2 Questions relating to light speed and mars.

[mikey8919]

Alright so i just had an interesting thought. If a human baby was born on mars or any other planet for that matter would humans on earth consider it an alien or not? Reason why i thought of this is because what if there are aliens on different planets similar to earth and they are almost completely identical to us what would be the difference between that baby and the alien? <br /><br />My second question is about the speed of light or getting close to it. I read online that nothing can travel the speed of light or faster then the speed of light. So if we had a spaceship capable of traveling at 99% the speed of light how would we control the damn machine? I would think at some point it would just slam head on into a planet.<br /><br />Anyone can help explain my questions? When i get random/weird ideas like this i hate having no answers especially when you search Google for an hour or so and find no answers. Thanks a lot i appreciate it.

 

[nexium]

Human is not just our appearance. The Martian human or other would still be alien, if language, customs, morals, attitude, knowledge etc were radically different, just as the Austrailan aboriginies, were alien until they became semi westernized.<br />Control will be difficult at 0.99c or even 0.9c as we can only see what is directly ahead and that is blue shifted from infrared to ultraviolet or Xrays. Early warning of iminent colision with a planet will likely be less than one second, and making a fast turn, or rapid speed change produces artificial gravity strong enough to produce instant death in humans. I assume you are asking about the speed relative to objects and particles a short distance ahead of the space craft. In my opinion we will need heroic measures even to survive 0.1c. Neil

 

[weeman]

For your first question, I believe it would depend on whether or not we knew that the baby was born on another planet. If a spaceship, from another Earth, crash-landed on our Earth, and the aliens looked identical to us, we would not call them aliens at all because we wouldn't know the difference. <br /><br />However, if we noticed that they came in a very strange craft (with far more superior technology), they spoke a completely unknown language, and they had strange mannerisms (not Earthly) then we might come to the conclusion that they look human, but they are from a different planet. <br /><br />At this point, I think people would start to refer to them as aliens.<br /><br />To answer your second question. You would have to build a ship with incredibly accurate navigation devices. You would probably want to plot out your trip before you make it (similar to the way they punch in the coordinates in 'Star Wars' before making the jump to hyperspace).<br /><br />I don't really like to use Star Wars as an example, but it's the same idea <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /><br /><br />Traveling at such speeds is dangerous. It's hard to say how you would exactly control the ship, that requires technology far, far ahead of ours! <br /><br />The thing to keep in mind too is that you need an incredible amount of energy to propel yourself to 99% the speed of light. As you approach the speed of light your mass increases, meaning the mass of the entire ship would increase. This requires more energy, and more thrust. At half the speed of light, you have a lot more mass than you do when you're at a rest. When you're traveling at .99 lightspeed you have much more mass than when you're traveling at half lightspeed. When you're traveling at .999999999 lightspeed, your mass still increases considerably from .99. <br /><br />This is why achieving lightspeed is said to be impossible. It requires an infinite amount of energy to propel your infinitely increasing mass. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[weeman]

Nexium explains it better than I do <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Techies: We do it in the dark. </font></strong></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>"Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.</strong><strong>" -Albert Einstein </strong></font></p> </div>

 

[mikey8919]

wow thanks a lot your post helped clear my mind a bit, but still 1 last thing. Would the baby considered the first "Martian" aka Alien Or just the first Human being born on another planet?

 

[billslugg]

mikey<br />I also get weird thoughts. You will fit in just fine here at SDC. Yes, the baby will be a natural born citizen of Mars. The baby will also be a citizen of whatever country his/her father and or mother is from. In the case of the father however, in the US at least, Miller v. Albright established that paternity had to be proven before age 21. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mikey8919]

thanks billslug its good to know im not the only one with weird ideas lol

 

[yevaud]

Oh, far from it.<br /><br />Welcome to Uplink. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[qso1]

On aliens:<br />If humans from different countries consider foreigners to be aliens, legal or illegal. Not much reason to think we won't see people from mars as being alien.<br /><br />Speed of light:<br />If we reach the point where we have developed spacecraft capable of interstellar travel, then we will have developed the means to control such a craft. The likelihood of hitting a planet is remote in the extreme.<br /><br />Interstellar craft will be going to other stars which means the route taking will theoretically be very nearly a straight line into the destination stellar system. Going out of our system and arrival in the destination system will be taking place during the accellerative and decellerative phase of the mission. Impact speeds would still be great but due to the position of planets around our sun and destination star...the chances of hitting one are miniscule. Not to mention that the destination for an interstellar craft will likely be one of the star systems planets in which case...the craft has to be at low enough velocity to insert into orbit around that world or around the star itself.<br /><br />The reason you won't find answers to these kinds of questions is that these scenarios are still pretty far into our future. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>