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Yakk · 04-15-2004, 11:31 AM

Stompy, yes, but the farther you go, the longer you have been gone.

You can get to anyplace in the universe in as close to zero time as you want, barring huge and massive technical problems, by your perspective. However, a long amount of time will have passed at both the destination and at the departure point.

The huge and massive technical problems are larger than you think, in addition.

For instance, going to the far side of the milky way and back would take about about 1 million years earth time. You might only spend a few moments on the trip yourself, but a million years is a long time.

The second part is, accellerating something to near light speed takes a huge amount of energy. It also takes a huge amount of propellant, so much so that the only ways I know of to generate the propellant is to use interstellar hydrogen, or figure out total mass conversion.

But yes, if we had "free" lightspeed travel, a trip to mars and back would not cause crippling amounts of time to pass at either end.

04-15-2004, 11:31 AM	#15 (permalink)
Yakk Wehret Den Anfängen! Location: Ontario, Canada	Stompy, yes, but the farther you go, the longer you have been gone. You can get to anyplace in the universe in as close to zero time as you want, barring huge and massive technical problems, by your perspective. However, a long amount of time will have passed at both the destination and at the departure point. The huge and massive technical problems are larger than you think, in addition. For instance, going to the far side of the milky way and back would take about about 1 million years earth time. You might only spend a few moments on the trip yourself, but a million years is a long time. The second part is, accellerating something to near light speed takes a huge amount of energy. It also takes a huge amount of propellant, so much so that the only ways I know of to generate the propellant is to use interstellar hydrogen, or figure out total mass conversion. But yes, if we had "free" lightspeed travel, a trip to mars and back would not cause crippling amounts of time to pass at either end. __________________ Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.