Quote (Dr_zoidberg71 @ Fri, Dec 12 2008, 01:39am)
as far as I'm concerned, unless we somehow colonize a large portion of the galaxy, we really wouldn't need light speed. Say we find a habitable planet (meaning materials to build an airtight base, not just fully habitable like earth) within 20-50 light years of Earth. if we can travel near the speed of light, then we could still get items and people there relatively fast.
Robert W. Bussard designed a type of propulsion system knwon as the Bussard Ramjet. It basically scoops up interstellar hydrogen and compresses it to undergo fusion. It then uses the fusion reaction as an exhaust which propels the craft further, which gets it more fuel. This craft would therefore ignore the "light speed requires infinite fuel stored onboard" requirement because it gets its fuel en route. The problem with this is that we have theorized that the interstellar hydrogen is of a much lower density than Bussard originally guessed. This could be solved by pre-seeding the trajectory of the craft between its departure point and its destination.
The technologies I am discussing however, are at least hundreds of years from being perfected. And as Kami pointed out, once all the oil on this planet is consumed, we will literally tear ourselves apart unless we plan for that point and have alternative energies researched and ready to go by that point.
1- There aren't any 'laws' on this topic although most of the current physics formulas are based on the
THEORY of relativity (plz note THEORY).
2- Considering the achievements in R&D and computation in the past 20 years, i think it is
safe to say that it is possible but not probable
off topic and in reply to the above
3- we're going to have oil for more than 300 years, you might be thinking about old data that predicted natural oil reserves would be exhausted before 2020. We've found more. A lot more. I'd be more worried with finding fresh water than oil if I were you.