What are the biggest hurdles mankind will need to overcome to achieve interstellar travel.?

The first hurdle to overcome is the crippling ignorance (of which religion is the most obvious manifestation) that seems to always position itself squarely in the path of human progress. When government stops pandering to the lowest common denominator in human intellect and starts applying an appropriate amount of resources and legislation toward scientific advancement, then it will be amazing what we can accomplish.

I think that the major hurdle to interstellar travel - apart from the great no enormous lengths of time to reach a star - would be the fact that - atleast presently - there is not a committed effort - like during the race to the Moon in the 60s to accompplish this task. But since we are dealing with such a vast undertaking , it will ultimately, I believe not be possible for the US or Russia or China to go it alone - I believe it will have to be a joint effort and as we are not exactly trusting of our neighbors I don't see this happening anytime soon.

I think its basically the time and energy needed to travel to another star thats the challenge. The fastest time that can be achieved to reach the star is by traveling at the speed of light. Energy is where we come to a halt. We dont know how to travel at the speed of light. Then we think why does light travel at that speed. Well light is not affected by gravity so our problem is now gravity. Could we reduce gravity by designing less air resistant rockets? Now that we have more speed and less gravity, how do we achieve the speed of light? I would propose a triple rocket boosting system. One rocket would travel to the max and another would travel to the max twice the speed of the first rocket and the third would travel 3 times the speed of the first and even faster when an extra boost thus traveling at supersonic speed. Now we can control these speeds by selecting our propulsion system that will enable each rocket to travel at supersonic speed so the last rocket would travel at 3 times possibly 4 times the supersonic speed of the first rocket. This speed could eventually reach the speed of light if everything goes alright. Now you have a rocket traveling at almost or possibly the speed of light and you will reach the nearest star in 4 years and there you have the first interstellar travel mission!! BTW there will be no return trip but we will take pictures that will return via satellite and videos.

To achieve interstellar travel we need a better form of propulsion than traditional chemical rockets, as well as a better way to keep people alive (more efficient life-support systems) than we currently have.

Probably the biggest hurdle though, is our need to get off our asses and get going already. We could have colonized half the solar system by now if we had set that as a goal back in the 1960's.

1. Energy, Time/Distance: At present,we've got two ways to move a spacecraft; Solar sails, or reaction drives. Due to practical limitations, both offer slow accelerations and low top speeds. It would take lifetimes to get anywhere. 2. Radiation, Collisions: At any high speed, (Inter-stellar wise), even the occasional grain of dust or Hydrogen atom, (several per cubic meter in interstellar space), would offer both resistance and danger. The only way to shield a living crew would be to carry a lot of mass. (Back to item 1.) 3. Medicine, Ergonomics: a. Living in low gravity long-term, has very bad effects on the human body. Loss of bone mass, muscle tone and mass, degradation of the circulatory system. b. Radiation in interstellar space presents a hazard. 4. Sociology: Since the trip takes generations, it would mean passing on the necessary knowledge to maintain/navigate the vessel, and survive on arrival. With a necessarily small crew, we can't expect this to be possible. Studies indicate that a small group cannot do this. The skills/intelligence necessary are attributes of only a small percentage of the population. Top intelligence is not reliably transmitted from generation to generation. Even excepting the foregoing, teaching is a skill in itself, and might not be transmissible.

Mass is the biggest hurdle.

If man ever wants to travel between galaxies we would have to figure out how to transform a human into light and then somehow put him back together once he gets to a specified destination.

Light speed is the key to space travel due to time completely standing still for the object moving.

But...

Light is the only thing that can travel at this speed. Light has no rest mass. Anything with a rest mass cannot travel at the speed of light. So that means you and I cannot.

However, traveling at 99.9% of the speed of light is possible and would be the closest speed that anything with mass can attain. If man were to move at this speed then 15 days to him would seem like 1 year to people on earth.

The only problem is you would need an extremely advanced propulsion system to move something with ANY resting mass at 99.9% the speed of light.

Forget FTL travel. It is impossible for anything to travel this fast. Traveling FTL is like moving slower than "stop".

I really don't care to be honest. This world is rife with problems and needs some serious TLC from it's inhabitants, people for people, people for the world kind of thing. I think, personally speaking you understand, that we should buckle down and fix our messes before thinking about interstellar travel and possible mucking up other worlds. People as a race of beings, don't seem to learn lessons well, as confirmed by history. I'd hate to see us spread through the rest of the universe as we are now.

Came by to say goodbye Blue. I'm leaving the site. I really can't deal with the ugliness and verbal abuse and downright meaness that's all over this place. It's very negative and I think harmful in some cases. I always enjoyed answering your questions and you seem to be a good person, so I wish you a long, happy and blessed life, in whatever capacity you'll accept. Take care. If you want to say goodbye or stay in touch, email me. One last hug.

(((Blue)))

Pami

Overcoming the laws of physics to make such a journey practical...and then finding the incredible amount resources to both build and fuel the vehicle for the journey.

Ed Man: Get serious!! Organized skepticism?? Yeah, right. The universe is not a piece of paper. Bending space as you describe does require overcoming the laws of physics...and if you actually knew anything about physics or the scientists who have "theorized" such things, you would have already known that. It would appear that your primary source of information is the Discovery Channel.

WE need to learn warp technology but didn't we get that from the alien ships we shot down back in the 1940's?

If you listen to the "interesting people" we have been warned not to trespass anymore on Mars and the people from the backside of the moon are watching the barn yard too. So our biggest problem might be simply getting "out of the yard".

But if we can then we need warp technology, but that's no biggy as long as we rotate frozen magnets in an opposite direction while perpendicularly opposed we should be able to achieve that.

And then it just depends on how far you wanna go. We would need at least hypnotic dropping of heart rate or some cryogenic apparatus for long distance.

We might have to become less waring with ourselves to convince others that we won't wage war with them if we are allowed to venture out of the corral.

We can't afford it anyway. Best to stay at home until we perfect mental teleportation.

:-)

Peace y'all

The basic laws of physics to start with. Traveling at the speed of light (which is impossible) a spaceship would take 41/4 years to reach the nearest star. As that star, Proxima Centauri is unlikely to have habitable planets because it is the wrong type, we would have to move on. The nearest star which could have terrestrial type planets is 15 years away at that speed. However, this assumes immediate acceleration to light speed, and an immediate stop upon reaching the destination. Traveling at under the speed of light, the time required increases exponentially, I don't see us getting there this side of Christmas!