47 
Everyone thinks it would be cool to travel at the speed of light, which is why scientists devote their lives to working out if it would be possible and NASA is trying to develop its own warp drive. But easy, tiger: turns out super-fast space travel would be fatal.
A paper published in Natural Science brings some boring common sense to the speed-of-light-travel table. In order to travel huge distances in next to no time, people need to travel close to the speed of light. In so doing, travelers cover extremely large distances very quickly and, thanks to the quirks of relativity, would feel like it took mere minutes because of an effect known as time dilation, which squashes perceived time.
Trouble is, traveling close to the speed of light brings about other effects, too. In Natural Science, Edelstein and Edelstein point out that hydrogen in any craft cable of traveling at the speed of light would also prevent it from traveling at the speed of light. They explain:
Unfortunately, as spaceship velocities approach the speed of light, interstellar hydrogen H, although only present at a density of approximately 1.8 atoms/cm3, turns into intense radiation that would quickly kill passengers and destroy electronic instrumentation. In addition, the energy loss of ionizing radiation passing through the ship’s hull represents an increasing heat load that necessitates large expenditures of energy to cool the ship.
In other words, travel close to the speed of light and you’ll be bombarded with so much radiation that you kick the bucket. The knock-on effect is that even if it’s possible to create a craft capable of traveling close the speed of light, it wouldn’t be able to transport people.
Instead, there’s a natural speed limit imposed by safe levels of radiation due to hydrogen, which means humans couldn’t travel faster than half the speed of light unless they were willing to die almost immediately. Dammit. [Natural Science]
Image by Reha Mark/Shutterstock
In 50 years, they would develop a space suit that can counter these side-effects … Technology is cool
I agree there
the answer is simple, whilst the outside of the ship is traveling at the speed of light, you would have giant fans inside pushing you at the speed of light in the opposite direction
Problem solved
Stupid Nitrogen.
*hydrogen
If a way was found to warp space time around the ship, nothing would penetrate the hull.
Perhaps in the future we’ll have quantum drives so we can be anywhere and everywhere at the same time
Ok so I haven’t read the source material but. Is this assuming that we are travelling in a linear direction in 3d space? Seems like the long way around to me anyhow.
That’s what shields are for. Plus, if you warp space around the ship then you don’t travel faster than the speed of light (as Einstein meant it), you simply create a passageway bringing 2 different points together.
Bummer.
Pffff, if we ever manage to get a working warp drive, I’m sure we’d also be able to put together a deflector array – Ask any trekkies/trekkers for the blueprints. (rolling eyes)
Hello!? Am I the only one who watches Star Trek here? Bring the main deflector online… That’s what it’s for.
You don’t need shields for this.
WARP DRIVE BENDS SPACE TIME. – Noone is travelling at the speed of light. Infact, they aren’t travelling at all. These biologists need to first understand what the physicists are saying before jumping in to link a useless discovery like behaviour of hydrogen at high velocities to interstellar travel. Guess it just makes their paper more appealing! Sell outs!
I believe the actual paper is about travel at relativistic speeds without a warp drive, which is, at the moment, the only option available (although impractical). The warp drive stuff is nothing to do with the actual research, it’s just mentioned in the article.
Oh, so that was just Giz icing the article then.
When trains began to travel at higher speeds (30-50mph) they thought it would kill the passengers on board.
They also thought it would kill all the cows in the fields next to the tracks. Neither of these things happened.
I came here to say just that. Damn.
Great minds think alike.
Fools never differ.
Thats like a guy saying not to develop the car because at high speeds a stone could be propelled at the driver killing him. If we have the science for Warp Drives we have the science for shielding.
Unless someone does develop the warp drive, does no actual human trials and then we all jump on board.