Reaching the Stars
The Who, Why, How, and When
We are currently facing a growing dilemma in today’s world. The question of why do we need to explore space has been answered. Now that we have the need, all that is left is to determine the means to undertake this process. We will explore the, why, how, and when of humanity reaching the stars and what we will do when we get there.
For some, the need to explore is inherent from birth. They want to explore everything they can, sometimes risking life and limb to do so. Yet for the majority, the desire to explore is not enough to devote vast amounts of resources, time, money, and effort, to the cause of getting humans out into the galaxy. They need a much better reason.
One such reason why there is a need to seriously contemplate colonizing other worlds is the Earth’s growing population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States alone has more than two hundred eighty five million people in her borders. This is a staggering number. By the year 2025, there will be an estimated 346 million people in the U.S. (Population Connection) In less than 30 years we will gain an additional 60 million people. One may say that this is not too bad an estimate. When one thinks that, one needs to look at the current global population and it’s projections.
The world’s current population is approximately 6.2 billion people (Yax), and the estimate for 2025 is 7.8 billion people! We’re not getting any less people in the world, so where are we to get the resources to feed, clothe and house these people? There is no easy answer for this problem. One could say that renewable sources of power are on their way to be developed for widespread use. However, we have developed a dependence upon fossil fuels, which are in a seriously finite supply. Suburban sprawl in this country alone is at a rate that takes more than 500,000 acres of land a year! (Flicker) At this rate, the country will be nothing more than a giant suburb before we know it. We are having a difficult time as it is feeding the people of today.
The impact on the environment with today’s population is horrendous. Think of what it will be like when we add a couple billion more people to the world. At the rate we are going, we are very likely to kill ourselves off unless a solution is found and quickly at that. There is not enough petroleum underneath the planet’s crust to keep up with the rate of consumption for much longer. So, what we need to do is also look at alternative fuel sources such as solar power, windmills, hydroelectric power, nuclear power, and even hydrogen fuel. These are all renewable sources of energy with the exception of nuclear power. While nuclear power does produce some very nasty by-products, we do have the containment of said wastes in widespread use today.
How are we to feed the growing global population? One could argue that more land could be devoted to farming. Well, that may be a good idea, yet if we are to do that, where are we going to house all the people? We are already destroying a tremendous amount of woodlands to make room for more people, yet we need these forests for oxygen and to aid in producing rain and filtering the air we breathe. Something has to be done.
So we come down to reasons for reaching out to the stars. It still does not address the issue of overpopulation if we do get there, but if we can get on that road to the cosmos, then we will be able to deal appropriately with population.
A very serious investigation presently under way is making our neighboring planet of Mars fit for human life. In order for us to do this, we would terraform the planet. In other words, make it suitable for humans to live and breathe on the surface of the planet. Yet, in order to do this, we must first know what it is we are up against.
It is common knowledge that Mars is incapable of supporting human life at this time. The Martian atmosphere is compromised of mostly carbon dioxide. Humans need oxygen, something the red planet has very little of. (Zubrin) There are several different methods of achieving the end goal of humans living on Mars. Some are feasible, while others are currently in the realm of science fiction.
One method currently being explored by NASA is using existing materials to warm the planet and causing the polar ice caps to melt, thus having liquid water on the surface. One would merely need to introduce gases well known to man to create a greenhouse effect planet-wide. Why would we need to do this? Well, Martian surface temperatures average out to –63 centigrade, clearly too cold for humans to survive without extensive protective gear and with a temperature that low, it is not possible to have liquid water on the surface. (NASA)
After we have raised the average temperature of Mars by several degrees, the next step would be to convert the majority of the carbon dioxide into oxygen. How could this be done? One way is through electrolysis whereby water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. After all, we already use this technology onboard submarines, all we would have to do is arrange it to work on a planetary scale. However, this method, on its own, would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming.
Another method to extract oxygen from carbon dioxide is a process known to even elementary school children. By this, I mean using plant life to do some of the work. After the planet has warmed a bit, we could introduce mosses and other basic plant life that reproduces at an astonishing rate. This would not only convert a good deal of the atmosphere into oxygen but would also aid in the production of rainfall and continuing of the warming process. While the oxygen conversion is underway, we could begin to introduce basic crops to be used as a future food source such as wheat and soy, thus expediting the process even further.
When the atmosphere has enough oxygen to support human life, even if a breathing aid would be necessary, we could begin to cultivate farmlands and begin building cities. By the time the cities would be completed, the atmosphere would be more than ready for unaided breathing.
The entire terraforming process is very complicated and will take many years to complete, but can be done with a little effort and funding. But it is an answer to the problems facing humanity today and I highly doubt that there would be a shortage of volunteers to be the first to colonize Mars.
Now that the issue of making a planet suitable for human life has been addressed, we now look at how are we to get to the stars, not just our neighbors in the Solar system. Today’s science has yet to develop a means to get us to the nearest star within a single human lifetime. So, how do we get there? One may think that the solution will remain in the hands of science fiction authors, but the science community is close on their heels. But before we look at how we can do it, we have to look at some of the side effects to these proposed journeys.
By far the biggest obstacle to overcome in traveling at near the speed of light is what is called relativistic properties. Einstein theorized that the faster one approaches the speed of light that the relative time changes. Simply put, if you had a clock aboard a craft with a velocity of even one third the speed of light and a clock on Earth, the clock on earth would stay the same while the one aboard the craft would appear to move more slowly. In other words, those aboard a craft traveling at speeds where this phenomenon occurs will age more slowly than their counterparts traveling at non-relativistic speeds. Say that a craft leaves Earth and travels to the nearest star which is only 4.2 light years away, a light year is unit of measurement indicating the distance which takes light one year to cross, the faster the craft goes the slower time seems to them. However, much more time will have passed on Earth. (Millis)
In other words, if you were to make a journey of several light years at speeds approaching the speed of light, it is feasible for thousands of years to have passed on Earth, while the journey may only seem to take a few years for the passengers. This is the largest problem with propelling a craft to a speed that makes travel between stars in a single lifetime possible. Now, if mankind does not mind utilizing a slightly skewed version of the fountain of youth, then we are only a few years away from exploring the universe.
Aside from the time issue, the truly large hurdle of fuel must be addressed. Today’s rocket engines utilize Newton’s third law: As propellant blasts out of the rocket in one direction, it pushes the spacecraft in the other. (Millis) So, if we wish to go faster or farther, just like in our cars, we will need more fuel. Well, in space we do not have the luxury of pulling over to a service station and refilling when need be. So, how do we travel in space without rockets? One theory is to use micro nuclear explosions to propel the craft forward and then turn around and use the same method to decelerate. However, we would need a good deal of nuclear fuel to accomplish this. There are countless other theories out there to propel a craft through the vacuum of space, yet they all rely on the principle of having something push the craft along its journey.
One way to circumvent the issue of onboard fuel is the concept of the Bussard Interstellar Ramjet. In essence, it is a device that captures stray hydrogen in interstellar space and then processed to be used as a hydrogen bomb to continue to propel the craft. However, the energy requirements to convert raw hydrogen into material suited for detonation outweighs the benefits. (Millis)
But we said we wanted to travel to distant stars in a human lifetime. It would take you fifty million years to reach a star only 4.2 light years away. It would take a craft traveling at thirty seven thousand miles per hour eighty thousand years to get there. (Millis) What are we to do? The answer resides in a technological breakthrough of some kind. We cannot make do with current methods of propulsion, so we have to come up with something new.
One such possibility to traverse great astronomical distances would be to utilize wormholes. Wormholes are holes in normal space-time. Theoretically you could travel through a wormhole and the distance to the passengers would be minute. Yet, they could cover hundreds or even thousands of light-years. For example, if you were to take a pencil and try to trace a path from one point to another on a sheet of paper, the shortest route is invariably a straight line. Now, wormholes work again by creating holes in and bending normal space-time. Back to the paper analogy, all you would have to do is fold the paper (space) and punch a whole on both sides. Unfortunately, one would need tremendous amounts of super-dense matter, make a ring the size of the earth’s orbit around the sun, and vast amounts of energy to spin it up to the speed of light, on both ends! I’m pretty sure we can think of something a little more realistic than that. (Millis)
Possibly the most realistic means of getting around the speed limit that Albert Einstein gave the world is the Alcubierre Warp Drive. As one may have surmised, this is the principle behind the “Warp Drive” in Star Trek. According to Einstein, matter cannot attain or pass the speed of light yet it may be possible for space itself to travel faster or at least at the speed of light.
Imagine, if you will, you are on a train. While the train is moving you decide to get up and walk to the dining car. Now remember that the train is moving, and by you walking towards the dining car you are essentially moving faster than the train even though your senses report that you are moving no faster than if you were walking on the ground. The same principle applies to the warp drive theory. All one must do is warp space by expanding the space at your origin (your seat), and contracting it at the destination (the dining car). In this case, you are bending or warping space-time and the relative distance between two points is smaller than it was originally. (Millis)
Another example of this theory is easier to envision. Put your hands together. The distance between the bottom of your palms and your fingertips is the distance between Earth and another planet. Now, move your palms apart from the bottom and keep your fingertips together. The point where you started from is in the same place with respect to the bottom of your palms as it is now. If you keep your fingertips together and continue to move your palms apart, the original distance is now non-existent. This again is how the warp drive theory works.
If you could employ this method in space, one could traverse the distance between Earth and another star in a matter of minutes. However, the energy requirements would be on a scale that would require the use of something new. We now enter the realm of exotic energies.
Exotic forms of matter like anti-matter once were only in the realm of science fiction. However, we have high energy particle accelerators ran by researchers all over the world to turn regular matter into anti-matter. Essentially, anti-matter is nothing more than subatomic particles that have an opposite charge than they normally would. In other words, a positron is nothing more than an electron that has a positive rather than a negative charge. The only downfall to producing massive amounts of anti-matter to fuel the spacecraft of tomorrow is that it is prohibitively expensive. It takes several billions of dollars to create less than a milligram of anti-matter.
But, do not let that stand in our way. Remember than only a few years ago that it was said that by today, computers could weigh no more than a ton. We now have personal computers that outperform the computers of the 1960’s and weigh less than a pound. It was also said by Bill Gates that 256 kilobytes is all the memory you will ever need in a computer. I believe that in a few years we will be able to produce anti-matter much more cheaply than we do today, but we have to start from somewhere.
Despite all of the obstacles facing mankind, the road to the stars is right around the corner. All we have to do is have the desire and make the resources available to ensure the survival of the human race. So, let’s put away our petty squabbling and try to do something truly noble and save the human race from itself.
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