Posts tagged space-travel
Assuming that the planet is 20 light years away (so back and forth trips would be impractical) we have no clue whether there is any edible life forms on the new planet hibernation (freezing/thaw...
If a rocket ship with limited fuel has fallen into a decades-long elliptical orbit around the Sun, where in the orbit should it fire its engines in order to achieve escape velocity with a minimum o...
We are the only sentient civilization currently known to man, and sight is an integral part of both our everyday lives as well as most major technological advances throughout human history. Withou...
Imagine a species that evolved on a planet where there was no metal (or not much) of any kind. They, of course, discovered fire and were able to start building buildings and basic machinery from ...
First off, let's get definitions out of the way: A "race" here is defined as stable, heritable, phenotypic, clearly visual distinction between large demographic groups living in different geograph...
So, I know that the universe is expanding, and that that means that things are generally getting further apart as time goes on. What I'm having difficulty with, however, is figuring out just how mu...
Okay, so I have a sci-fi setting in which there is a form of FTL travel. Imagine the universe(all three/four dimensions of it) was stretched out onto the surface of a sphere. Now assume that ther...
Note before I begin: I am aware that this might be a Math-heavy question that might be better suited for the math.se Goal: I'd like to use n-dimensional geometry as a method for effectively travel...
Faster than light travel is Dangerous with a capital D. The main reason for this is because by the time you see something, you've already smashed into it and vaporised yourself, the target and any...
For a story idea, I'm wondering about the effects that the discovery of another intelligent species without FTL travel would have. If we discovered another species much like ours, 50-100 light yea...
I have a story that requires travel through a wormhole. I know the basic requirement to go through a spherical wormhole would be that the object must be smaller than the wormhole diameter. Assume t...
For this question, let's say we have a space faring civilization. They are at least 100 years more advanced than us, and are drawing up plans to send colonists to a neighboring star. The catch is,...
Say that America/NASA has developed a small city with around 100 or so inhabitants on the Moon. Would a cannon or slingshot or trebuchet type machine be able to launch cargo out of Earth's orbit a...
Question inspired by discussion under this answer: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/70360/2071 Dear people of Proxima Centauri. Our planet is dying. Our suns are dying. As you all know. W...
If a spaceship left earth traveling at near or at light speeds (that being possible in this situation) would they not when coming back to earth, arrive many years in the future due to Einstein's th...
Compact, rapidly rotating astronomical objects (like neutron stars) are often observed to emit streams of high energy particle radiation along their poles. Near supermassive black holes in galactic...
"Group B" has acquired [Plot-device] and it is able to deliver over time infinite energy of the type needed for the story to work. They decide to place it on the most powerful space engine known t...
Assume that Amazon has set up a processing station on the Moon for whatever motive as a way to ship things out to space (Mars, etc.) faster and more efficiently. How much time today and perhaps i...
Would it be possible for a civilization with absolutely minimal knowledge and use of electricity (Light-bulbs, basic electric motors, and archaic radios) to reach space? I was thinking that a soli...
In my other question "Is it possible to build a bridge between planets?" several concepts of interplanetary bridges were formed. What I would now like to know is, are any of the proposed bridges ab...
I wanted to make a setting that has a "space tower" of some kind, not necessarily a space elevator (it might be a fountain for example, or even just a gigantic upward pointing mass driver). It mak...
The Intergalactic Colonization Authority has a problem. They've recently discovered this awesome planet they want to colonize, but it's located in a part of the universe most of the rest of the civ...
Year 2317 C.E. traffic report: heavy traffic expected along upper Curiosity sector H-311 going towards Juno boulevard, there is an accident at Exit C right lane, so vehicle leaving for Europa via t...
Spinny McSpinface is an ancient generation ship, invented and launched before the creation of Wrap drive and recently arrived at its original destination of A Long Way from Anywhere V. All the crew...
And how much fuel would you need to carry? I'm trying to determine what kind of engine you'd need to accelerate a good-size spacecraft (thousands to millions of tons) at a constant 1g in a race acr...
In a not-so-distant future, around 2300, mankind finally find a way to keep the body intact over hundred of years, allowing a limited number of humans to travel over hundreds of years in order to j...
I'm writing a spaceship that just performed an Oberth maneuver around the sun, 10 million km out, and is accelerating toward a gravity sling with Jupiter. It had a high--not certain how high yet--i...
Each technology, that is evolving, begins with simple piece of programming code that starts with variables of certain data types. It is interesting to note that many calculative and computing techn...
Simplifying a larger problem. Building a sci-fi text game and I don't want the science to be too wrong. Imagine I have two points in space which are 111,125 kilometers apart and it takes 17 minut...
[WARNING] Approximate physics incoming A few months ago I was looking for a way to get to Gliese 581 within 100 years. So I've been reading a lot from Wikipedia and other sites about different pro...
I sometimes tell my kid that when he grows up, he might be living on the moon. Last night he was worried that Santa won't be able to bring him presents there. To which I replied that sure, Santa ca...
I have a universe where humanity has produced various civilizations on multiple planets (and no planet has achieved a single world government); and very few of these countries possess the know-how ...
I won't claim to be a biologist, but I'm fairly certain that it's really hard for disease to survive in space because most bacteria and viruses need a host in order to survive for long periods of t...
Context if you're interested In the very near future, a planet teeming with alien life is discovered several light years away from our Solar System - and with a few precautions, it may be habi...
Would a blind astronaut be able to sense the gravity of a nearby star/planet/moon? Would an astronaut lost somewhere inside the Sun be able to sense which way is the core and which way is the surf...
I plan to write a story about a large number of space probes that are equipped with artificial intelligence and told to explore star systems and travel between them. These probes are not equipped w...
I've read that the atmosphere about 60 km from the surface of Venus is very similar to the atmosphere on earth (the oxygen/nitrogen/CO2 levels and pressures are about the same). If there was a way,...
Consider a hard-SF (slower than light) starship. Boosting it up to speed takes enormous energy. There are good reasons to want to not take all the fuel with you, but to collect energy on the run....
I'm considering a story set about fifty years (2065) in the future. It takes a rather optimistic view; space exploration has led to colonies on the Moon and Mars, as well as several space stations ...
Simulation of artificial panspermia, in inter-galactic travel, as a model for the study of reproductive isolation. Case 1: If we send a mass of proto cells(kept alive by some mechanism like cr...
In a universe with no faster-than-light travel, the Solar System has largely been settled, and has been for at least 200 years. I envision populations to look something like this: Earth: 8 billi...
I was wondering if it would make sense to hollow out an asteroid to use for a generation ship? Also, might it be a good idea to use hollow asteroids for any kind of long distance space ship? I'm th...
The most common explanation of what would happen to a space-ship that falls into a black hole ends with spaghettification. However imagine there was a space-ship built out of unobtanium, that cou...
I want to live in a pollution free world, where all creatures can breath clean air. I also want to live in a high-end space civilization, where its possible to travel to other planets in our sola...
I've asked before about my polytheists with competing moon gods. I now have a better understanding of how tides -- a very visible manifestation of lunar influence -- work with multiple moons (than...
The energy source both in terms of fuel and electricity on my ship is nuclear fusion. Very precise nuclear fusion: there is no helium fusion until there is absolutely 100% helium in the main fusion...
I'm throwing around a rough concept in my head and wonder which effect it would have on the present world. How would the world as we know it change if this technology were invented (and nothing els...
Scenario: A generation ship travels to a star system that has at least one planet that's believed to be potentially habitable and, therefore, a possible location for a colony. After sending some p...
On the generation ship in one of my stories and possibly more, there exists a positive relationship between the egg laying humanoid aliens who have an egg pouch on their chest and the humans they a...
Here's an idea that I've been toying with. The aliens are real, they are here and they dominate at least a part of our galaxy. How did they overcome the vast distances and why haven't we noticed?...
