Talk:Intergalactic travel

An Edict

I think we can safely keep this article on the backburner for a while... Chadlupkes 20:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You have no imagination.

Actually, I'm looking at the national debt. I have plenty of imagination, and I could probably help design and build the ship. But until we have the resources, it's in the future. It doesn't take imagination, it takes political will. And that's what we have none of right now. Chadlupkes 00:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Why is this even being discussed? You're both wrong, one of you is implying that this is possible with a little 'imagination' and the other is claiming that it's possible but only in the future when we work out our problems here on Earth. Intergalactic travel is impossible, period. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.97.1.223 (talk • contribs) .

This would take way more than political will. It would require spaceships that can travel at just below the speed of light (using time dilation) or components that last millions of years (unless a wormhole, warp drive or something else along those lines can be made). Polonium 00:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

You´re all asshats. What does the fact that it´s probably in the distant future have to do with anything? Wikipedia is full of articles about highly speculative science.--Threedots dead 21:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

One method of InterGalacticTravel has been proposed that doesn't used a space craft - it uses a solar system. Credit should probably go to LarryNiven who proposed something similar for his Puppeteer race in RingWorld. Of course, it does require a rather patient passanger species. --Pallando 14:48, 12 April 2007 (BST)

Fritz Leiber uses planets as spaceships in The Wanderer, written years before Ringworld. There's probably a host of science fiction authors that had similar ideas. It may be a difficult task to credit just one of them with it.--68.46.187.78 (talk) 05:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

This Article is pure Copy-Paste... See: http://explanation-guide.info/meaning/Intergalactic-travel.html

Why not?

Why can't we conceive the technical possibility of intergalactic travel? After all, even interplanetary travel or going to the moon would be unconceivable only 500 years ago. If effective propulsion methods are not known, it doesn't mean that they can't exist at all. Anyway, even interstellar travel is speculative, and that may be one reason why there is no evidence that we are visited by aliens. Even with a wide range of theories supporting the possibility of interstellar travel, it might not be useful or practical at all. Probably, it's even less useful or practical to make intergalactic trips, but theoretically it may be possible in the future, as science and technology advances. I don't think it's correct to discard it on the basis the is a highly fantastic speculation. Concerning to the speculation's criticisms, it must be pointed out that every theory is speculation before it's proven. So, if scientists in history wouldn't have been open to speculation at all, we would still be in the middle ages or at an even less advanced stage in our society. It would be also interesting to see if space travel will continue to be in fashion in the future, since Earth is plenty of resources and wastes a lot of energy that comes from the Sun, which is not used at all for direct human benefit (apart from maybe 0,1% or less). When our curiosity about the Solar System and the Universe is satisfied, through means that don't necessary imply going there, will humans be still interested about that? We can not know it now, as we can't know either if science and technology will ever allow the possibility of intergalactic travel —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nmgscp (talk • contribs) 18:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

where it is true to say we do not have the teqnological ability to build a spacecraft that will travel faster than the speed of light due to the fact phisics has bounderies that are impossible to surpass it is obvious the amount of enegy required to travel at that speed would render it an imposible task indeed--121.209.65.7 (talk) 11:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)ps

Um,

The last sentence doesn't make sense. It says 'useful for intergalactic travel, and maybe even interstellar travel' .. obviously the latter would be simpler than the former.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Reference

Interesting article:

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/space_limits —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.118.33.162 (talk) 14:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Pure science fiction, or even more?

I think Intergalactic Travel is beyond even science fiction. Many science fiction subjects that involve space travel, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo: Combat Evolved and Mass Effect, that revolve around travelling to different star systems, don't make any reference to travelling between galaxies. From google searching this topic, there isn't much talk about this subject as opposed to interstellar travel, leading to the notion that intergalactic travel is a silly and insane subject to talk about. --Nicholas Weiner (talk) 20:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I object. It is of no interest what topics concern science fiction authors in the context of what concepts might be technically feasible in an arbitrary future. The concept is surely not physically impossible and thus I find it vaingloriously dismissive to describe the concept as "insane" and "silly" -- the time required to reach the technical skill and sophistication required for such a project is of no interest to if it is possible at all per se, although the time required is of course also interesting in its own right, but again not as to judge if the concept is noteworthy or not. Surely science fiction does not determine when a topic of such importance is noteworthy, so what determines it? I think the moment the concept becomes allowed by the current laws of physics -- which it is -- although I'm not sure if this is the consensus for this I'm pretty sure the consensus is not that of science fiction-notability as the key variable.

John Gribbin in his "Unveiling The Edge of Time" book based on theoretical physics discusses negative feedback wormhole machines -- with such machines being discussed in a text not meant as a novel nor sheer entertainment, then why isn't is possible to discuss intergalatic travel? It is merely the logical extension of interstellar travel, and I don't think it is ever too soon to discuss something as important or fantastic as that.

Surely I agree it is insane to discuss the feasibility of such a project with current technology, but that isn't what this article is about. Posix memalign (talk) 03:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

True, though I got to think that if intergalactic travel has not been covered in science fiction than at the least science fiction writers would think to themselves amid how unrealistic their works are in real life that intergalactic travel is taking it too far. Also, how is "science fiction" an engineering term? --Nicholas Weiner (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Notions of interstellar travel are daunting enough. The risks are still far, far beyond understanding but at least the engineering and social worries can be roughed into some kind of a speculative framework. I'm aware of no means through which intergalactic travel could be sketched out in any meaningful way. The time scales and distances are utterly beyond the ken of humankind, likewise scampering up the gravity well of a galaxy, the risks likely orders of magnitude higher than whatever they may happen to be for interstellar jaunts. Having an article on the topic is fun, though and it's not beyond SciFi: A clever SciFi writer could easily handle a tale set in some wholly speculative universe with a curved, toroidal geometry and dimensional nooks which do the trick. So far, there's not one shred of a hint anyone'll ever make it to a nearby star, much less the Sombrero galaxy. We don't know enough. Gwen Gale (talk) 09:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Again I must strongly disagree; "there's not one shred of a hint anyone'll ever make it to a nearby star, much less the Sombrero galaxy", interstellar travel has been covered by many physicists, read e.g. the work edited by Robert Zubrin Ph.D and Stanley Schmidt Ph.D in "Islands in the Sky", where you will see discussions on topics far more extraordinary than mere interstellar travel (but also on interstellar travel). Interstellar travel nor intergalactic travel are forbidden by the laws of physics, that is one major "hint" to as whether the projects are feasible or not. Interstellar travel will happen, it is obvious to do so, and I will even be so bold as to dare state that interstellar travel should already be on the real world planning stage had it not been for how little economic and political support space exploration receives in general; in a mere ten years, a single country who didn't even have a man in space created all the technology and gained all the experience required to make it from not even suborbital manned flight to a successful manned mission to the moon. Again, what I just stated is only the effort of a single country, and only for a mere ten years -- what could the combined effort of the entire world do for another 50, 100 years, or more?

Now I'm fully aware the difference in difficulty of interstellar and interplanetary travel is literally astronomical; but the increase in technology and knowledge in general in the field of space flight can be way more than an exponential growth as well, and again the laws of physics are of no barrier. I'm sure you are aware of the plans of NASA for a manned mission (flyby) of Venus in the 70s? Or the plan for a permanent outpost on the moon? Or Dr. Wernher Von Braun's plans for a manned mission to Mars in the 50s (!)? Why has nothing happened since the Apollo program (yes, I truly think robotic missions are trivial compared to Apollo)? It is all about the economy and politics, sadly.

Regarding intergalactic travel, it is obvious that intergalactic travel is the mere logical extension of interstellar travel, although the project seems impossible at the present day I'm on the optimistic side and I find that it would not seem impossible with the combined effort of the entire colonized solar system and Oort cloud which would eventually be the state of the solar system in the event that mankind does not annihilate itself or that a natural disaster does the same job. Although you may laugh of my statement about "the entire colonized solar system" you don't have to go many hundred years back in time before it would be way beyond insanity to talk about a computer like the IBM Roadrunner or the Apollo space program either. Posix memalign (talk) 12:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Although we disagree, I find this topic a lot of fun, am not laughing at you and I do understand your outlook. Although we should be using this talk page to talk about sources on the topic, hopefully this thread can be taken as a discussion of PoV along with how to find and weigh those sources.

I'm not aware of anything in the known laws of physics which forbids intergalactic travel, nor am I aware of anything in the laws of physics hinting that the risks and costs would ever be low enough for this to happen. If you're saying that governments should fund manned space travel, we'll have to disagree there, too. Putting guns to folks' heads (tax collection), that they might pay for overwhelmingly expensive projects with such unknown outcomes, may stir up fits and starts of development, but nothing more. The Apollo program was the (wonderful) peak of one of those fits. NASA's sweeping plans for manned exploration of the solar system back in the late 1960s were stopped because the costs far, far outweighed what the US economy could reasonably hope to get back. It stopped because there was no way to carry it forward economically or socially. The Space shuttle was an engineering compromise (perhaps even a failed and very wasteful disaster) which was hastily spun up in the aftermath of the Apollo program. Robotics are indeed another topic altogether, I'd say that's where most of the future of space exploration may be found: Given what's likely to come, one way or another, in the fields of AI and data management, I wouldn't think people will be needed for most space flight and it will be so very, very much more expensive (never mind all the untold risks) to send people into the hard vacuum and isolation of space beyond earth orbit.

I don't think for an instant that the ancient Greeks would have thought any notion of the Apollo Guidance Computer and what came after as "beyond insanity." However, the economic and technological benefits of government-funded space programs may be more or less a myth.

Will those who follow us (or, heh, those who follow some kindred species with whom we now share the Earth) ever go to another galaxy? Dunno. Some of the answer might likely be found in whatever it is that spins up awareness of experience in brainy beings like us naked apes (and say, dolphins, birds, octopi and other organisms): Travel to another galaxy may wind up happening as some kind of copy-paste of self-aware data :) Meanwhile, Enrico Fermi asked something rather nettlesome on this topic. The distances are utterly, unbelievably big, even the slow-poke speed of light likely being beyond the slowly, slowly creeping upper bound of how fast matter can be flung. When we look up into a star bedecked sky we see mostly fossil light, much of it bent through the looking glasses of a cosmic geometry we have yet to grok. Gwen Gale (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The book, Star Wars: Vector Prime, authorized by Lucas LTD to be included in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, features a race of sapient beings that came from another galaxy. Your comment about intergalactic travel being beyond science fiction makes no sense at all. The fact that we are even talking about intergalactic travel means the idea has been thought of so it can no longer be outside the scope of human creativity. Weird comment... Also see below for a scientific theory on Faster Than Light Travel...15.211.201.83 (talk) 23:21, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

In Science Fiction / In Popular Culture section

It would be interesting to have a list of what if ANY science fiction involves intergalactic travel. The reference to Star Trek is a bit misleading; the entire series takes place almost entirely within a section of the Milky Way. -Craig Pemberton 22:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, perhaps; but as of this date the article is merely a stub and is lacking in all aspects, the article should at first try to make a much more solid description with i.a. the associated technologies, physics and mathematics thereof prior to start including mere trivia. Posix memalign (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

One form of media that I know of is Crysis, where the aliens - the Cephalods - use a network of Einstein-Rossen Bridges to travel from their homeworld in the Andromeda galaxy (over 2 million years from Earth) to whatever world the aliens are at war with in rapid time, which can be galaxies away. The ceph had been dormant in the Earth for millions of years as well, showing that they do possess the means to intergalactically travel. Though the games and books are vague in this concept, this is one of the only truly feasible ways I can see us travelling between galaxies within a Human lifetime. Interesting how I didn't see any mention of using Wormholes as a means to travel amongst galaxies on this page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.251.101.10 (talk) 16:13, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The Main Factual Point

is that if current human understanding about travel faster than c is false, then there is no apparent reason to distinguish interstellar from intergalactic travel. OTOH were there some way to accommodate issues from travel at c, then incremental distances traveled would be significant, centrally as a result of time dilation (the enabling issue) but also as engineering issues. Nonetheless, even assuming just near luminal velocity travel, from the frame of the traveler, ignoring temporal displacement, intergalactic vs. interstellar is not necessarily the great leap depicted. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 01:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I dispute that; interstellar travel to the very nearest stars can be thought perfectly feasible in concept with generation ships and rather conventional technologies without approaching c enough to gain the benefit of time dilation -- i.e. at a v : c > v >> [Voyager 1] where the travelers are not affected to a noteworthy degree of time dilation. Hence as interstellar travel can be achieved with a completely different era of technology as compared to intergalactic travel it is thus fair to depict it as a great leap. Posix memalign (talk) 01:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes from that perspective that's true, but I discount the whole idea of the independent development of means to travel to nearby stars because I presume that before that could be effected there will be a Discovery of Earth by a cosmopolitan culture which has "solved" these problems and which I identify with the technological singularity or omega point of culture. Also, the nearest stars at the velocity you mention will require round trips of at least ten years and my presentiment is that said singularity will occur before that. There is another alternative which is that there is no other life of superior intelligence in the universe or the cosmopolitan culture I refer to has yet to be established but that is a branch of reasoning I discount just based on the numbers and application of the Copernican principle. We should know this within the next few decades, i.e. substantially before we could, from where we are now, field expeditions or even unmanned probes to the nearby stars. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 04:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

An unmanned probe to the nearest systems is within current capabilities purely on a technological basis but this is somewhat besides the point because mounting such a project is outside of the range of possibilities given the current level of human political and social development. Again, the change in that underlying condition, I propose, will merge with the general cultural singularity referred to above. Also there should be a mention of why intergalactic travel is more interesting than merely interstellar: i.e. that it makes the entire universe available for contact with other intelligent species, not just this galaxy, but the 100 billion or so other ones as well. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 13:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Beyond the Speed of Light (FTL Speed)

There has been major developments in the field of warped empty space in terms of popular theory. NASA scientists have calculated that in order for the objects in our universe to be as spread out as they have, within the time frame from the big bang till now, that the big bang would of had to push physical objects faster than the speed of light. Empty space itself does not have a speed limit because empty space has no density or mass. This leaves us with the question of well if we cannot physical travel as fast as the speed of light or faster, why not cause the empty space behind an object to expand and the empty space in front of the object to contract faster than the speed of light? Basically causing a wave in the local area of empty space, in front and behind the object, to move in conjunction with each other faster than the speed of light to propel the object in the bubble of still (not moving) space between the empty space warps to move faster than light because technically the object and space inside the bubble is not moving and just the localized space in front and behind the object is. This is a theory many physicists share, the only problem is discovering how to manipulate gravity and/or dark matter to expand and contract the empty space (The Large Hadron Collider is currently being used to try to understand the physics of gravity and dark matter/energy). Of course even when we figure out how to manipulate empty space we still run into the problem of how to power such a massive reaction, but one day we will have the ability to create more energy than we can currently imagine. So I would not call the idea of moving faster then the speed of light impossible, just currently out of reach.15.211.201.83 (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Issues related to expanding space-time

I don't quite have a perfect understanding of the issue, but is it not the case that over a journey of many millions of years at near light speeds the expansion of the universe would become a significant factor in the journey? This KurzGesagt video implies that such a trip would in fact be impossible due to the expansion of the universe. I'm skeptical about their claim, but certainly you can never reach anything outside your Hubble volume. Can anyone shed light on this issue? Nolandda (talk) 04:09, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

On a related note -- according to this article -- because of the expansion of the universe, only 3% of the galaxies in the observable universe could ever be reached from Earth, even if the journey started today and one could travel the speed of light. Moreover, every second roughly 20,000 additional stars become unreachable. In the absence of FTL capability, most of the Universe is forever beyond our ability to visit. (I'll note that even if you could travel 1000 times light speed, it would still take 100 years just to completely traverse the Milky Way galaxy and 2500 years to reach the Andromeda galaxy). --Rsbaker0 (talk) 12:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Possible duplicate article

Interstellar travel. What about a merge? Kortoso (talk) 18:30, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

One-way trip

Should this section perhaps be deleted? While it might be easy to assume that a trip to another galaxy would be a one-way trip, it is also possible that it might not be. Currently it is only speculation in any case as we do not know anything about the state of technology at a point in time when intergalactic travel could be done. Let's say it was a trip to the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away. If humans were to be sent on such a trip they might be uploaded to computers, be genetically engineered, cyborgs etc and might be able to survive the trip. For the sake of argument let's assume the average speed of the spacecraft was 50% of the speed of light, then the trip would take 5 million years there and another 5 million years if they were to return (earth time, on-ship time would would be less). We also currently do not know if faster than light travel is possible.

The only thing we can say with relative certainty is that if faster than light travel is impossible, if someone were to travel to another galaxy and back, the earth would be a very different place millions of years later. Assuming that it's impossible to return is no more reasonable than to assume that intergalactic travel itself is impossible.

I reverted some edits to another version of that section, though I don't think that any of them are satisfactory as they are both to some extent unreferenced speculation and there isn't really a whole lot to say without turning to speculation. 51.175.169.128 (talk) 21:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)