Plans for Galactic Colonization

There are 3 main obstacles that must be overcome before any reasonable plan for galactic colonization can be made into reality.

1) Some form of Faster than Light Travel (FTL) that is consistent with the laws of physics must be discovered.

2) A highly concentrated energy source must be discovered, in order to provide us with the power that is needed.

3) An extremely large amount of capital must be acquired, to finance the entire project.

These are simply the long-term oriented goals that must be accomplished. Indeed, the order that they will have to be accomplished in is most likely the reverse order. The entire plan of what must be done will follow the 3 goals.

Faster Than Light Travel

As of now, there is no conventional way to travel faster than light. This light speed barrier, is a direct result of Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. Although a long and technical explanation could follow…it won't due to the laziness of the author. Basically just trust me in that you cannot simply accelerate yourself faster than light. It can't be done that way.

However, we don't simply end at that. There are, theoretically, ways in which we can, somewhat, travel faster than light. From now on, FTL will mean the following: Suppose I leave Point A in a spaceship for Point B. At the same instant a pulse of light is sent from A to B. If, somehow, I manage to get to Point B before the light pulse does, then I have moved Faster Than Light.

As of now, there are two current theoretical ways in which we could travel FTL. They are wormholes and space-time warping (or warp drives, for you Star Trek aficionados).

I'm sure many have heard the term wormhole before. In essence, it is a tunnel that would allow two distant places in space-time to be linked. Thus, by traveling through a wormhole it could be possible to take a shortcut and be able (while locally never exceeding the speed of light) to arrive at a point, faster than light could, going through normal space. A common analogy to this, is the following: Take a piece of paper and fold it over onto itself. Suppose you could only move along the surface of the paper and suppose the two ends are not touching. To get to the other side of the paper you would have to walk all the way down one side, then back up the other. A wormhole would be the equivalent to taking a pencil and poking a hole through both sides of the paper, allowing you to get to the other side with ease.

The second way of FTL travel would be the so-called "warp drives." The theory behind this is basically instead of moving your ship faster, move the space around it faster. Many theories about the origin of the universe suppose a space-time that could expand FTL. As such, it should not be physically impossible to re-create a space-time configuration that could move FTL as well. To do this, the space in front of the ship would need to be contracted, while the space behind the ship would need to be expanded. Your ship could remain locally at very low speeds, while globally you could be moving FTL.

Now, you must be asking yourself, why aren't we using these techniques to go explore other galaxies? While these theories sound good on paper (well kinda) they are just that: theories. While not physically impossible, they do require some rather "special" conditions. Firstly, both techniques would require enormous amounts of energy. To contract space-time (a condition for both of the theories) you must rely again on Einstein, this time for General Relativity. In essence, gravity curves space-time. However, our own sun only bends light (i.e., curves space-time) by an incredibly small angle. To achieve the type of curvatures needed for FTL travel, one would need the energy equivalent to the entire energy output of the planet earth…multiplied a hundredfold (possibly more). However, this does not rule them out…it simply makes them impractical for the time being.

Another problem has to do with the fact that gravity is always and attractive force. It causes space-time to warp in a positive fashion. While this is needed to create a wormhole and for the contraction part of the warp travel proposal, it tends to complicate other things. Firstly, let us look again at wormholes. To first create a wormhole, we need to create 2 space-time singularities, events where space-time is infinitely curved (positively). Of course this sounds impossible, but this is what theoretically happens in a black hole, so we shall not say it's impossible. However, to keep the wormhole open, we need something that repels rather than attracts: anti-gravity. Similarly, to expand space-time for warp travel, we also need anti-gravity.

So, how do we go about getting anti-gravity? Since mass creates gravity (as well as energy, E=mc2 and all…), we therefore simply need some matter that has negative mass! This so-called "exotic matter" would have the qualities necessary to create anti-gravity. Now then, can this type of matter exist? Possibly. Experiments have shown that it is possible to measure the energy density in certain places to be negative (such as between 2 Casimir plates) and consequently it could correspond to a negative mass. However, these experiments are on extremely small scale where quantum effects are noticeable, and it is not certain (yet) whether or not similar situations could be created on a macroscopic scale.

So, where does this leave us? Well, FTL travel has not been ruled out entirely by our known laws of physics, and this is always of some consolation. However, it seems more and more likely that if we ever to find some sort of FTL travel, it'll only be in a relatively long time. Nevertheless, a surprising breakthrough could always occur (as is apt to happen in science every once and a while) so we should not turn away from this as a lost cause just yet.

Please return later as our plans have not yet all been published. It will be posted up within the next week or two.

If you have further question, you may inquire Bryan, project leader at bryanch@colba.net.