drumlord wrote:Also, to my knowledge, and keep in mind inertial dampeners don't actually exist
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
the inertial dampeners is to handle the inertia in relation to the ship, because if a ship suddenly speeds up or slows down, your body does not want to go along with it.
DM Lou already explained this part more than I need to. But yeah, G's aren't gravity, though they're measured in terms of Earth gravity being 1G. I was thinking of quickly accelerating up to sub-light speeds, in which case, yeah, the G's from the acceleration (taking DM Lou's correction) would kill you.
And yep, inertial dampeners are still science-fiction, as far as I know, just like artificial gravity. But I think we'll need to find ways to control gravity if we're to develop that sort of technology for high-end inertial dampeners.
And photon torpedoes would be cool, too.
DM Lou wrote:Now, assuming you're immortal (since this would take insanely long) and could accelerate relatively gently, say at 1 or 2 Gs, to the speed of light (or if we want to be really technical, 99.999999999% of the speed of light), you wouldn't get squished or anything because the squishing is caused by the accleration, not the speed. As long as you don't suddenly speed up, slow down, or make a sharp change in direction, you'll be just fine.
Yeah, I'll defer to you on that. Acceleration, not speed, then.
phyco wrote:As for going faster than the speed of light, I think it is possible. Currently, our technology can get us to the speed of light, but that would take thousands of years without running into any trouble. Remember, in Star Trek, they arn't technically traveling in space while going in Warp. They are in some sort of other space, allowing them to travel well past the speed of light.
Yeah, subspace was their idea for faster-than-light travel. But, I don't believe subspace, hyperspace, or any of that exists outside of science-fiction.
Warp drives, teleporters / transporters, and sentient robots are three things I believe we'll never even approach within 500 years. That's not to say that the next 500, or even the next 50, years will see some incredible technological achievements; just those three won't be among them. Even if they are, the technology likely won't be practical (e.g., why spend the vast amounts of energy to transport something, when you could much more easily ship it via conventional means?).
I like these kinds of discussions. This is getting to be fun. KF