That people even built entire mythologies on their basis. They are really spectacular, and now that we have reached the Moon and will soon reach Mars, our natural desire will be to go to the stars. Such a journey has been the basis of countless science fiction stories and films. It already seems to many that traveling from star to star is easy - you just need to press the trigger, but not everything is so simple. There remain several serious problems that need to be addressed.
faster than light
Much space travel in science fiction is based on traveling faster than the speed of light. In reality, physics prevents such a possibility. And there is no way around this fundamental limitation. Even near-light travel runs into all sorts of interesting relativistic problems involving mass and energy. Our only option is to use wormhole portals. The wormhole must be carefully controlled, which in this moment is beyond our capabilities, and we need to somehow create a second wormhole at the destination. The need to send someone to the other end to create a wormhole is not the best reason for the first interstellar trip. In addition, the physical effects of traveling through a permanent or temporary wormhole can result in the destruction of any matter. You may well get to your destination in the form of plasma.
Teleportation
Classical teleportation involves a person who activates the device and disappears in order to appear at the destination. However, in reality, teleportation works much more complicated than shown in the films. Even allowing for the possibility of such a principle, think about it: a person is disassembled into atoms in a teleportation machine, physically transported to a destination, and reassembled. The assembly alone requires incredible machines at the destination, and elementary physical laws will not allow us to accurately manipulate matter at such a gigantic distance - all the way to another star. Such teleportation will be possible only in those places where we have already been. The assembly of atoms is not yet available to us, but it is quite possible. You just need to send atoms to another star, and this can be done at the speed of light - obviously faster than sending a body, but it will still take years.
Another option is to collect an exact copy of a person at the other end, and destroy the previous one. But this option is unlikely to suit anyone.
colony ship
If faster-than-light travel isn't possible, we can build generation ships. It takes four years for light to reach our nearest star, but for a heavy object it will take much longer. Most stars will take at least hundreds of years to reach. On the ships of generations, populations can be born and die until, many years later, they reach their destination. But such ships have a number of problems.
Descendants can easily forget about the original purpose of the mission, as it will turn into a legend in hundreds of years. An intelligent computer system could train people born on the ship to avoid such a failure, but still, it is very difficult to predict what will happen in the time that a generation is replaced by another generation. If something happens to the ship, it is unlikely that a generation that has forgotten the intricacies of engineering for many years will be able to do anything to help.
mother ship
To eliminate the maximum uncertainty in generation ships, you can use egg ships. They will carry frozen, fertilized human eggs, which will be grown and nurtured by elaborate machines that will act as their wombs, parents, and educators. Eggs can be turned into humans upon reaching a distant star or planet, and computers will teach future space explorers everything they need to know.
Designing such machines may not be possible at the moment, but in the future - why not? In any case, like the ship of generation, the ship of eggs will not be able to help a person who wants to go in search of new stars. And artificially grown people may not like their mission, or they may be born without a thirst for travel at all.
Longevity
An alternative to the ship of generations could be the genetic modification of people who can live for hundreds or thousands of years and travel in the course of their lives. All questions of life in space would be settled. Longevity and immortality are carefully studied by science, but the biggest obstacle in these matters remains telomeres - the ends of chromosomes that get shorter every time your cells divide. Eventually telomere length will be eaten away, and cells will begin to damage their own viable DNA as they divide. This means that the DNA itself contains the number of cell divisions that can occur. Cells divide to replace old or damaged cells like eyelashes or skin or parts of the stomach (you know about the high acidity in the stomach).
It would seem that the answer is simple: you need to store the length of telomeres. But the fact is that the only adult cells capable of doing this are carcinogens.
hibernation
Since longevity and a new generation have not become the answer to an important question, suspended animation can help. In many films and books, people were kept in a state of sleep in order to be transported over a long distance. In this state, people do not age, or they age very slowly, this is a kind of “sleep mode”. Unfortunately, telomeres present a problem here as well.
Our bodies always contain a small number of radioactive elements. They emit small amounts of radiation that is harmless to us as new cells are constantly replacing damaged ones. If a person does not age during suspended animation, his telomeres do not decrease, and his cells do not divide. Any radioactive elements in this state will cause permanent damage to the body, eventually leading to death. Even slow aging will not save you from radiation for long periods of time. It is necessary that the cells divide at a normal pace.
Traffic
Even if the human problems of traveling to other stars are solved, the problems of propulsion will remain. Conventional systems involve burning fuel or jet mass, but getting to another star would require an incredible amount of fuel, which is highly inefficient. As a solution - you can collect fuel along the way.
In the space between the stars, there are no ordinary asteroids or planets that you can land on and get fuel. Fortunately, space is far from being a vacuum, with lots of scattered tiny atoms, mostly hydrogen. If we move at high speed, these atoms can be collected and used as fuel in reactions like fusion (of course, if we get to it). To collect hydrogen, you need a powerful "scoop", according to preliminary calculations, an area of 2000 square kilometers. This size will significantly increase the resistance of the ship and reduce the speed to a conventional rocket. Such a system would be extremely inefficient and unviable. But she was considered.
Damage
The nearest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is located four light years from Earth. If you get to it in an ordinary car at a speed of 60 km / h, it will take 72 million years. Even if we assume that such a car will be created, during this period all conceivable periods of decay and natural wear and tear will expire, not to mention the almost zero probability of arriving after such a long time. Speed is needed, even if it is limited by the speed of light. Because of the tiny atoms scattered throughout space, any ship at high speed will be bombarded with such force that they will pierce even the strongest steel.
There are two options: people or machines will constantly patch holes and repair damage, which means that you will need a huge amount of repair materials that you will have to carry with you, or the ship will be made of elastic materials that will repair itself. It is these materials that are now being developed in space agencies. The bad news is that scientists do not believe in the possibility of the existence of such materials.
gravity
The structure of our body is seriously dependent on gravity. When people do not live in the conditions of ordinary earthly gravity, their bodies begin to suffer. After a few weeks or months, the bones become brittle, the muscles become weak, and the long-term consequences are generally fatal. Humans can combat such effects through various exercises and diets, but after a few years or decades in space, the human body will be irreversibly damaged. Even during relatively short flights, vision deteriorates terribly. By the way, this is the problem that NASA wants to solve before sending people to Mars.
Instead of living in zero gravity, one can create artificial gravity by spinning a space object. Unfortunately, this would require a huge amount of energy and fuel, and the rotation itself would inevitably cause nausea - in the short term. What will happen in the long term is still unknown, has not been studied.
Food, air and water
People living on a ship for an extended period will need a life support system. They will need to eat, drink, breathe, urinate, defecate, bathe and sleep. Much of this can already be done in space with current technology. But in the case of long trips, the amount of water and food will become too much to take with you. The most reasonable solution would be to take a self-sustaining ecosystem on the ship. Plants produce air, are successfully eaten and consume human waste. Any ecosystem is quite inefficient, but will be able to extend the life support time until reaching the destination.
The ship's equipment will be severely damaged by the gases that will circulate, however this could be solved by creating smart materials. Algae are carefully studied because they have great potential in maintaining ecosystems. But they also have problems - if you eat algae in large quantities, you can seriously get poisoned. And again - genetic modification can solve this issue.
It remains only to solve the previous nine problems.
In the middle of the night I woke up in the space between our world and the astral universe. The walls of the car looked like a continuous stream of something viscous, violet and blue tones prevailed around. I suddenly stopped feeling the movement of the train and hear the characteristic sounds.
A very beautiful girl approached me. Of course, I have already learned to recognize information entities, no matter what form they take, and immediately saw a transcendental beginning in it.
The girl greeted me and began to flirt, pretending to be just a random stranger, but I explained to her that I knew about her nature and was not in the mood for such games. Her response was as follows:
“Do you know how we are alike, Pavel? Sometimes I want to feel like a person, and on the contrary, you want to become someone like me. Since you're so serious, let's get down to business. Here is a catalog of realities, choose any ...
She gave me a blue folder. I opened it and my consciousness immediately plunged into a completely different dimension. A list unfolded in front of me with images, videos and text in some unearthly language.
At the moment, when I record this material on a mobile phone, surrounded by random fellow travelers discussing the political situation in the country, it would probably seem incomprehensible to me. Also, this language would probably be unfamiliar to you, but then everything was different.
In a dream, these bizarre symbols, which have no analogues on earth, were perfectly understandable to me. They were read, as it were, straight on, by immersing the semantic core of my personality directly into the meaning, without translating individual words. In a state of pure consciousness, a kind of buffer of universal knowledge was available to me. At this point, I could read and understand any language.
I was offered a variety of variations of worlds and events. From adventures on distant planets to banal human joys and pleasures. I flipped through about forty files, but nothing attracted me. Then I said to the entity:
“Now I don’t want to plunge into an illusion, don’t be offended. The selection in the catalog is excellent, but I don't want to lose awareness.
The girl smiled, and taking the blue folder, silently withdrew into the darkness of one of the vortex flows arising in this space. Then I heard her voice resounding somewhere very far away.
- If you want, follow me. I know a great place that you will definitely like.
I went out of my consciousness beyond the limits of the physical body. He left the train car through the ceiling and soared high above it. My perception expanded and the world appeared before me in a more complete way. Leaving the earth behind, I began to explore the surrounding space. Outside the solar system, amazing nebulae and the most beautiful stars awaited me.
I met other inhabited planets and spaceships of highly developed civilizations. Suddenly I found something really amazing.
In front of me were space islands. I don't even know how to describe what I saw. Areas of land hanging in a warm space with very beautiful plants, ponds and white sand beaches.
In the middle of the cluster of these islands, not far from the largest and bewitching with its natural splendor, hung a metal plate. There was an inscription on it, made in an ancient and very deep language in terms of meaning.
I read the text, or rather squeezed it into the primitive meanings of my limited semantics. If you choose the closest semantic analogue in Russian or English without an additional verbose description, then the inscription read: "Universal Grand Hotel."
Having descended to the surface of the main island, I was shocked by its transcendent beauty. No illustrations can convey what was revealed to me then. The surrounding space was created artificially, there was no doubt about it. It was as if the architects took all the most amazing and pleasant things from the nature of different planets and combined them here.
At the same time, there were no traces of civilization here. No houses, no cars, no garbage, only nature, whose main function was to please the eye. It is difficult to describe all the delight that I felt being here. Then came the voice of a familiar informational entity:
- Like? Do you know where are you?
— Ecumenical Grand Hotel. In any case, this is how I translated the inscription from the tablet.
It's a smaller copy of him. A real universal grand hotel is much better. Can you locate me?
I could feel the direction and the approximate distance at which the information entity was friendly to me and told it about it. She answered:
- Can you get here?
— Yes, but it is so beautiful and incredible here that there are more than enough impressions at the moment.
“I understand, then enjoy the views.”
We broke contact and I began a detailed inspection of the territory. Most likely, it will be quite difficult for many readers to draw something like this in their imagination, and there won’t be enough words to describe this picture. Therefore, I will simply say that it was incredibly good and calm here.
This place was created for information entities to rest and seems to have several copies in space. Everything is free, but available only to those who know the way here ...
Celestia is a virtual planetarium. Many of us looked with interest into the night starry sky and saw many stars that we wanted to see closer. In the recent past, this desire could only be realized with the help of a telescope.
Nowadays, astronomical programs have been created for this purpose for viewing the starry sky from your computer. One such program is the virtual planetarium of the Universe - the Celestia program.
The Celestia program displays both individual planets and stars, and galaxies, allowing you to freely move through the expanses of the Universe. In the program, you can see space objects not only of the solar system, but also about 120 thousand stars, the trajectories of which are known to astronomers.
All space objects are made in the program in three-dimensional form. With beautiful realistic graphics, you can see the beauty of the universe that you will not see when looking at the starry sky from Earth. Traveling through space with the help of the Celestia program, you can speed up or slow down time or reverse time.
The Celestia program can be useful not only for astronomy lovers, but it can also be used for educational purposes. The 3D universe is very beautiful and interesting. I think it will be interesting for many to see and find out what familiar and unfamiliar space objects look like.
For example, I was interested to know what, for example, the star Betelgeuse looks like. The heroes of the famous novel by Pierre Boulle "The Planet of the Apes" landed on the planet Sorora, the Betelgeuse star system, and not on Earth, as in the famous 1968 film of the same name (a remake of this film was released in 2001) and in subsequent sequels of this film (a total of 7 films were released). , most recently Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011).
The free program Celestia has a Russian interface. There are versions of the program for operating systems Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
Celestia download
You can also easily find a portable version of this program on the Internet.
After starting the program, the program opens in windowed mode with a view of the Earth from space.
Celestia Settings
The top right corner displays the current time and date. Brief reference data about the space object (distance to the object, its radius, apparent diameter and phase angle) are displayed in the upper left corner of the program. The lower left corner shows the speed of movement in space (now it is equal to zero). In the lower right corner, information about the actions in the program is displayed (now this is the observation of the planet Earth).
When you press the "Shift" button + left-click + move the mouse back or forward, the object will increase or decrease. To switch the program to full screen mode, click in the menu "View" => "Screen mode ...".
In the Screen Mode window, you can select the appropriate screen resolution for your monitor. In full screen mode, the menu bar will not be visible, which is not very convenient. The menu bar will only appear when you hover your mouse over the top edge of the monitor screen. Therefore, it is more convenient to maximize the program window in the traditional way for the operating system.
In the menu "View" => "Resolution of textures" you can change the quality settings for displaying objects. Higher settings affect the performance of the computer.
You can choose the optimal parameters for your computer empirically by changing the program settings. In the "View" menu, you can also configure other display options (how the stars will look, ambient light parameters, more or less stars will be displayed in the program).
In the menu "View" => "View settings ...", in the Settings window, by checking the boxes in the corresponding checkboxes, you can enable or disable the display of the appearance of space objects.
Navigating the 3D Universe in Celestia
In the menu "Navigation" => "Catalogue of the solar system ..." a window appears with the objects of the solar system. If you are in another star system, then in this window there will be objects located near the specific star (if any) that you will be near.
Select the desired object, and then click on the "Go" button. In this case, you are moving towards the planet Saturn. By rotating the mouse wheel forward or backward, you can bring a celestial object closer to you or move it away from you. You can move around the space object in different directions by moving the mouse and simultaneously pressing the right mouse button.
To rotate around the selected object, simultaneously press the "Shift" + button on the keyboard and the arrows, the rotation will occur in the corresponding direction (you can click on two arrows at the same time).
When hovering the mouse cursor over an object, clicking on it with the left mouse button you will get help information, and by right-clicking in the context menu, you will see the name of the object and you can go to this object. If you click on the "Information" item, then the program will send you to the site for background information about this object.
When you go to the menu "Navigation" => "Catalog of Stars ..." you can select a star from the list in the "Catalog of Stars" window, and after clicking on the "Go" button, you will move to this star.
By moving the slider along the axis, you can adjust the number of stars in this list. By activating the corresponding item, you can change the criteria for searching for stars ("Nearest", "Brightest", "With planets"). Highlight the star, and then click on the "Go" button.
This is how one of the largest stars, the red supergiant Betelgeuse, located in the constellation Orion, looks like.
In order to go to an object within the solar system, you need to click on the "Go to object ..." item in the "Navigation" menu with the mouse. In the "Select object" window, enter the name of the star - "Sun" (Sol), and then click on the "OK" button. Only after that it will be possible to move within the solar system.
If you enter the name of an object in the solar system while outside of it, then the movement will not occur. First you will need to move to the Sun. After moving to the solar system, enter the name of the planet in the "Go to object" window, for example, "Neptune" and the program will move us to this planet.
If you want to save the image to your computer as a graphic file (JPG and PNG formats are supported), then press the F10 button on the keyboard (or from the File menu => Save Image ...). In the Explorer window, select the format and location where you want to save the image and click on the "Save" button.
In order for the background information to be missing from the image, you will simply need to click on the information and it will disappear. After the image is saved, you will be able to view it using the operating system without using the Celestia program.
With the help of the program, you can record video files in the "AVI" format. To do this, in the "File" menu, select the "Save video ..." item. In the "Save As" window, choose a location to save. Give the video file a name, select the video resolution, and then click on the "Save" button.
In the next "Video Compression" window, in the "Compressor" section, "Full frames (no compression)" is selected by default. If you leave this item unchanged, the video file size will be very large.
Therefore, for video compression, it will be better to choose one of the proposed codecs. After that, click on the “OK” button.
In the program window, the video size you selected will be marked with a red frame. To start recording video, press the "F11" button on the keyboard, and to end the recording, press the "F12" button.
There are a large number of commands to control the program. To get acquainted with them, go to the "Help" menu, click on the "Program Management" item, and in the "Program Management" window, get acquainted with the commands.
There are quite a few different commands here, and mastering them will take some time. The time spent on this, in my opinion, will not be wasted.
A large number of add-ons have been created for the Celestia program, which allow you to add new objects (both real and fictional) to the program. The size of add-ons is many times greater than the distribution of the program itself.
On the official Russian-language forum (https://celestiaproject.net/ru/forum/viewforum.php?f=27) dedicated to this program, you can download a special version of the program with Celestia Extended Pack add-ons.
Article Conclusions
The Celestia program is a beautiful virtual planetarium where you can admire the stars and planets, travel through our universe.
Screenshot from the application
Want to watch Milky Way online? A new visualization service from Google called 100,000 Stars allows you to take tours of our space neighborhood, both independently and with the help of an interactive tour.
There is also detailed information about the closest luminaries to us. Knowledge of English is necessary, but even if you do not know it, you can listen to relaxing music and watch beautiful space animation.
Galaxy travel made possible
But recently, thanks to the interactive visualization of our Galaxy, the opportunity to travel through the expanses of the Milky Way has appeared for everyone. Now it is enough to open the service "Our Galaxy 3D and 100,000 Stars" in the browser and immerse yourself in a virtual journey in space. Developed by Google, the app includes location data for nearly 120,000 stars in the Milky Way, collected from a variety of sources, including space missions.
Navigation
Navigating the interactive map is done by panning with the mouse or touch pad.
Clicking on the star of interest will display information about it. In this case, the camera approaches directly to the selected star, and all the necessary information is displayed in the window next to it. This makes it possible to study in detail the objects of our Galaxy.
Music
The journey through the interactive space is accompanied by musical works by composer Sam Hulink, who is also known for composing music for computer games such as Mass Effect.
Who among us did not dream in childhood to become an astronaut, to go on a ship to distant stars and planets? Today, the Internet gives such an opportunity to everyone!
As you probably know, the ISS is based on a modular principle. Each individual module is part of the whole station.
360 video allows you to visit and explore in detail the American Unity and Destiny modules, as well as the Russian Zarya and Zvezda. From the shooting point, you can look around, up and down, in general, just like in real life.
Please note: this is not a live broadcast from the ISS cameras in real time. This is a video that was specially filmed and processed in order to get a panoramic view.
In addition, ESA gives a unique opportunity to send you on a virtual tour of the ISS, which will allow you to explore all the modules in as much detail as possible. The detailing is just great: you can even distinguish the inscriptions on small objects and the letters on the laptop keyboard!
To move, use the block of buttons at the bottom of the screen, although it is most convenient to look around and change the scale by moving the mouse. On the right there is a diagram (map) of the ISS modules, which shows your current location. If it interferes, it can be removed by clicking the "Map ON/OFF" link.
Moving between the modules is carried out by clicking on the blue arrows, and when you click on the blue circles with a white triangle, an interesting video is launched in which the astronauts talk about the purpose of a particular device, device, etc.
If you want to watch the live broadcast from the ISS, then here is the broadcast from one of the station's webcams, which transmits the signal in real time:
This camera shows the outer fragments of the station when the crew is working, and the rest of the time, when the astronauts are sleeping or resting, it shows the Earth from space, from an altitude of about 400 km. Recall that the ISS uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and the entire schedule of periods of sleep and work is counted only on it. The difference with Moscow time (MSK) is minus 3 hours.
If you see a blue screen or other blank, then most likely the station is currently flying in the "dead zone" and the signal is temporarily not transmitted. And if the screen is black, then perhaps the station is just now in the shade. Often the video is accompanied by audio conversations between the crew and the mission control center (MCC).
