No, I genuinely don’t believe it will. I don’t think the human race will ever reach another star, though I do believe it could be possible if we avoided going extinct for a few thousand years.
Another galaxy? No chance, not unless we figure out FTL, which I don’t believe is likely. The only FTL I’ve heard of that might be possible is the Alcubierre drive, but it relies on things that are so exotic, it’s likely impossible to create one.
With our current understanding of physics it is impossible. Sucks, I love sci fi but they all rely on inventing some magic machine to make it possible.
And to be clear, when you occasionally read about someone saying it’s not impossible……. That’s late night bs sessions on illicit substances. Usually the article is really “from our understanding of physics we have this math equation where we can actually enter values and the equation still gives a result, given a list of impossible prerequisites.
No. Never.
Speed of light limitation. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away. Even if someone debunks special relativity and finds you could go faster than light, you would be moving so fast relative to cosmic dust particles that it would destroy the ship. So, either way, you cannot practically go faster than the speed of light.
The only way we could have intergalactic travel is a one-way trip that humanity here on earth would be long gone by the time it reached its destination so we could never know if it succeeded or not.
We will just have to let Andromeda come to us.
Yes.
I can picture the possibility of a probe visiting our nearest neighbors
But there are so many problems with a generation ship going that far, and no, none of the fun sci fi ways of travel are possible.
Bringing this back to reality, I can definitely see exploring more of the solar system and I can see making use of resources on hand for bulk consumables like fuel, oxygen, water, housing (we’ll have to to make it work). But consider how many things it would take to actually be independent of earth and how large the colony needs to be. Remote bases in our inner solar system can get away with that, but you can’t leave the solar system and expect to rely on any resupplies from earth.
Even if you could achieve the travel time to visit another star system and build a generation ship with enough supplies of everything and that could function that long, how would you survive without a preexisting functional colony of millions of people? Just start with the thousands of types of plastics we use every day and imagine trying to support that for a few people, without oil to drill or other organic chemicals to mine, and without a full scale chemical industry
No, but yes- of course assuming humanity continues in a meaningful way. I mean technically we are already travelers- we’re already traveling through space at high speed… https://cosmic-odometer.vercel.app/
In terms of lightspeed travel, I think no, and definitely not sci-fi warp tech, BUT generational ships where people live and continue to reproduce over gigantic time scales could. If a ship had enough space, ecosystem of its own, etc- we could continue at “sub light” travel pretty much indefinitely without any ludicrous scientific advances beyond radiation shielding, etc.
Again though, that’s a long, LONG way off and would require we stop trying so hard to off ourselves and the lovely little blue marble we currently traverse life on.
Technically yes, but also no.
At least not casually; flying between star systems at will, faster than light between star systems, etc…
I’m sure at some point, if scientists confirm the habitibility of a world orbiting a star relatively nearby, some group or other would probably get a Generation Ship concept going and head out. Musk or some other fucking billionaire looking for a world to conquer. So technically that is interstellar travel, but not really as it’s just a one way point to point, not a taxi service.
Interstellar != Intergalactic
Me fail english!? That’s unpossible!
I hope everyone holding power now will be long dead and forgotten before humanity reaches that level of diaspora
Totally.
The Milky Way is on a collision course with Andromeda, so we are already on our way!
Maybe Andromeda is coming to save us. Isn’t that what The Andromeda Strain was all about?
You are confusing that with Galactica from Andromeda out of the “Hello Spencer” TV series.
The “Andromeda Strain” was about human hubris and the reasons we are probably not going to become intergalactic travellers…
That reference was a bit strained.
I think it is more a question of will we make it that far. If so then it should be possible but I don’t expect it would be the norm and likely single way. Communication back home would be almost pointless due to the distance.
Perhaps it will be like the Rimworld lore. FTL is never achieved, civilisations are unable to remain stable once communication takes more than a few years or decades between planets as culture drifts over time. This doesn’t prevent intergalactic travel but it does make it a one way colonisation mission.
With a generational ship and a shield and a way of blocking cosmic rays I think it will eventually be possible, but take a very long time. I don’t believe light speed will ever be possible, but going near light speed starts slowing down time a whole bunch for those on board the ships. So if for instance we came up with some trickery to get up to 99% the speed of light and wanted to go to a planet one galaxy over that’s 25,000 light years away, in theory the ship and the people in it would get there in about 1200 years. Even though it would be like 25,000 years for anyone who wasn’t on the ship. At 99.999% it would only take what would seem like about 115 years on the ship.
I’m not going to say that’s flat out impossible that it could happen but we’d have to find one hell of a way to cheat the system.
Alternatively, I think it will come about (if humans don’t kill ourselves off) that a person can “live forever” in one form or another. If we get to that point then pesky things like travel time and atmospheres and such will be much less an issue. I then wonder how long a person would want to be around before they decided they’d rather “self terminate”.
Probably not. Main problem is energy density.
Theoretically we could visit things thousands/millions of light years away within a human lifespan, but the necessary energy to do so is just infeasible. You’d have to spend half the energy slowing down at your destination so you’d need all that energy onboard. Just not happening IMO. As a bonus you’d basically also be inventing a time machine (forward only)
Interstellar travel? Like to the nearest star systems? Maybe. In the far future. But not intergalactic. Andromeda is the closest galaxy and it’s 2.5 MILLION light years away…
i think we’ll destroy ourselves before we get that far
Yes
