Moore's Law for Space Travel?

sunilramansunilraman
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Just wondering if and when the time will come for (less-than-light-speed) kind of moore's law.



at light speed, 8 minutes from here to the Sun

10% light speed, 1 hour 20 minutes from here to the Sun

1% light speed, 13 or so hours from here to the Sun

0.1% light speed, 5 or so days from here to the Sun

0.01% light speed, 55 or so days from here to the Sun

0.001% light speed, 550 or so days from here to the Sun

0.0001% light speed, 15 years from here to the Sun



speed of light is 292,792 kilometres per second



this 'theoretical' technology says it could make a probe reach 60 kilometres per second. That's about 0.02% light speed

http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...il_050211.html



the space shuttle's on-orbit speed is about 8 kilometres per second.

Thats about 0.002% light speed



as far as i know, this is the math i did... could be wrong...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    I believe the terminology you're looking for is 'logarithmic scale'.



    Most decent high school math texts should explain it.



    Or were you trying to come with a speed-we-can-reach-as-factor-of-time relationship?



    ie, it took us 40 years to get 0.002, and another 40 to get to 0.02, so in another 40 we'll be looking at 0.2?



    Dunno. How fast are the Pioneer and Voyager probes going these days? Launched in the early 70s, and I'll be they are going much faster than the poky Shuttle.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    There are significant differences in operating parameters between the process of engaging a hyperdrive propulsion system for a jump to superluminal speed, and the process of using aircraft to aerially distribute pesticides over agricultural territory. If you do not perform percise computations prior to the hyperspace jump, it is likely that your flight path will come within close proximity to dangerous celestial phenomena, such as a star or supernova. There is a high probability that a collision or close-proximity encounter with such a dangerous phenomenon would result in the premature termination of your journey.





    OR



    Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations you'd fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?



    Sorry, a little humor...



    http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/...babblator.html



    (Star Wars as quoted by Star Trek's Data...)



    I digress!
  • Reply 3 of 6
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    I believe the terminology you're looking for is 'logarithmic scale'.



    Most decent high school math texts should explain it.



    Or were you trying to come with a speed-we-can-reach-as-factor-of-time relationship?



    ie, it took us 40 years to get 0.002, and another 40 to get to 0.02, so in another 40 we'll be looking at 0.2?



    Dunno. How fast are the Pioneer and Voyager probes going these days? Launched in the early 70s, and I'll be they are going much faster than the poky Shuttle.



    umm yeah i know about log scales i am using base10 for ease of calculation and evolutionary purposes* also it was fun and simple to work out that if you could hit 1% of light speed you'd go from here to the sun in 800 minutes (just over half a day!)... 0.1% ain't bad, that's just 5 days from here to the sun.... and we could send probes that hit 0.02% light speed by 2020...!!



    ahh... maybe 40 years for an increase in one order of magnitude of speed. so by the end of this century, we could be sending probes into the sun that'll just take a few days from here into the heart of the sun... or to mars, jupiter, whatever...



    pioneer and voyager probes dont count in my view cause they cheated with all that gravity-slingshot foofarah...



    ..............

    *in the old game wing commander Kilrathi all used base8 for their calculations because they had 8 "fingers"
  • Reply 4 of 6
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by johnq



    Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations you'd fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?





    ahh harrison ford helped me both understand astrophysics and archeology as a young boy and Data is funny too...



    johnQ however, i'm talking about slower-than-light-speed travel,

    as you can see from my second post, it looks like we just need to build practical manned spacecraft that can hit 0.1% of lightspeed, and that'll be enough to make journeying around our solar system just a "practical matter of months".... this could be possible by 2099.



    as for faster-than-light-speed, that could be an entirely different revolution, kind of like going from a 50nm-chip-fab process to quantum/nanotech/optical computing ;-)



    as once was said 640kb of RAM should be enough for everyone!! 0.002% of lightspeed (the 'poky' space shuttle mentioned by kickaha) should be enough for everyone!!!



    ps. HOW LONG before 640GB RAM is easily affordable like 640mb of RAM today? 2010, 2015?



    you can bet if apple is still around people will still be complaining about "it comes with a paltry 256GB of ram"
  • Reply 5 of 6
    tednditedndi Posts: 1,921member
    we have to get people from low orbit to.... wherever for even the most paltry of moor's law to take effect.



    now, still some baby steps for the stars...





    moor's law still optimistic for space flight....





    ...hic!...beer!



    \
  • Reply 6 of 6
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    space travel is now following the NASA-ESA-BRANSON law



    (you gotta be following space news and stuff' to get the joke )
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