Space Travel
We did some math to find out how realistic space travel to the moon, planets, stars, and other galaxies would be.
We found that:
- A trip to Venus could be made in about 8 days (one-way) at a speed of 100,000 miles per hour. (That would be 4 times as fast as the Apollo flight to the moon and is probably possible.)
- A trip to Mars would take about 20 days one-way at that speed.
- A trip to Saturn would take about a year at that speed. (Pack the Playstation III)
- Pluto? 4 years!
- Alpha Centuri, our nearest star neighbor, is 4 light years away. 2,666 years in our starship. If we could go 1/10 the speed of light it would take 40 years each way!
Choose one of the links below to follow and learn about a topic related to space travel. Then, share what you learned with the class.
Read about some possible future space ships here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/exploration/futurespaceflight/index.shtml
Check out Wikipedia’s explanation of a “Generational Starship” which might make very long trips possible.
Or decide if you would sign up for a “one-way space trip” here:
We’ve sent people to the moon. Do you think we could send people to Mars? Should we? How about to Jupiter and Saturn, or one of their moons?
What are some of the problems with space travel to other stars? What are some possibilities for future space flight?
February 8th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I have learned we are making Solar Sails, theese sails are powered by the sun. Theese sails have a slower acceleration meaning that solar sails could only carry robotic probes. However, because they are so lightweight and have a continuous source of energy, they could eventually accelerate to speeds of around 90 km per second. Which means you are going about 120000 miles per hour. Which is very fast.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I think we could send people to Mars is we could make a suit strong enought to to protect them from any heat or coldness. I do believe we could get some one on Mars but I think it would talk a little more work.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:36 am
In one of the websites it said that scientists are developing spacecrafts similar to the design of what we imagine as a ‘UFO’. These crafts are called ‘Lightcrafts’ and are powered by infrared lasers.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:37 am
The first one is the best web site and they are going and they are going to they are send a person or a space probe and they can go to the planet ansd they can put somebody ansd they are going to send someone and they are going to send a monkey to pluto.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Soon there will be a machine called an ion engine, it has the thrust of a piece of paper, it will fly fast so we could get into deep space before we died, instead of burning chemical fuels it is more efficient it by running off of positively charged ions so the fuel would last longer, it would also be cheaper to launch
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:39 am
I think we could send ppl to mars- and i really dont care whether or not we do. But it might be cool. I doubt we’d be able to go to Jupitar and Saturn just yet. I think it would liike be dangerous b/c stars are huge balls of burning gases.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Yes I do think that we could send people to mars. Yes I think that we should. Yes we proboply could but we would have to work on our speed to get there in reasonable time. They are to far away to go to and come back to in a humans life and the heat problems. That we might be able to capture newer and faster speeds.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:41 am
If we were to fully develop these Lightcrafts I think that we could send people to farther planets because they are more fuel efficient and depending on their design, they might even be faster.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:41 am
I believe that space exploration is coming up in our times. Since we have put probes on mars and space travle to other planets I nthink that space vacations are not far off. That and space colonisation. I think we could get to other planets in our solar-system using space elevator and if we use them we could connect them to other planets and travel to them. It seems that we may even get to other solar systems bujt stars seem like they may be to hazardous in case they explode. If the stars are almost as hot as the sun than we won’t be able to travel to them.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:41 am
On the site http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1823990.stm it says would you be prepared to boldly go where no man – or woman – has been before? Well no one has been to Mars. I think that with time and a lot more hard work we could make a suit that would protect a human up on Mars. We have the right spaceships it all a matter of making a suit.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:42 am
I think that we can send people to Mars. I think that we should send people to Mars, just because that would be so cool. I don’t think that we should send people to Jupiter or Saturn, or their moons, because we don’t know what the climate is so we won’t know what kind of tools or stuff to use. Also I learned that there is a space ship that can go great speeds and long distances.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Because if it took to long a human could not go there because we have to die somtimes. One of the things that I think is realy cool is the flying sausers and how they are operated by infered lasers.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I think we could send people to mars because it’s not that far away from earth and it shouldn’t take that long. Yes we should send people to mars so they can study it up close. I don’t think we could send people to jupiter, saturn, or their moons because they are to far away and the change in gravity would probably blow the people up. The problem with traveling to nearby stars Is that there to far away and people would probably die on the journey. The possibilities for future space flight would have to be makeing better ships.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I think that we should send people to mars, because when we send space probes, it is not accurate as it would be if a person were to go their and see what was acutualy their.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I learned about comets. Comets are icy chunks of water and dust.When they go near the sun they evaporate. Is that good?
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I learned that a generation ship is a hypothetical starship that travels across great distances between stars at a speed much slower than that of light. I also learned that humans create large, self-sustaining space habitats before sending generation ships to the stars. This is what I learned from the second website so go check it out.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I bet we could send people to mars but we shouldn’t. We would have to be going 100,000 mph to get to mars in about 20 days. But, our space flight doesn’t go anywhere near that fats yet so it would take a lot longer than 20 days. We can probably go to Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn in the future if we can get it so our space travel goes a lot faster because right now it would take a LONG time. Otherwise, if we could get to Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn in a year or less than we probably would have already done it. Then problem of going to other stars is that they are out of our solar system and that is a lot farther away than pluto (which is not a planet anymore) and would take years to get to. Some possibilities for future space flight are Solar Sails, Ion Engines, Nuclear Power, Antimatter Spacecraft, Flying Saucers, and Space Elevavators.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I learned from the Wikipedia website that there’s this starship that can go faster and go longer distances than a regular space ship.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I think if we sent people to Mars then we would have trouble because the air is not breath so that means we can not send people to Mars .I we sent people to juptier moons then I bet then we could live on other planets like satruns moons.
We would have troubles with other terrtiorys of other creatures and they might attack us our they might be our freinds.so possibilities are that we might had made a spaces that are resistane to other aliens stars ships that might attack us.we might be able to build a ship that does hyper space and then we might make a gate that trasnports us to other systems antd this would be on the ship .
we might also make ships that can go to others systems to fight wars on other planets loucust.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I learned about future space ships. It was pretty interesting because I thought space ships would be made from strong materials, but it says that their really made from flimsy, and fragile materials. It also says that they don’t use the wind to push them, they use solor sails that are propelled by sunlight.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Voyager 1 is our most travelled spacecraft to date, clocking up a mammoth 12 billion km during its incredible journey to the edge of our Solar System. that is a lot of travling during a short time. Now if only we could travle that fast.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I think our astronormers could go to mars if they made suits for the astronouts, so they could take the heat. With out the suits we woul probably die. They would probably have to make the space ship out of some kind of metal, what would protect the space ship from the heat, and comets.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:32 am
I think that we would be able to send people to mars. maybe not right at this moment in time, but with time and a lot of people working on going to mars I think that we would be able tp.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:33 am
We’ve sent people to the moon.
Do you think we could send people to Mars?
yes
Should we?
If it becomes nessasary, then sure
How about to Jupiter and Saturn, or one of their moons?
I think that will take a while before we could manage that one.
What are some of the problems with space travel to other stars?
Lack of fuel, food, and air. takes to long, people might die on the way, might lose contact with them, will take a while before we can even get a satalite out there.
What are some possibilities for future space flight?
Space ships like the UFOs and stuff, and like in starwars with hyperspeed and that hypersleep. yeah i think we could manage that.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:34 am
I think that we could send ppl to mars but I really don’t think that its a really smart idea because they don’t know how dangerouse it could be. Mars is right near the sun so it is like so hot, and no air that we could breath.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:36 am
We could send people to any of the planets, if we wanted to. Even if it took a few years, they could put the people in an automated cryogenic slumber. It could then awaken them when they got close enough.
Some of the problems of interstellar travel is the time needed and the amount of resources. Like the generational star ship, we could solve that by putting a colony on the ship and keep only the essential awake. The rest could be put into slumber. The second problem is that it would take a lot of fuel and food, as well is water. These problems could be solved by adding a biodome, where they could grow plants and animals.
The key to this is the cryogenic process itself. If it went wrong, these people would be stranded without hope of ever reaching their destination.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Eventually, in the future, we will make space travel something blasse, but for now we are land locked. Yes we can make it to Venus and the moon, and possibly have the “Voyager 1,” journey into the Oort Cloud (?) wouldn’t it be demolished by comets ramming into it?
Many of the new models of space craft look usable, and they probably will take us farther than we’ve ever gone before, bu t I doubt that in the near future we will be commuting to mars on even an irregular basis.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I have learned about space elavators they are a way of transportation to outer space, NaSa are researching designs for a giant space tower. I learned that solar cells are made from flimsy fragial material they would be used by sunlight.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I learned what brown dwarfs are. Brown dwarfs are failed stars that never heated up enough to explode into a normal star. They are also thought to contribute to the missing dark matter that lurks invisibly inside the Universe. and that is all that i learned really
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I dont think we can send people to mars I maen i we can get there but it will be hard to land but we should try.
it pobily would be easy to land on jupiters moon because we hav landed on our moon.
I think we could make frends with the alleins and get more tecnoligey.
One of the problems we might have is get fresh air and food .
For the future is going to the stars.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:39 am
I think we could send people to mars but we shouldent because it is going to be nearly impossible to make a working colony on mars. We could probibly send people to saturn or jupiter but like i said before it will be really hard to make a working colony.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I think that we should send people to mars so they can see if there is any life on mars aliens. We ahould send them to jupiter beacuse it is the biggest planet in the solar system and they need to really see how big it is. Ion engines have the same thrust as a piece of paper in your hand. Some problems might be they could die before they get there.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Learned that they are starting to make a design that is shaped like a sauser and that might be the next thing they send. I am gessing that the sauser will move faster and smoother throw space.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:43 am
There is a ship called the lightcraft. It uses infrared lassers to heat the air around it to 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun. This causes the air to around the fly saucer to thrust it forward. This ship is 15cm across and can travle 30m in just 3 seconds. An advantage is that is doesn’t need to carry onboard fule. In the future scientist might be able to build this flying saucer (UFO).
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:45 am
The nuclear powered spacecraft is one of the most feasible, yet controversial, methods of space transport is by nuclear power. It runs off fission engines wich is really cool.DevoDeThe main problem with it is that is it gives off a lot of nuclear waste wich would be a problem for future missions. But we wouldnt have to worry about the waste making its way home.
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Voyager 1 is our most travelled spacecraft to date, clocking up a mammoth 12 billion km during its incredible journey to the edge of our Solar System. That is a lot of travling during a short time. Now if only we could travle that fast. It has taken over 30 years to complet
[Reply]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Yes, I think we can send people to Mars but I am not sure if we should. I don’t think we should send them to ant of the planets or there moon. One of the problem is that our nearest star takes 40,000 years to get there.
[Reply]
March 15th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I believe that we could send people to Mars, because it would take 20 days one-way to get there. I think that we should send people to mars instead of just space probes, because we might find out a lot more with what we do when we send a spce probe out there.
I don’t think that we should/could send people to Jupiter, Saturn, or one of their moons, because its close to over 4 years. And I don’t think that we could give them enough food and oxygen up there to last that long. So we shouldn’t and/or couldn’t send people that far. Some of the problems with space travel is that we can’t get something that goes fast enough, and if we do the people that go they could end up dieing. In the future I believe that we might be able to make something that can go fast enough to get to outter planets. And maybe in the future we will be able too.
[Reply]