe won’t be ready until around 2500.

We Won't Have Enough Power For Interstellar Travel Until At Least 2211, According to New Calculations

Interstellar travel won't be possible for at least 200 years, according to a former NASA propulsion scientist who has some new calculations. And by then, the spaceships we would design for the trip will be obsolete. Forget cost, political will and all the other variables — simply obtaining...

www.popsci.com

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I hope this is not true.

 

[seph ir oth]

In the early 1950's (before the space race), people weren't even thinking about landing on the moon. Look what we did a decade or two later.

These silly articles be silly

 

[Sevion]

That would suck. I wanted to send my kids to that epic college on Planet XI7AB3

 

[tom_mai78101]

Don't forget about the Steel Ball Run back in the 1800's. At that time, no one ever thought of mounting their horses and go cross-country.

 

[SerraAvenger]

*sigh*, the comments on that article suck. They're all like "with better propulsion, it'll work". FALSE. With better propulsion, we'll get closer to the unrealistic 1018J. We'll probably need much more anyway.
Or they're like "We'll have more energy in 200 years!". RIGHT, but that is already in his calculations.

Also that guy saying "If you want to ask how long will a computer take to crack the hardest NSA encryption, you don't say a million years based on todays computers. You say computing doubles every so many years, in maybe 100 years a computer will be powerful enough to do so.". Computers will never crack NSA if those attempts at cracking NSA are only accelerated by computers speed increase. 1st, computer speed doesn't double every x years, it might've done that in the last decades, but that trend is going to end. We're on the ends that physics impose on us. Sure, we're now designing 3D chips but well that won't really help us continue the trend. Without a radically new technology, the years of faster computing have ended.
In the end, even if the silly claim is true that in 100 years computers are fast enough to break current keys; Keys can just be 128 bit longer and swoosh it'll take another (say) 100 years to reach that point.

Next to this, this isn't even much about Interstellar Travel; It is about a single mission. If we really want Travel on a more frequent basis, you can multiply this with x.

@TH: Please change 1018/1019 to 10^18/10^19, respectively. Thank you : )

EDIT:

Don't forget about the Steel Ball Run back in the 1800's. At that time, no one ever thought of mounting their horses and go cross-country.

Steel Ball Run (???????????? Sut?ru B?ru Ran?) is a seinen manga series by Hirohiko Araki. Originally presented as an unrelated story, this series was officially declared a part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure storyline. The series stars Gyro Zeppeli, who uses a set of steel balls that spin incredibly fast, and Johnny Joestar (Jonathan Joestar), a former hot-shot jockey who was crippled by an ambusher and lost his fame and fortune. They race, along with others, in a mad-dash across America for 50 million dollars, reminiscent of The Cannonball Run.

Um... Wait, what :S?

 

[Bartuc08]

True we did go to the moon in a decade, but look at the drive and determination we had as a nation. Now-a-days every one is so busy whining about what they don't have or what the other man has that we can't put our difference aside and sort out space travel. I was watching an episode of Cosmos, followed by some Star Trek, and I was saddened at the end. Not because it was a terrible episode, but because I had realized that I might never experience space travel in this life. Sure a lot of us might not, but it put one of my dreams into a stasis of impossibility...

 

[FireCat]

That would suck. I wanted to send my kids to that epic college on Planet XI7AB3

Ive never heard of planet XI7AB3 hmm. How to find address space map, for planet XI7AB3?

 

[thewrongvine]

Unless we discover something...

That's dissapointing.

 

[Sim]

I say cover the sun with Solar Panels, then re-establish.

 

[BlowingKush]

3 words.

National Ignitions Labratory.



He didn't take shit like this into account.

 

[JerseyFoo]

This is assuming we would travel. Perhaps we wouldn't.

In the end, even if the silly claim is true that in 100 years computers are fast enough to break current keys; Keys can just be 128 bit longer and swoosh it'll take another (say) 100 years to reach that point.

Assuming you have to check every combination. Perhaps you don't.

1st, computer speed doesn't double every x years, it might've done that in the last decades, but that trend is going to end.

You're referring to Moore's Law right? It doesn't say that.

Don't worry everyone, computers will continue to get faster. Wirth's law will save us.

 

[13lade619]

Theoretical Physics will remain theoretical for a long long long (long) time.

They always say science fiction is becoming science fact.
But in what level, Atomic? Molecular?

They're all spending billions on solving those 'future' problems
when our present is deteriorating.

 

[uberfoop]

I hope this is not true.

Well, it's obviously a vague approximation with a whole bunch of vague assumptions.


The theoretical minimum requirement according to special relativity for a 75-year and 4.24 LY trip of a 1kg object, starting and ending at rest, and ignoring things like gravity wells, is 3.2 grams of energy.
This having been said, that's still a good 2.88*10^14 J (or ~60 kiloton blast).

Also, it gets way worse if you want to make faster times. The theoretical minimum for a 30-year trip? 20 grams. 10 years? 200 grams. 5 years? 2.56Kg. 2.56Kg is also roughly equivalent to the most powerful kaboom ever created by a person. How about 4.3 years? 35Kg of energy! And don't try to go much faster than that, because the universal traffic cop will fly out of nowhere, scream "FOR CAUSALITY!", and punch you in the face.


Note that these masses/energies assume that you have a massless engine and 100% efficient fuel. Even thermonuclear bombs don't dream of that sort of efficiency.


edit: This might also be a good (bad) time to point out that we haven't really progressed all that much in rocketry power over the past half century. State-of-the-art designs are moderately more efficienct than some of their predecessors, but some of those old vessels remain on a beautifully efficient economy-of-scale; the Soyuz rocket family, developed in the mid 60's and based on a late-50's ICBM, remains a popular low-orbit launch vehicle.
If new technology allows us to travel better, it'll likely be in the realm of the weak but highly efficient drives.

 

[Sevion]

Let's all call up Ender and ask him how his ships work.

 

[Miz]

Let's all call up Ender and ask him how his ships work.

My thoughts exactly. :thup:

 

[thewrongvine]

Dr. Emmett Brown: Unfortunately no, it requires something with a little more kick - plutonium.

Unfortunately, even the DeLorean can't do it.

 

[SerraAvenger]

This is assuming we would travel. Perhaps we wouldn't.

You have to agree that this is tedious.
"If we travel, but don't travel, we might need much less"
What point does that make?
It's like saying "If tomatoes are red, but not red, humans can fly."

Assuming you have to check every combination. Perhaps you don't.

Right... That's why I said "if those attempts at cracking NSA are only accelerated by computers speed increase", not "if those attempts at cracking NSA are only accelerated by computers speed increase OR better algorithms".

You're referring to Moore's Law right? It doesn't say that.

No, I was referring to that random guy's interpretation of Moore's law. Which did, in fact, say that.
I know Moore's law and you and I know it is gonna break, too. Unless we magically develop quantum computing within the next 15 years (or a similar technology that is non-deterministic and addresses some of our NP problems), in which case transistors might become all but insignificant; Which would quite much render Moore's law obsolete.

Don't worry everyone, computers will continue to get faster. Wirth's law will save us.

Heh. Heh.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Um... Wait, what :S?

Link.

This, in short, is the actual real-life Steel Ball Run back in 1930s, USA.

I must've been reading too many manga...

 

[JerseyFoo]

You have to agree that this is tedious.
"If we travel, but don't travel, we might need much less"
What point does that make?

Considering interstellar travel would take a unbelievably long time anyway, perhaps -- if it is possible at all -- we'd use portals, warp drives, and other forms of non-existent not-exactly-travel.

Otherwise we're going to die out, so why not assume it is possible.

Right... That's why I said "if those attempts at cracking NSA are only accelerated by computers speed increase", not "if those attempts at cracking NSA are only accelerated by computers speed increase OR better algorithms".

Electricity always takes the path of least resistance, it solves circuits as problems without spending anytime calculating the right answer. Computing is based on a much more restricted control of electricity, maybe that isn't necessary. What if we only think we need clock cycles.

Which would quite much render Moore's law obsolete.

Respect your elders, good sir.

 

[SerraAvenger]

Considering interstellar travel would take a unbelievably long time anyway, perhaps -- if it is possible at all -- we'd use portals, warp drives, and other forms of non-existent not-exactly-travel.

Otherwise we're going to die out, so why not assume it is possible.

Right, I do agree that if we really want to practically traverse space, we will need something like space folding.

Electricity always takes the path of least resistance, it solves circuits as problems without spending anytime calculating the right answer. Computing is based on a much more restricted control of electricity, maybe that isn't necessary.

Yes, but that has got little to do with my initial statement, which was just addressing the plain ignorance of another post. You will agree that the content of that post bears little signs of intelligent beings, and then we can have a new discussion. It seems of me as if you want to disprove a point I never made, which is maybe possible, but not very fruitful. If you want, we can also move this discussion to the "discussion zone", as it seems that's a much more befitting environment.

What if we only think we need clock cycles.

See also:

DNA Computers
Biocomputers
Computational gene
Molecular electronics
Peptide computing
Parallel computing
Quantum computing
DNA code construction
(quoted from wikipedia)

Respect your elders, good sir.

Moore had it at 12 Months in the beginning, and later changed it to 24 months. It did a great job at predicting transistor density/cost for many years and still will for a decade, and then - well, either we get another breakthrough in technology which will help us attend his curve for a little bit longer, or we'll maybe get a computing technology that will make transistor density meaningless as a factor in "computation power", or we will be stuck for some time (until either of the former happens).