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Is Star Trek possible?
mimey2
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Something I've always rather felt is, that Star Trek is kind of...too perfect, at least the TNG era feels that way to me. It seems to me that in some ways, Star Trek in general, is rather unobtainable, in various ways.
Technology: As it stands now, most technology in Star Trek is still very very within the realm of sci-fi, and until such a time as proved otherwise, isn't currently obtainable for us within the early 21st century.
United Earth: This is the big point to me. Not so much the united governments, but more humanity as a species, at this point in time, I do honestly wonder if humanity could truly put aside all differences and such, and unite for all time like that.
Aliens: Most sci-fi series make aliens be our allies or our enemies, or a mixture there-of. While I don't want to get into an argument on if aliens exist or not, just that if they did, I honestly wonder how...benevolent they might actually be. I mean, what would humanity truly have to offer the greater galaxy?
There's more, but I'll leave it with that for the time being. Do you all think that 'Star Trek' is possible for us in reality?
Technology: As it stands now, most technology in Star Trek is still very very within the realm of sci-fi, and until such a time as proved otherwise, isn't currently obtainable for us within the early 21st century.
United Earth: This is the big point to me. Not so much the united governments, but more humanity as a species, at this point in time, I do honestly wonder if humanity could truly put aside all differences and such, and unite for all time like that.
Aliens: Most sci-fi series make aliens be our allies or our enemies, or a mixture there-of. While I don't want to get into an argument on if aliens exist or not, just that if they did, I honestly wonder how...benevolent they might actually be. I mean, what would humanity truly have to offer the greater galaxy?
There's more, but I'll leave it with that for the time being. Do you all think that 'Star Trek' is possible for us in reality?
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.pwlaughingtrendy wrote:I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
Post edited by mimey2 on
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Some of it is
well with 3d prototyping we are not far from replicators
Nanotech is already well on the way
We already have a lot of the medical tech Bones uses.
and the Phaser is not out of the bounds of science
so far no possibility of transporters , warp drive or any of the other "CORE" systems (warp drive is probably impossible as it requires the laws of physics to be wrong)
Ah we have to have a couple of WARS first
the Eugenics war and the Third World war
But even in trek 90% of humanity hates each other
superior tech , resources and of course our great wisdom
actual aliens are more statistically likely to be EXTREMELY primative compared with us than highly advanced
And I can promise you that Aliens out there will NOT look anything like humans our format is mathmatically improbable even for here
incidentally there are at least 12 species on EARTH that classify as intelligent and that we could work with to get into space (most of them aquatic)
Give it three Generations
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
I won't touch on the subject of United Earth.
Aliens: The thing about Trek aliens is that they are all basically "human." They have human wants and drives. They are all three dimensional and are affected by the fourth dimension of time. But what stops an alien from being, say... Five dimensional? Or six? Or twenty? Nothing really. If you want an example of what I'm talking about, read this book Michael Crichton's Sphere
Around the beginning they talk about aliens, and the possibility of aliens existing on more dimensions than we see/can comprehend.
There are a plethora of things that could cause problems, and hosts of other theories, but you can go look them up yourselves. Needless to say, I don't think there are little green men or the popular "Greys" out there.
Elim Garak
The problem with Alcubierre's theory is that it requires a mass of exotic matter equal to approximately the mass of Jupiter. However, Howard White worked the numbers over, and found that if he assumed the exotic-matter ring to be more flattened (similar to the ring in a Vulcan D'Keyr-class cruiser, as opposed to Alcubierre's torus), and vibrated the edge of the envelope, it should only require a few hundred kilos of exotic matter.
NASA is in the process of constructing a test-bed to see if they can detect the production of an Alcubierre-White warp on a microscopic scale. If the theory does indeed describe something real, and if it turns out that dark matter exists, construction of an Alcubierre-White warp drive is just a matter of engineering. Travel speed would be limited to about ten times the speed of light under current theory, but that's a heck of a lot faster than we can manage now...
Meanwhile, in California, a physicist has designed a long-range stun weapon. It employs a relatively low-powered laser to ionize the air between the emitter and the target, then follows that with a powerful electric charge (which will follow the path of least resistance - that is, down the ionized beam). As the light beam and electrical discharge must be properly phased in order for this to work (and because what else would you call something that fires a beam on stun?), he has named his experimental weapon a phaser. The downside is that it's about the size of a typical kitchen table, and can only fire a couple of times before it needs its capacitors recharged, but then cell phones started off so big they had to fit into cars, and now I have a combination telephone, computer, and internet-access device that fits into a shirt pocket, so...
The main problem with a one world government as it stands right now is that without competition and oversight of an outside government I don't see it lasting as a peaceful force. Here is where my peccimism kicks in full force: humanity is all to coruptable.
Without competition a government will grow complacent perhaps even abusive, even with competition governments do. but the point is that by having different diverse nations, planets, governments we protect humanity from itself by ensuring that even if one government grows abusive another is out there still being what it was intended and can potentially provide support, aid, and refuge or assylum to the people.
Our current problem with our theoretical warp drive or the Alcubierre drive is that it's essentially a solar system killer instead of a FTL drive. The collection of exoctic particles around the distortion evelope would have no way of being safely disipated and would most likely discharge exotic radiation at whatever was directly in the path of the vessel on disengaging the drive. (Source: extreme tech)
We already have tablets which probably far exceed the padd tech used in TNG, tricorders aren't that far off. Qualcomm is working on that, or at least getting people motivated to work on it.
Secondly Faster than light travel and warp travel are not the same thing
"Warp" would be impossible the nature of the cosmos would ERASE anyone stupid enough to try from physical existance
the best way to move faster than light would be to get Above the galaxy and more "against" spin
then drop down
the relative combined sublight speeds could exceed crash 1 (light speed)
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/antistat.html
Explaining Trek Science
I hope STO get's better ...
No we have NOT
No credible independant lab has created a visible (with the human eye) quantity of this theoretical material
its like higgs particles it has only been "observed by effect" by people who are deliberately looking
its seen by other stuff reacting to it (ie its hearsay)
as i say Unicorns , bigfoot , anti matter (actually in theory the existance of ANY at all would be potentially fatal for the cosmos)
you want to prove something exists
make 1 lb of it in a jar
Antimatter most certainly does exist, positrons (antielectrons) were discovered by Carl Anderson in 1932. Any high-energy reaction in the universe seems to create antimatter, but it is immediately annihilated when it comes into contact with normal matter. Cosmic rays hitting the Earths atmosphere have been observed to create antiparticles, and the American Astronomical Society has detected the creation of positrons above thunderstorm clouds. Heck, antiparticles are created naturally by decaying radioactive isotopes. Just a few examples, there are numerous others.
I would like to know what evidence you have that supports warp travel being impossible and resulting in the annihilation of anyone trying it. My understanding of Star Trek style warp drive is it locks the vessel into a bubble of normal space, then propels that bubble through normal space-time by altering the surrounding space-time to allow for faster-than-light travel. Since it is known that space-time can be stretched, compressed, twisted, and bent in ways the human mind cannot possibly begin to fathom, the theory is still sound. Out of our current reach: absolutely, but still plausible.
but never proven
they were "proposed" not proven
no
there is an observable "flash" of energy
there is No observable antimatter
positively and negatively charged matter Exists
anti matter is not proven
objects are made of matter
Energy is ALWAYS a property of associated matter
Any matter moving at speeds greater than that of light or even any sizeable fraction of it
carrys enormous energy
At such speeds impact with anything however small causes destruction (commonly mistaken for anti matter im sure)
yes
this is the theory a bubble of "protected " real is forced into the semi real of "subspace" which of course probably does not exist
since it is known that time is immutable and space is static except when acted on by existing forces (ie the cosmos is basically fixed) its not
Time does not stretch , bend , wobble or turn green
it just is
Space also does not stretch , bend or turn Green (it can wobble)
it just is
Scientists spend lifetimes building castles in the sky as their ancestors the Alchemists and the wizards did
basically man in long coat (or robes) blinds people with technobabble (or latin) and then lives an easy life because people think he is Smarter than they are
I never trust a theory that I can't prove or disprove myself
(being fair I do not believe in anti matter , quantum materials , bigfoot or any of these other crack pot theorys because people make money out of them I may be wrong but frankly I do not trust someone who has a book to sell)
It's totally okay to think some things are impossible or don't exist, as long as you're prepared for the possibility of being wrong.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
If you think what we're like now, imagine what we'll be like in space. We wont be making peace with other species, we'll likely be invading them (for the greater good), borrowing their resources and then, once we're done with the place, we'll leave them to pick up where they left off.
Much of Trek technology is currently not possible, yet some of it is. Holographic tech will be with us within 50 years or so (if not sooner). I seem to remember reading an article some time ago stating that warp drive is theoretically impossible though, so we wouldn't have that. Such propulsion would be more like the hyperdrive seen in Stargate.
on topic: the impulse engines are a sort of fusion reactor and very likely a means of propulsion in the future.
the warp engine, or more specifically the the warp bubble are purely science fiction...however there are theoretical works regarding the distortion of time and space. So that is maybe possible.
however beaming is not, and never will be possible. There have been experiments in which "information" (condition of a particle, or the charge) was transfered without actually interacting with each other, but this can't be seen as the first step for "beaming" as seen on the show. you cannot transport complex objects from A to B, not even a single atom actually because of the heisenberg uncertainty principle...in the show they compensate this with the heisenberg compensator. it would also be a highly ethical issue to transport living beings, since you destroy one to create one somewhere else, and possibly duplicate them endlessly.
particle guns are another story...while they are probably possible, they do not, or will not have even remotely the yield of projectile weapons.
however as a means of intercepting those projectiles they are valid, since they travel much much faster. real world applications exist already.
deflector shields are also mostly unlikely, atleast the way they are presented in the shows. The earth has a electro magnetic shield, and while it is very powerfull it can only repell charged particles, no solid object.
but there are many things that are already invented: the communicator...the idea for cellphones came from there.
Medbeds that permanently monitor vital functions...
hyposprays, they actually exist
there is already something similar to the tricorder in use...pocket computers with different devices attached like microphones, cameras...those are all scanning devices in some form. If those get more suffisticated we have our tricorder in the near future.
the economic system in star trek also fascinated me, and actually there is something similar already thought up. it is called participatory economics or parecon. http://www.zcommunications.org/topics/parecon/
As mentioned above, the big ticket space tech is impossible. But a lot of the handheld stuff has already come true.
Nope. We're a tribal ape species that's only barely out of the caves as far as evolution goes. And since we've pretty much sucked our planet dry, we're never going to be able to get to a point where being otherwise is beneficial.
Space is far too large for use to have any sort of meaningful contact with another species. Even with just communication... assuming we can produce a message powerful enough to not degrade into static by the time it hits any receptive ears... both or either of our societies may be long dead before the hellos get said.
It's unlikely we're alone in the universe, but the scope of the universe means that we might as well be.
And that's why we make stories like Star Trek: Because the universe is indifferent to our dreams and we need to populate it somehow.
Transporters: Currently being tested on an EXTREMELY limited scale. I believe they've so far successfully managed to "beam" a single photon from one point in space, to another just a short distance away. Obviously nowhere near capable of transporting BILLIONS of atoms and molecules which make up the human body, but that isn't to say it's impossible.
Warp Drive: "Technically" feasible, rather than going faster than light, the theory is to "fold space" around the vessel. For more, read up on the following sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
http://www.space.com/17628-warp-drive-possible-interstellar-spaceflight.html
"Never say never" when it comes to realising imaginary things. Anything the human mind can come up with, it will inevitably be created eventually. TOS had it's communicators. Today we have cell phones. TNG had desktop computers. Today we have laptops. Most of the medical tech in Star Trek is either already developed, or being developed. Including a "medical tricorder" like device.
Psssst... Not supposed to make this common knowledge, but we are living in the Mirror Universe... Didn't you know?
The technology for the big stuff might not be within our grasp yet, but, that's not to say that it never will be...
At the height of the Roman Empire, they could not create a modern computer. The engineering skill simply was not refined enough. Now, if you were to get a Roman blacksmith and a seamstress, and show them a modern pair of jeans, they'd understand it, and the blacksmith would have the skill to construct a functional zipper. But show them the iPhone in the pocket, and they'd probably start making gestures with their hands and babbling about Elysium... I might have the skill to sew a pair of jeans, and I understand how and why a zipper works, but I certainly don't have the skill to make one from scratch. I might understand that my iPhone works, and if given a tray of scraps, could probably assemble a working one, but I couldn't make the component parts myself...
I have a friend who's big into conspiracy theories, and they have said that government technology is about 20 years more advanced, than what is available to the public.
I watched a film on their advice a while back, where a speaker said that sometimes, bits of truth sneak out through movies and TV. At the time, I did not take it too literally, but a few months back, I was watching D.A.R.Y.L. with my mother in law, when I realized that towards the end, Daryl was displaying what we now understand as wireless connectivity and instant messaging...
In Tron:Legacy, Sam mentions Wi-Fi, which Flynn doesn't understand...
Sam: "Wireless interlinking of digital devices."
Flynn: "Heh, I thought of that in the eighties..."
Coinkydink?
The TNG Technical Manual describes the manner in which the touch-consoles of the Enterprise-D work, and show PADDs of different sizes... iPad and iPhone...
Apple = Chronowerx? Anyone?... Bueller...
There was an episode of Voyager which I missed, but saw photos of in a magazine, where they found what they thought was a Federation rescue ship (turned out to be an alien ruse...) and the bridge consoles featured curved control edges, and from an engineering perspective, that was some slick-looking ****... About a month or so back (Again, about twenty years after the Voyager episode) an article hits the net about a paper-thin glass product which can be curved without snapping, and which could have considerable applications for personal device screens...
So yeah, Enterprise showed us the drive rings on Vulcan ships (Actually, a picture on the wall in The Motion Picture showed us a ship with a drive ring) and now there is talk of the Alcubierre-White drive... Maybe not within the appx 50 years left of my lifespan, and certainly not till all the warring nations get their **** together and throw off the shackles of finance-based economic slavery, but to touch back on the example of the Romans understanding of technology which we consider mundane and everyday, well, I would not be closed-minded enough to refuse to consider the possibilities for advances in science and technology...
There are so many problems with that. I suggest visiting a basic course on philosophy of science before claiming outlandish things.
That essentially sums it up for me. Move on, there's nothing to see here.
Well anyhow, as the tech in Trek is concerned... Most of it is utter nonsense by a modern understanding of physics (heck, even by the standards of classic mechanics and thermodynamics). And well... Don't get me started on the ridged forehead aliens and the Federation economy.
In a nutshell though, Trek is essentially some great piece of food for thought and has probably inspired more than a few people's interest and thereby careers in sciences (well, I even happen to know somebody who joined the German Navy due to a thing for speculative fiction like this...). It's for these inspiring aspects of traditional Trek that I'm still a rather vivid fan, in spite of it being rather "soft" Sci-Fi.
I wonder if he's ever been to the South Pole to tell if it's cold?
What we might see if we ever develop faster than light space travel, is different cultures/races/religious groups starting their own colony somewhere else just for their own people. That would end up creating a truly unified world, with no other conflicting nations/cultures/races/religious groups living on it.
Actually that's something I would be interested in. But I don't think I will live to see it, and I'm still a young guy.
As for Earth, not unless the Book of Revelations plays out like it's supposed to. Otherwise I don't see a unified Earth Government ever working unless it uses great tyranny. You simply can't have one government that would understand and effectively govern all the different people in the world. As an U.S. citizen I wouldn't ever want to live under the law of the nation of Iran, for example. Yet an unified Earth Government would have to pass laws that would appease citizens in both these geographical regions. It's impossible, unless you constructed some kind of so-called "big brother" surveillance system and put a gun to everyone's head to force them into it.
Like the Nietzscheans :cool: :cool:
The flip type Mobile phones
Based on TOS communicators.
We have lasers which have the same power as Phasers
Warp drive may never be possible or not how trek portrays it.
Scientists have actually been able to transport a atom from one place to another so we are getting closer to transporters.
United Earth: I doubt we will see this in any of our lifetimes while there is greed we will never unite under the one flag and say we are human and if we did we would probably become like the terran empire.
Aliens: Although I doubt Vulcans exist I do believe we cannot b the only ones out there although whether life is humanoid or otherwise is debatable. But Aliens could get from us is knowledge although we will be violent and a bit xenophobic at first we may eventually begin to trust them or at least decieve them into thinking we trust them.
Me personally do not think the federation will exist but maybe a less militeristic version of the terran empire could exist.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I always liked that episode in ST Voyager where Janeway encounters that other Starfleet Science Vessel - the captain and remaining crew use aliens as a means of energy to advance their mission to get back to their own quadrant. You know the one I am talking about! That to me was likely the most realistic scenario ever in Star Trek. That is what humanity would be like I think.
Another good comparison: Firefly, Star Wars, Battle Star Galactica... all much more in keeping with human nature. That being said, however, I love Gene Roddenberry's vision and perhaps, one day, millions of years from now in a Galaxy far far away... :rolleyes:
Science is still very much in it's infancy, we don't even begin know all of the questions yet let alone the answers to everything. Impossible is not a word that should be used so recklessly, many of the things we take for granted today were things that someone at some point said was impossible. What is impossible today may not be tomorrow so declarations that something is impossible is premature arrogant and ignorant.
Star Trek portrays a universe brightly filled with life that all share common traits with humanity enough that we can interact. The more likely reality is the universe is a dark foreboding place where life does exist but most often it is so radically different that we will rarely find common ground with it.
As long as greed, lust for power and xenophobia are driving forces for humanity, Earth will never have a unified government or if it does it will be a totalitarian one. It's a sad truth that the only thing that might unify humans would some common threat to the entire planet, remove that and humans will quickly fall back to petty infighting.
Star Trek is essentially a utopian fantasy, it's attraction is that humanity has moved beyond it's barbaric tendencies to unite and move out into a bright universe of like peoples. It's a bright message of hope for a future that I can't honestly believe humans will survive to achieve.
Just because things are bad now, doesn't mean they always will be. You know, "the night is darkest before the dawn" and all that. :cool:
As for technology? We'll get warp drive (or some other FTL tech) for sure; God knows we need it to go interstellar, and there are plenty of theories on how we could get around that cosmic speed limit. Replicators are pretty likely, but I don't know about transporters. I wouldn't use one, anyway.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Which might be happening coincidentally.
This is off topic, but thank you. There is, indeed, such a thing as a Christian sci-fi fan and even (just ask C.S. Lewis) a work of Christian science fiction. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic but I choose to believe that not everyone in the far future will become an atheist.
- Aral Vorkosigan
however transportation of protons is not
just because a similar proton was seen afterward proves nothing