“Oh, yes — I know you. There was a time you looked at the stars and dreamed of what might be.” -Star Trek: Nemesis, spoken by Jean-Luc Picard
The stars call to us through the ages, with each and every one holding the promise of a future for humanity beyond Earth. For generations, this was a mere dream, as our technology allowed us to neither know what worlds might lie beyond our own Solar System or to reach beyond our planet. But time and development has changed both of those things significantly.
Image credit: NASA, 1981. A remote camera captures a close-up view of a Space Shuttle Main Engine during a test firing at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi.
Now, when we look to the stars, we know that potentially habitable worlds lurk throughout our galaxy, and our spaceflight capabilities can bring us there. But so far, it would only be a very long, lonely, one-way trip. This isn’t necessarily going to be the case forever, though, as physically feasible technology could get humans to another star within a single lifetime, and potentially groundbreaking technology might make the journey almost instantaneous.
Image credit: NASA / Digital art by Les Bossinas (Cortez III Service Corp.), 1998.
Come read about the possibilities (as well as the improbabilities) on this week’s Ask Ethan!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1kApq5j
“Oh, yes — I know you. There was a time you looked at the stars and dreamed of what might be.” -Star Trek: Nemesis, spoken by Jean-Luc Picard
The stars call to us through the ages, with each and every one holding the promise of a future for humanity beyond Earth. For generations, this was a mere dream, as our technology allowed us to neither know what worlds might lie beyond our own Solar System or to reach beyond our planet. But time and development has changed both of those things significantly.
Image credit: NASA, 1981. A remote camera captures a close-up view of a Space Shuttle Main Engine during a test firing at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi.
Now, when we look to the stars, we know that potentially habitable worlds lurk throughout our galaxy, and our spaceflight capabilities can bring us there. But so far, it would only be a very long, lonely, one-way trip. This isn’t necessarily going to be the case forever, though, as physically feasible technology could get humans to another star within a single lifetime, and potentially groundbreaking technology might make the journey almost instantaneous.
Image credit: NASA / Digital art by Les Bossinas (Cortez III Service Corp.), 1998.
Come read about the possibilities (as well as the improbabilities) on this week’s Ask Ethan!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1kApq5j
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