Comments on: How far can we travel in space before we hit something?

By: water_skipper

water_skipper — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:51:35 +0000

There is junk everywhere in space. Yes, it’s 99 percent empty, but so is an atom and you can’t just fly through atoms now, can you? Like someone else said, before we trying going fast through the galaxy we might want to do it slowly for a while first until we get a decent map.

By: rogerglyn

rogerglyn — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:17:59 +0000

Knowing my luck, pretty quick.

By: Dilong paradoxus

Dilong paradoxus — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:34:01 +0000

Not far. There are thousands of little bits of dust in space, and those hit you all the time. In star trek a lot of ships have a deflector that deflects small objects as the ship moves at high speed. It is a lot like a shield. In the main ships in star trek, you can usually see the deflector where the saucer section ends.

In warp, the ships go into this thing called subspace, so that probably doesn’t have any obstacles.

By: Quantum Skull

Quantum Skull — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:52:01 +0000

I wouldn’t know. Cause no one knows. Maybe we should set up wormholes to figure this out.

By: Aaron Y

Aaron Y — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:09:46 +0000

Assuming that you can steer around the occasional star, then you could go on forever.

By: Wild Bill

Wild Bill — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 07:27:19 +0000

Think of how captains of naval vessels had to chart unknown territory in the oceans before we had any kind of maps. Those charts were made for hundreds if not thousands of years until we had accurate data showing the latitude and longitude of islands, ice, sandbars, and any other objects. Look at our star maps that we have now. It would take us thousands of more years to chart the Milky Way so we could steer a ship right into port without ever looking out the window.

Then go beyond the Galaxy. Until we chart the skies completely, then I would say your chances a hitting a rogue object are extremely great!

Awesome question!

By: professor Einstein

professor Einstein — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:57:41 +0000

to travel in a warp, we should first have a map of where we are going before warping to them. the distance varies between stars. stars aren’t the only problem, there are more dark matter in space. they can be pretty large and undetectable.

By: Terry R

Terry R — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:07:48 +0000

Assuming the universe is infinite, everywhere you look, there will be a star to hit. But for practical touring of the Milky Way, you’d have to know the star density for the region you are in. Around the outer arms, it may be one star every cubic parsec. Toward the hub, it shoots up to ten stars every cubic parsec. (These numbers are my estimates, but the logic is there.) So indeed, star travel will involve much more than the propulsion system and basic human needs.

By: Irv S

Irv S — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:04:07 +0000

We can see objects billions of light years distant.
We can see no ‘walls’ anywhere.
Theoretically, whether space is ‘open’ or ‘closed`,
you can travel indefinately without ever hitting
anything.
Does that answer your question?

By: Hgldr

Hgldr — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 08:29:52 +0000

What is really interesting to me is the asteroid belt near mars and jupiter. The discovery channel artists picture shows it as a bunch of rocks really close together when, in reality, even these are really really far apart. All of our spacecraft to the outer solar system have sped by these wihout hitting a thing.