So, yesterday I attached that discussion about how matter\/anti-matter annihilation could theoretically act as an energy source with a high enough power density to allow for interplanetary space travel and possibly interstellar travel.\u00a0 Now something like this thought experiment is so nebulous in its details that even calling it a low probability outcome is being way too optimistic.\u00a0 The idea that a ship would contain some huge number of ultra tiny anti-matter snow balls in storage for perhaps decades of travel seems ludicrously improbable.\u00a0 Especially since any one anti-matter snow ball will immediately destroy the space craft if containment is breached for any of a million reasons.<\/p>\n
And yet, in a way, the very difficulty of the process somehow makes me think that somewhere hidden in this improbability is an elegant solution to the problem that will be discovered when it becomes time for such a process to move us forward.\u00a0 It can\u2019t and won\u2019t happen now because we don\u2019t need it now.\u00a0 Going to Mars or Ganymede isn\u2019t currently something that humanity needs badly.\u00a0 We don\u2019t even need a Moon base.\u00a0 But eventually all three of these celestial locations will become important to humanity.\u00a0 When or how these places will become critical is indeterminate.\u00a0 But just because we don\u2019t know the when or the how makes no difference.\u00a0 We went to the Moon in 1969 because German missile technology and American technological curiosity collided during the Cold War and handed us space flight.<\/p>\n
Something else will come along and we\u2019ll stumble into the next piece of the puzzle while working on something completely different.\u00a0 And this pattern will repeat itself over the course of a decade or two and, then voila! A matter\/anti-matter rocket will be tested in space.\u00a0 And then twenty years later it will become old-hat.<\/p>\n
Does this mean that I believe that we can do anything?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 We\u2019re not God or all powerful.\u00a0 Notice that I haven\u2019t stated that faster than light travel (FTL) is possible.\u00a0 As far as I know humans lack the ability to reprogram the universe to increase the speed at which matter may travel to something faster than 186,000 miles per second and probably never will.\u00a0 But reaching a technical solution that allows us to get as close to that limit as possible is what we\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n
What I envision is a robot ship powered by matter\/anti-matter annihilation.\u00a0 The first applications for this capability will be unmanned reconnaissance of the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt.\u00a0 And this will be followed by manned missions.\u00a0 Eventually, there will be a robot mission to the nearest star.\u00a0 What we find there may decide the trajectory of our race into the unforeseeable future.\u00a0 If we stumble upon a planet with life already present then that planet will become the focus of the imagination of our world.\u00a0 And eventually we will send men there.<\/p>\n
But if we search planet after planet and never find life of any kind that may cause mankind to turn inward and look for progress of a different kind.\u00a0 And maybe that is the higher wisdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, yesterday I attached that discussion about how matter\/anti-matter annihilation could theoretically act as an energy source with a high enough power density to allow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3545],"tags":[5064,145,3892],"class_list":["post-35098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-anti-matter","tag-innovation","tag-space-travel"],"yoast_head":"\n