When will the human race achieve inter-galactic travel?

we already did – don’t know about you but I am on the Defiant right now

After we achieve interstellar travel.

How about we look towards interplanetary, first.

as soon as we master:
1. a. Matter-Antimatter Reaction based Energy Generation
1. b. Zero Point Energy Generation (or both)
1. c. some other energy generation method we have not yet thought of.
2. a. Large Scale Space warping/folding Technology
2. b. Artificial Wormhole projection Technology
2. c. some other technique not yet though of.

Oh, and to answer your question (didn’t mean to sound like a dick, honest), yes. Absolutely.

The first obstacle in the way is sustainable energy.

Second would probably be the stress of spaceflight.

What I envision for the future is generation ships; vast, mobile ecosystems. We could breed, eat, live and sleep on these ships – it makes more sense to set up a mission for future generations to accomplish rather than our own (that whole pesky “it’s impossible to move at the speed of light” thing gets in our way).

Think Wall-E.

No worries Grisaille. The way I see it, if you’re gonna dream, dream big :)
I’m reading Profiles of the Future by Arthur C. Clarke and he’s got some interesting thoughts on the future. The book was written in 1963.

@ryancp ‘Twas the golden age of science fiction.

On a not really related note, my very first question on this website involved time, light and what have you.

I got a bunch of great responses and seems right up your alley. Check it out.

Welcome to Fluther.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
also, the defiant’s maximum Warp speed is rather limited and has no transwarp drive.

Warp Speeds
Normal Cruise : 6 = 392c = 117518644 km/s (meaning 392 light years would still take one year)
Maximum Cruise : 8.7 = 1354c
Maximum Rated : 9.5 for 12 hours. = 1837c

The galaxy closest to Milky Way, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away.
Assuming maximum cruising speed of warp 8.7 (maximum speed of warp 9.5 is only possible for 12 hours), the travel to Andromeda would still take over 1846 years.

(warp speed conversion done with this)

@Grisaille – Big sci-fi fan here. Thanks for the link, that’s good stuff!

@ragingloli ah well

Both interstellar and intergalactic travel depend on our ability to move (or seem to move) faster than the speed of light.

We glibly talk about warp drives and warp speeds, but no one has a clue how this can be attained.

Probably, we need both a tremendous source of energy to create the necessary effect and a much better understanding of the nature of space/time, so we can fold space and not need to actually move through all that distance.

My guess, 200 to 500 years.

‘Til then, we need to get a lot better at getting along on our only little drop of water in middle of infinity.

I think we definitely will develop the possibility. We are making amazing technological advances almost every day. I am amazed at what my kids know about the universe that I didn’t know back in the day (l was in school when Pluto was a planet) But when and how? I don’t know. I wanted to be an astronaut (fear of heights and getting vertigo watching the IMAX Space Station Movie put a kibosh on that!) and all the theories fascinate me, but I can’t seem to wrap my brain around understanding how those theories might really work.

Not until we get a handle on electro-magnetic energy, and come up wit a working unified field theory.

We don’t know if warp speed/space folding is even possible, so we’re still limited to the speed of light. The only way we can produce a vast amount of energy is a nuclear reactor.

Based on these two factors, I’m leaning toward never (which is a very depressing thought).

@drdoombot Now, now.

They said it is impossible to talk to someone on the other side of the planet.

Or that a vast information database would be nearly everyone’s fingertips.

Not in our lifetimes for sure. We can’t even achieve interstellar travel yet. The distances are vast, and we’re nowhere close to finding a shortcut. But there may be some way we haven’t thought of (perhaps a combination of time travel with space travel, so for example you make a 1000-year-journey while going back 1000 years in time). In any case, this technology is beyond even our imagination right now.

I think slow interstellar and slow intergalactic travel are easier to implement. We need money and resources for
– light long-lasting durable materials like carbon nanotubes
– intelligent androids capable of raising children
– artificial wombs
– cryopreservation of human embryos

My thoughts and assumption are based on Ray Kurzweil’s ‘Law of Accelerating Returns’ without ever achieving a technological singularity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change

Interstellar travel might be ready in 2060. Intergalactic travel might be ready in 2120.

Thousands of years, I doubt it. We’ll get there before then. Our tech advancements are an exponential curve, we are advancing leaps and bounds in no time at all anymore. Just look at all the advancements in computing!

Then again, FTL travel’s key principle is figuring out how to travel faster than light, which right now we know nothing that can do so nor any methods for us to achieve such speeds.

But yes, let’s work on perfecting travel within our own galaxy before we start aiming higher… I mean that’s really taking “shoot for the stats” to an extreme don’t you think :)

Nope.

I think the only feasible way to travel for 2000 years would be to take something at least the size of the moon with us. We’d also need to take an energy source that pumped out as much energy as our sun, or maybe a little less, but not a lot less. I think both of these things are extremely unlikely to happen before the heat death of the universe.

If we managed to convert ourselves to a digital form with biological code, and we could shoot nano-level space ships to seed other galazies, then something might happen. It wouldn’t be us, though. It would never happen in the lifetime of the people who seeded the other galaxy. Communication with the people (if any) who arise from the genetic seeds might never be possible. You’d probably need to send the genetic code for all kinds of life, from viruses on up to humans. The humans probably wouldn’t survive, and intelligent life, if it ever existed again, would have to evolve from the original organic soup, much as it did on this planet.

I guess I wouldn’t consider this scenario to really be counted as “inter-galactic” travel. I also don’t think relying on an technological singularity to be the “human” race conducting intergalactic travel.

Here’s another scenario. I wonder if we could find a way to design information that not only could fly along via electro-magnetic radiation, but could also physically interact with inter-galactic material in order to create life forms with whatever native material it “found” in the other galaxy. Could light be coded in such as way as to be able to manipulate matter, causing it to reorganize itself in a way that we planned?

But, no. Humans couldn’t travel to another galaxy, at least, not in our current form.

Forget hurtling to Jupiter and breathing methane, I’d like to transport Milo and me to the Humane society and back on Sat. for our monthly pedicure (or rather, his). Chasing him, stuffing him into carrier, cleaning up vomit, and suffering his post-clipping hostility makes faster-than-light travel seem very appealing.

@gailcalled have the vet prescribe him some ‘kitty quaaludes’.

Never mind Milo….how about tranqs for me.