[bobcunk]

we don't have the knowledge yet to prove or disprove anything. its all based on theories.
even the laws of physics may have undiscovered errors. and it is possible to prove that light speed travil is possible if you actually did it but you can never prove that it is impossible. maybe things traveling at light speed don't become an infinite mass. light has a mass and it has no problem.

[Lady Vaako]

Originally Posted by gornski

IMO, the biggest blunder Roddenberry made in trying to make Trek plausible is not placing it far enough into the future.

A lot of sci-fi writers suffer from this problem, not just Roddenberry. It's been going on for years and it seems to go on even now.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

You need a balanced approach when you write something like Star Trek. If you set it to far in the future, unless something happens in that fictional future that hinders development, they would be so far advanced that viewers would not be able to relate to them. So you take FTL travel, and put it in a setting at least somewhat closer to us.

[gornski]

Originally Posted by bobcunk

we don't have the knowledge yet to prove or disprove anything. its all based on theories.
even the laws of physics may have undiscovered errors. and it is possible to prove that light speed travil is possible if you actually did it but you can never prove that it is impossible. maybe things traveling at light speed don't become an infinite mass. light has a mass and it has no problem.

Sorry, the infinite inertial mass problem is not going to go away. Any future advances are going to have to work around this problem. And that workaround is going to involve our finding a technology that allows us to alter the nature of spacetime itself, which looks to be a very tough problem. This much we know.

[JSnyder4]

The Spice must flow!

[matty]

Prof Stephen Hawkin reckons its doable, and hes a right smart ****er

[gornski]

Originally Posted by matty

Prof Stephen Hawkin reckons its doable, and hes a right smart ****er

I agree with him. But the problem is damned hard. So hard, in fact that we are going to need a truly gigantic army of righteously smart ****ers to solve it.

To give Roddenberry credit, his vision involved making Science officers and Engineers into significant heroes of his story. Without them, Kirk is dead fifty times over. Also to Roddenberry's credit, he made advances in social justice part of the future as well. He knew that we wouldn't be able to solve hard problems like FTL travel until we stopped wasting human potential with greed, petty wars, and social injustice.

[Livingston]

Originally Posted by gornski

I will say this. Our current knowledge of physics is not enough to rule out FTL travel. But our current knowledge is enough to say that the problem is VERY difficult. I seriously doubt that 2 or 3 hundred years in the future is going to be enough. Add in the fact that we haven't (to our knowledge) been visited by any cultures that have solved the problem, and what you see is the problem is pretty frigging hard. So hard in fact that I don't think that it is reasonable to expect anything like a warp drive solution in less than a 1000 year time frame. I hope I am wrong.

IMO, the biggest blunder Roddenberry made in trying to make Trek plausible is not placing it far enough into the future.

I agree, I mean who's to say there are not civilizations out there millions of years old, with millions of years of technological development. These things may take time, if we can survive in the long run. The dinosaurs were the dominant form of life on this planet for roughly 170 million years or so. Modern humans have been here roughly 130,000 years or so and recorded history is only about 8,000 years and look what we've achieved in that time. Look what we've achieved just in the last hundred years. We're new borns on the cosmic scale of civilizations if such a scale exists. Who knows how long the human race will last and what it will achieve.

If warp drive is impossible, it may only seem that way from our limited science. Things will change, new discoveries will arise and if we can survive in the long term I'd say interstellar travel will happen. It may not be anything like warp drive and it may not happen for a millenia but if we can last, it'll happen I think.

[masterchief1001]

Well, actually the Star Trek warp drive does exist. And Patrick Stewart explained exactly how to make it work: "Well, you just say, ENGAGE, and the ship goes." The warp drive is an excellent plot device! lol

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

Originally Posted by Livingston

I agree, I mean who's to say there are not civilizations out there millions of years old, with millions of years of technological development. These things may take time, if we can survive in the long run. The dinosaurs were the dominant form of life on this planet for roughly 170 million years or so. Modern humans have been here roughly 130,000 years or so and recorded history is only about 8,000 years and look what we've achieved in that time. Look what we've achieved just in the last hundred years. We're new borns on the cosmic scale of civilizations if such a scale exists. Who knows how long the human race will last and what it will achieve.

If warp drive is impossible, it may only seem that way from our limited science. Things will change, new discoveries will arise and if we can survive in the long term I'd say interstellar travel will happen. It may not be anything like warp drive and it may not happen for a millenia but if we can last, it'll happen I think.

Nice post. This is the way I tend to look at it too.