• ColeSloth
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    With a generational ship and a shield and a way of blocking cosmic rays I think it will eventually be possible, but take a very long time. I don’t believe light speed will ever be possible, but going near light speed starts slowing down time a whole bunch for those on board the ships. So if for instance we came up with some trickery to get up to 99% the speed of light and wanted to go to a planet one galaxy over that’s 25,000 light years away, in theory the ship and the people in it would get there in about 1200 years. Even though it would be like 25,000 years for anyone who wasn’t on the ship. At 99.999% it would only take what would seem like about 115 years on the ship.

    I’m not going to say that’s flat out impossible that it could happen but we’d have to find one hell of a way to cheat the system.

    Alternatively, I think it will come about (if humans don’t kill ourselves off) that a person can “live forever” in one form or another. If we get to that point then pesky things like travel time and atmospheres and such will be much less an issue. I then wonder how long a person would want to be around before they decided they’d rather “self terminate”.