In class, my BDS were focused still on the researching phase. I feel like I've opened with that line for every BDS post! Information, in this case, is helping me to form a realistic, believable story, much of which is still only facts at this point. Where do I go for constructing a plot after all this is done? I feel like things will take more shape with every detail.
I found myself accumulating all of these different theories about terraforming and colonizing planets and moons in our solar system, without first having an idea of how the solar system works. So the first place I went to was one of my biggest sources: NASA. I clicked on their simulator, which immediately bumped me out due to a server error. Frustrated, I tried again, this time realizing I had put in the wrong perimeters. I resubmitted them a few times. With each one the image was horribly black, grainy, and didn't tell me much. It was like looking at a computer program from 1992, pretty unintuitive. So I began another google search, determined to find an interactive model, one that showed the planets orbiting and at least an idea of the distances between them. I stumbled upon the Solar System Scope, which I fumbled around with for the remainder of our in class BDS session, typing up some observations, and writing down some things I needed to look up, or work out mathematically.
Later that night I resumed where I had left off looking up the following: the speed of light, the distance of each planet from Earth, and the basics of Einstein's theory of relativity. The distances, when each planet is at it's closest point to Earth, are as follows:
Venus: 40 Million kilometers
Mars: 65 Million kilometers
Jupiter: 588 Million kilometers
Saturn: 1.2 Billion kilometers
Uranus: 2.52 Billion kilometers
Neptune: 4.3 Billion kilometers
Pluto: 4.28 Billion kilometers
The speed of light is:
300,000 kilometers per Second
1,080,000,000 kilometers per Hour
What I concluded, with my very rudimentary understanding of Einstein's theory of relativity (mostly due to what the internet has told me, I am no physicist!) is that traveling at or near the speed of light is impossible as t would require infinite energy. Instead, I proposed that one might be able to travel at 1/4 the speed of light. Thus I divided 1,080,000,000 by 4 to get 27,000,000 km/hr. Now, the formula used to get my answers was Time = Distance/Speed. Using this formula I received the following travel times for each planet:
Venus: 0.14 Hours
Mars: 0.24 Hours
Jupiter: 2.17 Hours
Saturn: 4.44 Hours
Uranus: 9.33 Hours
Neptune: 15.92 Hours
Pluto: 15.85 Hours
Once these numbers were calculated, my time was up, a fact that I was not at all dissatisfied with. I now find that I am making great headway on my story. Provided that terraforming is possible, but light speed or faster-than-light speed travel is not, our solar system would be pretty much the only option for colonization. Even if terraforming too is not possible, that would not completely hinder mankind's efforts at colonization. At any rate, the next step for my story is to speak with a physicist about the amount of energy required to speed a spacecraft up to 1/4 the speed of light. Is that also impossible? What is the proposed limit on propulsion that a spacecraft can handle? What insight can they provide?
All these questions, and more, might be answered soon. Stay tuned!
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