Written by
02.25.2023 at 09:00 a.m.
Modified on 25.02.2023 at 9:00 p.m.
As the conquest of Mars looms, can we imagine a trip to other solar systems or to other galaxies? To achieve this, it would be necessary to reach prodigious speeds like that of light. But is it even possible?
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This is news that makes both dream and apprehend our loneliness a little more. In mid-January, NASA announced the discovery of a new potentially habitable exoplanet called “TOI 700 E”. If that were the case, one might imagine settling there one day or discovering an extraterrestrial life form there. But for that, it would still be necessary to be able to go there. And there, the observation is bitter. TOI 700 E is 100 light-years from Earth, which means it would take a century to make the trip if it might travel at the required speed of 300,000 kilometers per second. Unfortunately, we are still a long way off. For example, Voyager 1, the probe that has gone the farthest into space, was launched in 1977 and has not yet traveled even a light year.
Currently, the propulsion systems used by our rockets work thanks to the chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen which makes it possible to tear the machines from the ground and take them into space. This method, although it knows several variants, makes it possible to reach honorable speeds but which represents only 0.01% of that of light. Recently, NASA and the Pentagon revived the development of an old idea: a nuclear-powered rocket that would make it possible to travel 3 to 4 times faster and cut the travel time to Mars from 9 months to only 45 days. But there too, it is still too slow.
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Many obstacles to overcome
Is this dream attainable? Not sure, especially as he comes up once morest a major obstacle. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the faster an object goes, the more mass it gains. An 800 ton rocket that would move at a speed close to that of light would therefore have a colossal mass that would require an almost infinite amount of energy to move forward. In 2018, interviewed by Usbek&Ricaastrophysicist at the Atomic Energy Commission Roland Lehoucq summed it up as follows: “The simple energy of motion of a 1,000 ton ship launched at 10% of the speed of light is equivalent to the energy consumed by humanity in a year ».
Another problem, it would take a perfectly clear road to allow a ship to arrive safely. Imagine that a tiny pebble hits a rocket launched at 300,000 km/s, the impact would have fatal consequences. The design of spacecraft must also make considerable progress.
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Solutions in development
Faced with these obstacles, what options are available to us? To solve the question of energy, the best scenario consists in developing a photonic sail which would use the particles of light like the wind which pushed the caravels of Christopher Columbus. This method might achieve at least 20% of the desired speed and significantly reduce travel times to neighboring solar systems.
Much more theoretical, the warp engine might also allow us to shorten distances. In the proper sense of the term. According to a report by the United States Department of Defense, it would be (still in theory) possible to modify the curvature of space-time by using dark energy (responsible for the expansion of the universe) to create a kind of wave on which a vessel might surf. Worry, no one yet knows how to produce or store dark energy.
Finally, like the film crew Interstellar, we might consider borrowing a wormhole, a sort of spatial shortcut to another point in spacetime. It would be cheating but it would be possible. Still need to find that shortcut. The wormhole remains a theoretical object resulting from the death of a star. Unless we make one ourselves? In 2015, researchers from the University of Barcelona succeeded in reproducing the effects of a magnetic wormhole in the laboratory. One small step for man… it will take a lot before we take a giant leap for humanity.
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