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Would you really age more slowly on a spaceship at close to light speed?

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Every week, the readers of our space newsletter, The Airlock , send in their questions for space reporter Neel V. Patel to answer. This week: time dilation during space travel. 

I heard that time dilation affects high-speed space travel and I am wondering the magnitude of that affect. If we were to launch a round-trip flight to a nearby exoplanet—let's say 10 or 50 light-years away––how would that affect time for humans on the spaceship versus humans on Earth? When the space travelers came back, will they be much younger or older relative to people who stayed on Earth? —Serge

Time dilation is a concept that pops up in lots of sci-fi, including Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game , where one character ages only eight years in space while 50 years pass on Earth. This is precisely the scenario outlined in the famous thought experiment the Twin Paradox : an astronaut with an identical twin at mission control makes a journey into space on a high-speed rocket and returns home to find that the twin has aged faster.

Time dilation goes back to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which teaches us that motion through space actually creates alterations in the flow of time. The faster you move through the three dimensions that define physical space, the more slowly you’re moving through the fourth dimension, time––at least relative to another object. Time is measured differently for the twin who moved through space and the twin who stayed on Earth. The clock in motion will tick more slowly than the clocks we’re watching on Earth. If you’re able to travel near the speed of light, the effects are much more pronounced. 

Unlike the Twin Paradox, time dilation isn’t a thought experiment or a hypothetical concept––it’s real. The 1971 Hafele-Keating experiments proved as much, when two atomic clocks were flown on planes traveling in opposite directions. The relative motion actually had a measurable impact and created a time difference between the two clocks. This has also been confirmed in other physics experiments (e.g., fast-moving muon particles take longer to decay ). 

So in your question, an astronaut returning from a space journey at “relativistic speeds” (where the effects of relativity start to manifest—generally at least one-tenth the speed of light ) would, upon return, be younger than same-age friends and family who stayed on Earth. Exactly how much younger depends on exactly how fast the spacecraft had been moving and accelerating, so it’s not something we can readily answer. But if you’re trying to reach an exoplanet 10 to 50 light-years away and still make it home before you yourself die of old age, you’d have to be moving at close to light speed. 

There’s another wrinkle here worth mentioning: time dilation as a result of gravitational effects. You might have seen Christopher Nolan’s movie Interstellar , where the close proximity of a black hole causes time on another planet to slow down tremendously (one hour on that planet is seven Earth years).

This form of time dilation is also real, and it’s because in Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity can bend spacetime, and therefore time itself. The closer the clock is to the source of gravitation, the slower time passes; the farther away the clock is from gravity, the faster time will pass. (We can save the details of that explanation for a future Airlock.)

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The race to fix space-weather forecasting before next big solar storm hits

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NASA engine capable of travelling at nearly the speed of light detailed in new report

As more countries join the race to explore space, a NASA scientist has revealed a new propulsion method that could give his agency the edge.

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A NASA scientist has cooked up plans for a bonkers new rocket engine that can reach close to the speed of light — without using any fuel.

Travelling at such speeds, the theoretical machine could carry astronauts to Mars in less than 13 minutes, or to the Moon in just over a second.

However, the real purpose of the so-called “helical engine” would be to travel to distant stars far quicker than any existing tech, according to NASA engineer Dr David Burns.

Dr Burns, from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama, unveiled the idea in a head-spinning paper posted to NASA’s website.

“This in-space engine could be used for long-term satellite station-keeping without refuelling,” Dr Burns writes in his paper .

“It could also propel spacecraft across interstellar distances, reaching close to the speed of light.”

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Travelling at these speeds, light would struggle to keep up with you, warping your vision in bizarre ways.

Everything behind you would appear black, and time would appear to stop altogether, with clocks slowing down to a crawl and planets seemingly ceasing to spin.

Dr Burns’ mad idea is revolutionary because it does away with rocket fuel altogether.

Today’s rockets, like those built by NASA and SpaceX, would need tonnes of propellants like liquid hydrogen to carry people to Mars and beyond.

The problem is, the more fuel you stick on the craft, the heavier it is. Modern propellant tanks are far too bulky to take on interstellar flights.

The helical engine gets around this using hi-tech particle accelerators like those found in Europe’s Large Hadron Collider.

Tiny particles are fired at high speed using electromagnets, recycled back around the engine, and fired again.

Using a loophole in the laws of physics, the engine could theoretically reach speeds of around 297 million metres per second, according to Dr Burns.

The contraption is just a concept for now, and it’s not clear if it would actually work.

“If someone says it doesn’t work, I’ll be the first to say, it was worth a shot,” Dr Burns told New Scientist .

“You have to be prepared to be embarrassed. It is very difficult to invent something that is new under the sun and actually works.”

In its simplest terms, the engine works by taking advantage of how mass changes at the speed of light.

In his paper, Dr Burns provides a concept to break this down that describes a ring inside a box, attached to each end by a spring.

When the ring is sprung in one direction, the box recoils in the other, as is described by Newton’s laws of motion: Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction.

“When the ring reaches the end of the box, it will bounce backwards, and the box’s recoil direction will switch too,” New Scientist explains.

However, if the box and the ring are travelling at the speed of light, things work a little differently.

At such speeds, according to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, as the ring approaches the end of the box it will increase in mass.

This means it will hit harder when it reaches the end of the box, resulting in forward momentum.

The engine itself will achieve a similar feat using a particle accelerator and ion particles, but that’s the general gist.

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“Chemical, nuclear and electric propulsion systems produce thrust by accelerating and expelling propellants,” Dr Burns writes in his paper.

“Deep space travel is often a trade-off between thrust and large propellant storage tanks that eventually limit performance.

“The objective of this paper is to introduce and examine a unique engine that uses a closed-cycle propellant.”

The design is capable of producing a thrust up to 99 per cent the speed of light without breaking Einstein’s theory of relativity, according to Dr Burns.

However, the plan does breach Newton’s law of motion — violating the laws of physics.

That’s not the only thing holding the helical engine back: Dr Burns reckoned it would have to be 198 metres long and 12 metres wide to work.

The gizmo would also only operate effectively in the frictionless environment of deep space.

It may sound like a harebrained scheme, but engine concepts that do away with rocket fuel have been proposed before.

They include the EM drive, a machine that could theoretically generate rocket thrust using rays of light. The idea was later proved impossible.

“I know that it risks being right up there with the EM drive and cold fusion,” Dr Burns told New Scientist .

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission

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China is claiming to have successfully landed on the far side of the Moon to collect samples.

The mysterious behaviour of a secret Chinese ‘space plane’ has the world increasingly worried that Earth’s orbit is on the brink of becoming a battlefield.

Early reports suggest a meteor was spotted in the skies over Spain and Portugal on Saturday evening, stunning citizens with its bright blue colouring.

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How fast can a rocket go?

The speeds of rockets is normally measured in meters or kilometers per second (m/s, km/s or kps). Rockets have to go very fast to leave Earth and get into space. Here are a few examples of how fast rockets travel:

To get to low Earth orbit: 7.8 km/s (28,100 km/h; 17,400 mph).

To escape Earth's gravity and leave Earth behind: 11.19 km/s (40,284 km/h; 25,031 mph). This is known as Earth escape velocity .

Juno spacecraft heading to Jupiter: 58 km/s (209,000 kph; 130,000 mph). The speed is relative to the Sun.

Parker Solar Probe: 148 km/s (532,000 kph; 331,000 mph).

How rockets work: A complete guide

Rockets of all kinds are still our only way of reaching space — but how exactly do they work?

Rockets are our species' best way of escaping the atmosphere of Earth and reaching space. But the process behind getting these machines to work is far from simple. Here's what you need to know about getting a rocket into space. 

How rockets lift off

Writers and inventors have dreamt of exploring the universe beyond Earth for centuries, but the real challenges of traveling into space only became clear in the 19th century. Experimental balloon flights showed that Earth's atmosphere thins out rapidly at high altitudes, and so even before powered flight became a reality, engineers knew that devices that create a forward or upward force by pushing against a surrounding medium like air — such as wings and propellers — would be of no use in space. 

Another problem was that combustion engines — machines such as steam or gasoline engines that generate power by burning fuel in the oxygen from Earth's atmosphere — would also fail in airless space.

Fortunately, a device that solved the problem of generating force without a surrounding medium had already been invented — the rocket. Initially used as weapons of war or in fireworks, rockets generate a force in one direction, called thrust, by the principle of action and reaction: exhaust fumes released by explosive chemicals are pushed out of the back of the rocket at high speed, and as a result the rocket is pushed in the other direction, regardless of any surrounding medium, NASA explains in this primer (pdf). 

The key to using rockets in space is to carry a chemical called an oxidant that can perform the same role as oxygen in Earth's air and enable the fuel to combust.

The first person to seriously study the rocket's potential for space travel, Russian schoolteacher and amateur scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky , first published his conclusions in 1903. He correctly identified the launch as one of the biggest challenges — the moment where the rocket has to carry all the fuel and oxidant it needs to reach space — as its weight is at a maximum and a huge amount of thrust is needed just to get it moving.

As the rocket gets underway it sheds mass through its exhaust, so its weight is reduced and the same amount of thrust will have a greater effect in terms of accelerating the rest of the rocket. Tsiolkovsky came up with various rocket designs and concluded that the most efficient setup was a vertically launched vehicle with several 'stages' — each a self-contained rocket that could carry the stages above it for a certain distance before exhausting its fuel, detaching and falling away. This principle, still widely used today , reduces the amount of dead weight that needs to be carried all the way into space. 

Tsiolkovsky devised a complex equation that revealed the necessary thrust force needed for any given rocket maneuver, and the "specific impulse" — how much thrust is generated per unit of fuel — needed for a rocket to reach space. He realized that the explosive rocket propellants of his time were far too inefficient to power a space rocket, and argued that liquid fuels and oxidants, such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, would ultimately be needed to reach orbit and beyond. Although he did not live to see his work recognized, Tsiolkovsky's principles still underpin modern rocketry.

Taking flight

Rockets must delicately balance and control powerful forces in order to make it through Earth's atmosphere into space.

A rocket generates thrust using a controlled explosion as the fuel and oxidant undergo a violent chemical reaction. Expanding gases from the explosion are pushed out of the back of the rocket through a nozzle. The nozzle is a specially shaped exhaust that channels the hot, high-pressure gas created by combustion into a stream that escapes from the back of the nozzle at hypersonic speeds, more than five times the speed of sound. 

Isaac Newton's third law of motion states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the "action" force that drives the exhaust out of the rocket nozzle must be balanced by an equal and opposite force pushing the rocket forward. Specifically, this force acts on the upper wall of the combustion chamber, but because the rocket motor is integral to each rocket stage, we can think of it acting on the rocket as a whole.

Although the forces acting in both directions are equal, their visible effects are different because of another of Newton's laws, which explains how objects with greater mass need more force to accelerate them by a given amount. So while the action force rapidly accelerates a small mass of exhaust gas to hypersonic speeds each second, the equal reaction force produces a far smaller acceleration in the opposite direction on the far greater mass of the rocket.

As the rocket gains speed, keeping the direction of motion closely aligned with the direction of thrust is critical. Gradual adjustments are needed to steer the rocket towards an orbital trajectory, but a severe misalignment can send the rocket whirling out of control. Most rockets, including the Falcon and Titan series and the Saturn V moon rocket , steer using gimballed engines, mounted so that the entire rocket motor can pivot and vary the direction of its thrust from moment to moment. Other steering options include using external vanes to deflect the exhaust gases as they escape the rocket engine — most effective with solid-fueled rockets that lack a complex motor — and auxiliary engines, such as small thruster rockets mounted on the sides of the rocket stage.

How a rocket's motors work

Modern rocket motors have come a long way from fireworks, the first in rocket history . Relatively simple solid rockets, most often used as boosters to provide extra thrust at launch, still rely on the same basic principle of igniting a tube containing a combustible mix of fuel and oxidant. Once ignited, a solid rocket will continue to burn until its fuel is exhausted, but the rate at which fuel is burnt — and therefore the amount of thrust — can be controlled by changing the amount of surface exposed to ignition during different times in the rocket's flight. 

This can be done by packing the fuel/oxidant mix with a hollow gap down the center, running along the length of the rocket. Depending on the profile of this gap, which may be circular or star-shape, for instance, the amount of exposed surface will change during the flight.

This article is brought to you by  All About Space .

All About Space  magazine takes you on an awe-inspiring journey through our solar system and beyond, from the amazing technology and spacecraft that enables humanity to venture into orbit, to the complexities of space science.

The more widespread liquid-fueled rockets are far more complex. Typically, they involve a pair of propellant tanks — one each for the fuel and the oxidant — connected to a combustion chamber through a complex maze of pipes. High-speed turbopumps driven by their own independent motor systems are used to deliver liquid propellant into the chamber through an injection system. The rate of supply can be throttled up or down depending on requirement, and fuel can be injected as a simple jet or a fine spray. 

Inside the combustion chamber an ignition mechanism is used to begin combustion — this may be a jet of high-temperature gas, an electric spark or a pyrotechnic explosion. Rapid ignition is critical — if too much fuel/oxidant mixture is allowed to build up in the combustion chamber than a delayed ignition can generate enough pressure to blow the rocket apart, a catastrophic event that rocket engineers laconically refer to as a "hard start" or "rapid unscheduled disassembly" (RUD).

The detailed design of a liquid rocket stage can vary a lot depending on its fuel and other requirements. Some of the most efficient propellants are liquefied gases such as liquid hydrogen , which is only stable at very low temperatures — around minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 253 degrees Celsius). Once loaded aboard the rocket, these cryogenic propellants must be stored in heavily insulated tanks. Some rockets avoid the need for an ignition mechanism using hypergolic propellants that ignite spontaneously on contact with each other. 

Interplanetary travel

Rockets are the key to exploring our solar system , but how do they go from orbit to deep space?

The first stage of any spaceflight involves launch from Earth's surface into a relatively low orbit around 124 miles (200 km) up, above the vast majority of the atmosphere. Here gravity is almost as strong as it is on the surface, but friction from Earth's upper atmosphere is very low, so if the uppermost stage of the rocket is moving fast enough it can maintain a stable, circular or elliptical trajectory where the pull of gravity and the vehicle's natural tendency to fly off in a straight line cancel each other out.

Many spacecraft and satellites travel no further than this low Earth orbit (LEO), but those destined to leave Earth entirely and explore the wider solar system need a further boost in speed to reach escape velocity — the speed at which they can never be pulled back by our planet's gravity. 

The escape velocity at Earth's surface — 6.9 miles per second (11.2 km/s) — is about 50% faster than the typical speeds of objects in LEO. It gets lower at a greater distance from Earth, and probes bound for interplanetary space are often first injected into elongated or elliptical orbits by a carefully timed burst of thrust from an upper-stage rocket, which may remain attached to the spacecraft for the rest of its interplanetary flight. In such an orbit the spacecrafts' distance from Earth can range from hundreds to thousands of miles, and its velocity will also vary, reaching a maximum when the spacecraft is closest to Earth — a point called perigee — and slowing down further out. 

Surprisingly, however, the critical rocket burn used to escape into interplanetary space is usually made when the spacecraft is near perigee. This is due to the so-called Oberth effect , an unexpected property of rocket equations that means a rocket is more efficient when it is moving at higher velocity. 

One way to understand this is that burning a spacecraft's fuel allows the engine to utilize not only its chemical energy, but also its kinetic energy, which is greater at higher speeds. On balance, the additional rocket thrust needed to reach escape velocity from a low altitude at higher speed is less than that needed to escape from a high altitude when moving at a lower speed.

Spaceflight engineers and mission planners often refer to the " Delta-v " required to accomplish a specific flight maneuver, such as a change in orbit. Strictly speaking, the term Delta-v means change in velocity, but engineers use it specifically as a measure of the amount of impulse, or thrust force over time, needed to accomplish a maneuver. Broadly speaking, missions are planned around a "Delta-v budget" — how much thrust they can generate for how long using the spacecraft's onboard fuel supplies. 

Sending a spacecraft from one planet to another with minimum Delta-v requirements involves injecting it into an elliptical orbit around the sun, called a Hohmann transfer orbit . The spacecraft travels along a segment of the elliptical path that resembles a spiral track between the orbits of the two planets, and requires no further thrust along its journey. On arrival at its target object it may use gravity alone to enter its final orbit, or it may require a burst of rocket thrust in the opposite direction — usually accomplished by simply turning the spacecraft around in space and firing the motor — before it can achieve a stable orbit.

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After studying astronomy at University College London and Science Communication at Imperial College, Giles set out on an Exciting Adventure with Illustrated Publishing. He's since written a string of beautiful and successful books on astronomy, science and other cool subjects, and is also a regular contributor to magazines. When he's not doing the day job, you’ll find him fanboying about Doctor Who or lost in some obscure corner of history…

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How Do We Launch Things Into Space?

Watch this video about how we launch things into space! Click here to download this video (1920x1080, 48 MB, video/mp4).

We launch satellites and spacecraft into space by putting them on rockets carrying tons of propellants. The propellants give the rocket enough energy to boost away from Earth’s surface. Because of the pull of Earth’s gravity, largest, heaviest spacecraft need the biggest rockets and the most propellent.

The GRACE Follow-On spacecraft launched into orbit in May 2018. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

How does a rocket lift off?

More than 300 years ago, a scientist named Isaac Newton laid out three basic laws that describe the way things move. One of the laws says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is the most important idea behind how rockets work.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If you see pictures or videos of a launch, you’ll see exhaust streaming out the bottom of the rocket. Exhaust is the flames, hot gases and smoke that come from burning the rocket’s propellants.

The exhaust pushes out of a rocket’s engine down toward the ground. That’s the action force . In response, the rocket begins moving in the opposite direction, lifting off the ground. That’s the reaction force .

Once a rocket launches, will it keep going?

It’s not that simple. Earth’s gravity is still pulling down on the rocket. When a rocket burns propellants and pushes out exhaust, that creates an upward force called thrust . To launch, the rocket needs enough propellants so that the thrust pushing the rocket up is greater than the force of gravity pulling the rocket down.

A rocket needs to speed up to at least 17,800 miles per hour—and fly above most of the atmosphere, in a curved path around Earth. This ensures that it won’t be pulled back down to the ground. But what happens next is different, depending on where you want to go.

How to Orbit Earth:

Let’s say you want to launch a satellite that orbits Earth. The rocket will launch, and when it gets to a specific distance from Earth, it will release the satellite.

The satellite stays in orbit because it still has momentum—energy it picked up from the rocket—pulling it in one direction. Earth’s gravity pulls it in another direction. This balance between gravity and momentum keeps the satellite orbiting around Earth.

Satellites that orbit close to Earth feel a stronger tug of Earth’s gravity. To stay in orbit, they must travel faster than a satellite orbiting farther away.

The International Space Station orbits about 250 miles above the Earth and travels at a speed of about 17,150 miles per hour. Compare that to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which help us get information to and from other NASA missions. These satellites orbit at a height of more than 22,000 miles and travel much slower—about 6,700 miles per hour—to maintain their high orbit.

How to Get to Other Planets:

If you’re trying to get to another planet, you’ll need a fast-moving rocket to overcome Earth’s gravity. To do that, you’d have to speed up to around 25,000 mph. But you’ll also need to figure out the best time to leave Earth to get to that planet.

For example, Mars and Earth reach their closest distance to each other about every two years. This is the best time to go to Mars, since it requires the least amount of propellant and time to get there. But you’ll still need to launch your rocket at the right time to make sure the spacecraft and Mars arrive at the same place at the same time.

Check out this video if you want to learn more about how to get to Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

You’ll also have to carefully plan your travels if you want to travel to the outer solar system. For instance, if you’re sending spacecraft to study Saturn, do you want to encounter Mars and Jupiter on the way there?

If you liked this, you may like:

Forces of Flight

On this page.

Moving in Space

How do you move about in space.

A spacecraft uses most of its energy getting up into space. With no drag to overcome once in orbit, the spacecraft can then “coast” without expending any more energy. But how can you change a spacecraft’s course? Move it from one orbit to another? Or bring it back to Earth?

View of the Space Shuttle Discovery as photographed during the survey operation performed by the crew on the International Space Station. As part of the survey and part of every mission's activities, the orbiter performed a back-flip for the rendezvous pitch maneuver. View of Space Shuttle Discovery as photographed during the survey operations performed by the crew on the International Space Station.   As part of the survey and part of every mission's activities, Discovery performed a back-flip for the rendezvous pitch maneuver.

How do Rockets Help You Maneuver in Orbit?

Speeding up and slowing down in orbit works just opposite to what you might expect. The larger a spacecraft's orbit, the slower the spacecraft travels.  So if you wanted to pass a spacecraft just ahead of you, you would have to fire a thruster in a forward direction. This would decrease your orbital energy and drop you into a lower orbit, where you would travel faster! The "passing lane" in orbit is always lower.

How do Rockets Help You Maneuver in Open Space?

Once you are far from a planet, say, while flying between Earth and Jupiter, mid-course corrections are fairly straight-forward. To speed up, you fire a rear-facing thruster. To slow down, you fire a forward-facing thruster. To alter your course, you fire a thruster in a sideward direction. To rotate your spacecraft, you fire a pair of sideward-pointed thrusters located near opposite sides of the spacecraft. To stop rotating, you fire thrusters aimed in the opposite direction.

Speeding Up and Slowing Down in Orbit

Gravity Assist or "Planet Hopping"

Gravity Assist on Skates

Returning to Earth

Ask an explainer, why do orbiting spacecraft get so hot during reentry.

Did You KNOW

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 To increase your orbital speed you would need to fire the thrusters at the back of your spacecraft.

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 False: Changing your speed in orbit around Earth works opposite to the way it does on Earth.   The larger your orbit, the slower your speed.   If you want to speed up, you have to fire the thrusters at the front of your spacecraft.   This drops you into a lower orbit and increases your speed.   If you fire the thrusters at the back of your spacecraft you would raise your spacecraft to a higher orbit, and slow down.

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Warp drives: Physicists investigate faster-than-light space travel

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion kilometers). The fastest ever spacecraft, the now- in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 mph. It would take just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to reach Earth’s nearest neighboring solar system.

If humanity ever wants to travel easily between stars, people will need to go faster than light. But so far, faster-than-light travel is possible only in science fiction.

In Issac Asimov’s Foundation series , humanity can travel from planet to planet, star to star or across the universe using jump drives. As a kid, I read as many of those stories as I could get my hands on. I am now a theoretical physicist and study nanotechnology, but I am still fascinated by the ways humanity could one day travel in space.

Some characters – like the astronauts in the movies “Interstellar” and “Thor” – use wormholes to travel between solar systems in seconds. Another approach – familiar to “Star Trek” fans – is warp drive technology. Warp drives are theoretically possible if still far-fetched technology. Two recent papers made headlines in March when researchers claimed to have overcome one of the many challenges that stand between the theory of warp drives and reality.

But how do these theoretical warp drives really work? And will humans be making the jump to warp speed anytime soon?

Compression and expansion

Physicists’ current understanding of spacetime comes from Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity . General relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. General relativity also describes how mass and energy warp spacetime – hefty objects like stars and black holes curve spacetime around them. This curvature is what you feel as gravity and why many spacefaring heroes worry about “getting stuck in” or “falling into” a gravity well. Early science fiction writers John Campbell and Asimov saw this warping as a way to skirt the speed limit.

What if a starship could compress space in front of it while expanding spacetime behind it? “Star Trek” took this idea and named it the warp drive.

In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre, a Mexican theoretical physicist, showed that compressing spacetime in front of the spaceship while expanding it behind was mathematically possible within the laws of General Relativity . So, what does that mean? Imagine the distance between two points is 33 feet (10 meters). If you are standing at point A and can travel one meter per second, it would take 10 seconds to get to point B. However, let’s say you could somehow compress the space between you and point B so that the interval is now just one meter. Then, moving through spacetime at your maximum speed of one meter per second, you would be able to reach point B in about one second. In theory, this approach does not contradict the laws of relativity since you are not moving faster than light in the space around you. Alcubierre showed that the warp drive from “Star Trek” was in fact theoretically possible.

Proxima Centauri here we come, right? Unfortunately, Alcubierre’s method of compressing spacetime had one problem: it requires negative energy or negative mass.

A negative energy problem

Alcubierre’s warp drive would work by creating a bubble of flat spacetime around the spaceship and curving spacetime around that bubble to reduce distances. The warp drive would require either negative mass – a theorized type of matter – or a ring of negative energy density to work. Physicists have never observed negative mass, so that leaves negative energy as the only option.

To create negative energy, a warp drive would use a huge amount of mass to create an imbalance between particles and antiparticles. For example, if an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive, one of the particles would get trapped by the mass and this results in an imbalance. This imbalance results in negative energy density. Alcubierre’s warp drive would use this negative energy to create the spacetime bubble.

But for a warp drive to generate enough negative energy, you would need a lot of matter. Alcubierre estimated that a warp drive with a 100-meter bubble would require the mass of the entire visible universe .

In 1999, physicist Chris Van Den Broeck showed that expanding the volume inside the bubble but keeping the surface area constant would reduce the energy requirements significantly , to just about the mass of the Sun. A significant improvement, but still far beyond all practical possibilities.

A sci-fi future?

Two recent papers – one by Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire and another by Erik Lentz – provide solutions that seem to bring warp drives closer to reality.

Bobrick and Martire realized that by modifying spacetime within the bubble in a certain way, they could remove the need to use negative energy. This solution, though, does not produce a warp drive that can go faster than light.

Independently, Lentz also proposed a solution that does not require negative energy. He used a different geometric approach to solve the equations of general relativity, and by doing so, he found that a warp drive wouldn’t need to use negative energy. Lentz’s solution would allow the bubble to travel faster than the speed of light.

It is essential to point out that these exciting developments are mathematical models. As a physicist, I won’t fully trust models until we have experimental proof. Yet, the science of warp drives is coming into view. As a science fiction fan, I welcome all this innovative thinking. In the words of Captain Picard , things are only impossible until they are not.

What Is Polaris Dawn? The upcoming SpaceX mission, explained

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Space rockets

by Chris Woodford . Last updated: September 28, 2023.

Photo: Looking up at the base of a Saturn V rocket like the ones that put astronauts on the Moon in the 1960s. The five red things are the five engines of the lowest rocket stage (technically called S-IC). Picture courtesy of NASA .

Photo: Space as we know it. Photo of stellar swarm M80 (NGC 6093), a dense star cluster in the Milky Way galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and courtesy of NASA on the Commons .

Where does space start?

What is space like, is there more than one kind of space, how do rockets work.

Photo: An Atlas Centaur rocket launches a scientific satellite in 1990. Picture courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC) .

Photo: Action and reaction: rockets work by firing jets of hot gas downward (the action), which makes them move upward (the reaction). The gas isn't pushing against anything to make the rocket move: the very act of the gas shooting back moves the rocket forward—and that can happen in "empty" space just as well as inside Earth's atmosphere. This picture shows Space Shuttle mission STS-26 in 1988, when the Shuttle made its brave and confident return to space after the Challenger disaster two years earlier. Photo courtesy of NASA on the Commons .

Thrust and drag

Artwork: Forces acting on a plane (left) and a rocket (right). When a plane flies at steady speed, the forward thrust made by the engines is equal to the air resistance (drag) pulling back. The upward force of lift created by the wings is equal to the downward force of the plane's weight. In other words, the two pairs of forces are in perfect balance. With a rocket, thrust from the engines pushes upward while weight and drag try to pull it back down. When the rocket accelerates upward, the thrust is greater than the combined lift and drag. The various surfaces of a rocket can also produce lift, just like the wings of a plane, but it acts sideways instead of upwards. Although this sounds confusing, it's easy to see why if you imagine the blue plane rotated through 90 degrees so it's flying straight up like a rocket: the lift would also be pointing sideways.

Escape velocity

Artwork: Little pieces of history: An interesting cutaway showing the main component parts of the now-retired Space Shuttle orbiter. Picture courtesy of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA-MSFC) . Browse the hi-resolution version of this image (via Wikimedia Commons).

Photo: Test firing the Space Shuttle's main engine. Picture courtesy of NASA on the Commons .

Artwork: How a space rocket works—greatly simplified: Unlike airplane jet engines , which take in air as they fly through the sky, space rockets have to carry their own oxygen supplies ( oxidizers ) with them because there is no air in space. Liquid hydrogen (the fuel) from one tank is mixed with liquid oxygen (the oxidizer) from a separate tank using pumps and valves to control the flow. The oxidizer and fuel mix and burn in the combustion chamber, making a hot blast of exhaust gas that propels the rocket. The payload (the cargo—such as a satellite) occupies a relatively small proportion of the rocket's total volume in the nose-cone at the top.

Photo: An Ariane 5 rocket waiting to launch the James Webb Space Telescope . Picture by Chris Gunn courtesy of NASA and Wikimedia Commons .

Key parts of an Ariane rocket

Artwork: The parts of an Ariane 5 rocket. The central rocket comprises two stages: the lower Cryogenic Main Stage (EPC, orange dotted line) and the Cryogenic Upper Stage (ESC-A, gray dotted line). Solid rocket boosters (orange) stand on each side. Inside the central rocket, the main parts are: 1) Detachable fairing to protect payload as the rocket blasts through Earth's atmosphere; 2) Payload consisting of (in this mission) two satellites to be launched; 3) Satellite mounted on top is launched last; 4) Speltra structure allows two satellites to be launched in the same mission; 5) Satellite mounted underneath Speltra is launched first; 6) Small Aestus engine; 7) Liquid oxygen tank; 8) Liquid hydrogen tank; 9) Vulcain main engine.

A closer look at a scientific rocket

Artwork: Early design for a high-altitude rocket camera from US Patent: 1,102,653: Rocket Apparatus by Robert Hutchings Goddard, July 7, 1914, courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office (with some details removed and colors added for ease of explanation).

Photo: The father of modern rocketry, Robert Hutchings Goddard, pictured in November 1925 with one of his inventions , the double-acting rocket engine. Goddard first got the idea of traveling into space as a teenager, after climbing a cherry tree in his family's garden: "I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars..." His many inventions included powering rockets with liquid fuels and constructing rockets with multiple stages—two fundamentally important ideas used in virtually every successful space rocket launched to date. Picture courtesy of NASA on the Commons .

Photo: An early Atlas rocket photographed in 1963. Picture courtesy of NASA on the Commons .

Photo: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket being launched in 2020. Picture courtesy of NASA on the Commons .

Photo: The Space Launch System (SLS) under construction in the vast Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Picture courtesy of NASA Image and Video Library .

If you liked this article...

Find out more, on this website.

• History of flight
• Jet engines (airplane engines)
• Forces and motion

On other websites

• NASA and European Space Agency : What's the latest news from the world of space exploration?
• The Space Educators Handbook : A superb collection of educational resources compiled by NASA's Jerry Woodfill.
• Rockets: A Teacher's Guide with Activities in Science, Mathematics, and Technology : A comprehensive 100-page guide to rocketry for K-12 educators and their students.
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum : A great place to learn how people conquered flight.
• Space.com : One of the web's most popular space news sites.

For older readers

• Apollo 11: The Inside Story by David Whitehouse. Icon, 2019. On the 50th anniversay of the Apollo moon landing, this book takes a new look at one of the most inspiring scientific success stories of all time.
• Rocket: Owners' Workshop Manual: 1942 Onwards by David Baker. Haynes, 2015. Some great cutaways accompanied by lavish photos. This book covers both the general principles of how rockets work and examples of classic rockets from the last half century.
• Eyewitness: Space Exploration by Carole Stott et al. DK, 2014. What's out there, beyond the sky, in the darkness where we can only imagine? A colorful introduction from Dorling Kindersley.
• Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin. Penguin, 2010. An engaging read that charts the historic Apollo missions and the men who made them possible.

For younger readers

• Space Encyclopedia: A Tour of Our Solar System and Beyond by David A. Aguilar et al, National Geographic, 2020. This one's suitable for ages 9–12.
• Eyewonder: Space by Carole Stott. DK, 2016. A short (56-page) introduction for ages 5–9.
• Space: Smithsonian by Robert Dinwiddie et al. DK, 2015. An information-packed but visually very engaging introduction for ages 9–12.
• Fueling up and Heading out by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Natural History Magazine, June, 2005. These two engaging essays explain how a rocket gets off the ground and how it moves around in space once it gets there.

Text copyright © Chris Woodford 2006, 2022. All rights reserved. Full copyright notice and terms of use .

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How fast a rocket can humans safely travel in?

Part of the show Eggs, eyes and quantum - November QnA

Rocket_lauch.

"How fast a rocket can humans safely travel in?" Space science journalist Richard Hollingham answered this question for us...

Richard Hollingham - Okay. That's the wrong question! I'll come on to why it's the wrong question a second. We're actually travelling very fast right now; so I had to write these down, because I had to work some of these out as well so they might not be wholly accurate. So the Earth rotates at 600 miles an hour. So we're currently on the earth going 600 miles an hour, because we're on the earth we're also going 600 miles an hour. The Earth is speeding around the sun at 70,000 miles per hour. So we are also speeding around the sun at 70,000 miles an hour. The sun is speeding through the galaxy at 450,000 miles an hour, which means we're also spinning at 450,000 miles an hour. So, actually, we can go very very fast! The proper question is what acceleration can a human stand?

That's when you come into g-forces, and the idea of the amount times gravity that you can you can withstand. So, typically, a rocket, something like the Soyuz rocket, which is what astronauts use to get to the International Space Station, doesn't actually accelerate that much it's about 3 or 4g - if that - maximum going up to the space station.  Coming back, it's more unpleasant: it's kind of nearer 5g, but not for a long period of time, so that's fine. We know from experiments done in the 1950s by  Colonel John Stapp - a military doctor, who did experiments on himself, as all good doctors should do, he attached himself to a rocket-powered sled. And sped along this track and then braked very sharply to see what g-forces pilots could endure. The most he went up to was - and bursting the blood vessels in his eyes in the process but actually suffering no serious injury other than that - was 20g.

Chris Smith - Did he decelerate with his head towards the direction of travel, or away? Because this makes a difference because it makes a difference whether the blood goes away from your brain and you get 'blackout', or towards your brain and you get so-called 'red-out'?

Richard Hollingham - Interesting. He was on a chair on a sled. I guess, the acceleration would be going through his chest - through his body - the same way as astronauts. It's the reason they lie down on couches so that the acceleration - so that the forces - are going through your body rather than straight down through your head, which is something you want to avoid. So yes, you get this idea of blackouts and astronauts also wear to avoid that - and pilots do too - they have a far greater g-forces so they wear pressure suits and they will push the blood towards the head so you don't blackout. You don't want to be unconscious when you are flying a jet fighter!

Chris Smith - So returning to the question, which was what's the best sort of rocket to go in terms of speed, actually, that doesn't matter: it's the acceleration that matters and the acceleration is what determines the g you're going to feel. So what would be a comfortable g for a human to feel? I mean, when I'm taking off on an aeoroplane, what sort of g-forces are they?

Richard Hollingham - Nothing!

Chris Smith - So that's what I want. So basically yeah. 

Richard Hollingham - Actually, the best spacecraft for comfort was absolutely the space shuttle. Not too bad on the way up, and coming down it sort of circled: it looped and looped, to lose energy as it came down to Earth, and as it did that it was quite a gradual deceleration; whereas the 'Soyuz' again g-forces going up not too bad, coming back is pretty horrendous. I've heard it described as like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel - but a barrel that's on fire!

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How fast does a rocket have to travel to get into space?

• What was the first man-made object to reach another world?

This really depends on what you mean by "into space." If you just want to get into orbit around the Earth, you need to reach speeds of at least 4.9 miles per second, or about 17,600 miles per hour. If you want to completely escape Earth's gravity and travel to another moon or planet, though, you need to be going even faster - at a speed of at least 7 miles per second or about 25,000 miles per hour.

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How do spacecraft slow down we asked a nasa technologist: episode 22.

Emily Furfaro

How do spacecraft slow down?

Well, there are primarily two methods of thought for how spacecraft slow down and you really have to ask yourself, “Are we landing in an area that has an atmosphere?”

If not, you definitely want to go with retropropulsion, where you use retro thrusters pointed down at the surface of the planet to slow yourself down as you’re coming in.

If you do have an atmosphere, that makes it a lot easier, as the atmosphere acts as kind of a giant

break as you slow down. So you have your missions like Apollo that used retropropulsion when we

went to the Moon. When you’re able to use the atmosphere, you have your heat shield on the blunt end of your spacecraft coming into the atmosphere. And then the parachutes will come out and slow you down the rest of the way to provide that safe landing.

Here at NASA, we’re constantly developing new technologies to help with that entry, descent and landing, or EDL. Some of the trick in entering atmosphere is when you do have it but it’s really thin.

One of the technologies NASA is developing to handle those is called HIAD, Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator. The HIAD can come as a heat shield much like the blunt body heat shields of those older missions that were made out of ceramics or metals, but were very hard.

However, HIAD is a flexible woven system that compacts really, really small. So you’re able to actually get a very small heat shield inside your rocket diameter.

With HIAD, when the fairing comes off, the heat shield can then inflate and expand to a diameter much larger than your rocket. Therefore you’re able to bring in a much larger payload than you were before.

So how do spacecraft slow down? We have retropropulsion, you’ve got your rigid aeroshells and parachutes, and coming soon, we’ve got these inflatable heat shields. Learn more:  https://go.nasa.gov/3N5u0Yl

[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]

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Headed For Space

How Rockets Are Able To Accelerate In The Vacuum Of Space

When you think of Space, one tends to visualize an enormous, black void without any atmospheric air present. You may be correct, but this raises the question of how rockets are able to maneuver and accelerate in Space.

Rockets are primarily able to accelerate in Space through Newton’s Third Law of Motion by generating and pushing hot gases at high velocities through the back of the vehicle’s nozzle, which produces thrust that propels the rocket forward. Increasing its thrust allows a rocket to accelerate in Space.

Whenever objects on or near the Earth’s surface move around, it is not that difficult to understand their movement or provide a logical explanation of how they can move, slow down, or accelerate.

For example, whenever one observes an automobile traveling on the road, one can understand that the engine provides the power that drives the wheels, and it’s the friction caused between the rotating wheels and road surface that allows it to move forward.

A propeller-driven aircraft’s ability to fly and stay in the air is also relatively easily understood when the forward motion of the engine’s thrust and the lift provided by the wings, which allows the plane to stay in the air, is explained.

However, it can be difficult to grasp a rocket’s ability to maneuver in Space where there is no surface to provide friction for movement or any air to push against. Fortunately, this puzzle was solved in the 1600s when Sir Isaac Newton published his Three Laws Of Motion.

As the following section illustrates, these laws apply to the motion of all objects in the known universe but are especially applicable to a spacecraft’s ability to move and accelerate in the vacuum of Space.

How Newton’s Three Laws Of Motion Apply To A Rocket’s Movement In Space

In 1685, Isaac Newton published his Three Laws Of Motion in a publication called “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.” These laws primarily describe the state of an object’s motion and its relationship with the external forces acting upon it.

In summary, these laws state that:

• An object will remain in a state of rest or a uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force.
• The rate of change in the motion of an object acted upon is proportional and in the direction of the force acting upon it.
• For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

All three principles can directly be applied to a rocket’s motion and explain how it can accelerate in Space. However, it is Newton’s Third Law Of Motion that is specifically applicable to a spacecraft’s ability to maneuver and accelerate in Space.

Describing how each law works in practice will help to explain how a spacecraft utilizes them for maneuvering in a vacuum:

1) An Object Will Remain In A State Of Rest Or A Uniform Motion In A Straight Line Unless Acted Upon By An External Force

This law simply means that if no external forces are present, a stationary object will remain stationary, and an object in motion will continue in the same direction and speed it is traveling in. In the world we live in, however, there are always external forces at play.

For example, a tennis ball lying motionless on the ground has two forces acting upon it. The Earth’s gravity pulls it down, while the surface it is lying on pushes it up. (This is, in fact, an example of Newton’s third law, but more on that later.)

However, Newton’s first law can still be seen in practice here. The ball will remain motionless on the ground until an external force, like a shoe kicking it, or the wind blowing it, causes it to start moving.

A rocket’s movement in Space is the perfect example of an object in motion. If no external gravitational forces were present, a spacecraft in motion would continue to travel at a constant velocity in a straight line indefinitely.

This illustrates Newton’s first law, as external forces like air resistance, which would slow the craft down in the atmosphere, and the Earth’s gravity, which would pull it to the surface, are not present.

2) The Rate Of Change In The Motion Of An Object Acted Upon Is Proportional And In The Direction Of The Force Acting Upon It

Newton’s second law describes how an external force influences the motion of an object. Whether an object is stationary or in motion, the strength and direction of an external force will determine the resulting change in speed and deflection of the object.

For example, as the diagram above illustrates, if an aircraft is traveling in an easterly direction encounters a crosswind traveling in a south-westerly direction, it will cause the craft to slow down and be deflected in a southerly direction.

It also explains how a rocket is able to reach orbital velocity. After the launch, the vehicle’s first stage accelerates the craft into the upper atmosphere, the second stage’s thrust adds to the existing velocity, allowing the rocket to increase its acceleration into orbit.

( Learn more about how exactly a rocket works and the different components that make up a launch vehicle in this article .)

3) For Every Action, There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction

This is the law most applicable to rockets and their ability to fly and maneuver in both the atmosphere and in Space. Essentially, it means that when two forces interact with each other, one force’s reaction is equal but in the opposite direction of the force applied to it.

A rocket typically works by combining its fuel with an oxidizer in the rocket’s combustion chamber, where it is burned to produce hot gases, which are pushed out the vehicle’s nozzle at supersonic speeds. This, in turn, propels the rocket forward.

In terms of Newton’s Third Law, the first force that comes into play is the thrust created by the rocket’s engine as it pushes the hot gases out the rear through the nozzle. The thrust from the gases creates the second force, which pushes the vehicle forward as a reaction.

It is this principle that also gives a rocket engine the unique ability to operate in the vacuum of Space, unlike aircraft engines used within Earth’s atmosphere. A conventional aircraft requires two conditions to function and stay airborne, which a rocket doesn’t:

• An atmosphere

Oxygen is needed by aircraft engines for burning fuel to function and rotate their turbines/propellers to push air to the back, allowing an aircraft to move forward. Rockets don’t need external oxygen, as they carry their oxygen internally in pressurized tanks.

An atmosphere is necessary for aircraft to stay airborne since the air allows enough lift to be created beneath its wings, which, combined with a high enough horizontal speed, keeps the vehicle in the air.

However, there is no air present in space for a craft to push against to move forward. Since rockets use Newton’s Third Law Of Motion, they don’t need air to maneuver since the gases that are pushed out the back of the rocket thrusters propel the vehicle forward.

It is important to note that this article focused on the mechanisms & principles that propel a spacecraft in a specific direction. To perform maneuvers like changing its orientation or rotation, it uses a Reaction Control System, which one can learn more about in this article .

As this article explained in detail, rockets are able to accelerate, slow down, and perform complex maneuvers in Space because, like all other objects, they have to adhere to the laws of physics. In particular, the principles laid out by Newton’s three Laws Of Motion.

Although rockets are some of the best examples that can be used to illustrate Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws Of Motion, these laws apply to all objects in the known universe. Anyone reading this article right now is experiencing at least one of these laws at this very moment.

This article was originally published on headedforspace.com. If it is now published on any other site, it was done without permission from the copyright owner.

Wessel has been a rocket enthusiast since watching the first launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia on April 12, 1981. Ever since he has keenly followed new developments in the rocket and space industry. Wessel is constantly researching all aspects of rocket technology and shares his knowledge with readers around the world.

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Daily life aboard the International Space Station moves fast. Really fast. Traveling at approximately 17,000 miles per hour, 300 miles above the Earth, astronauts watch 16 sunrises and sunsets every “day” while floating around in a box with a handful of people they depend on for survival.

One need look no further than Hollywood blockbusters like “ The Martian ,” “ Gravity ” and “ Interstellar ” for futuristic visions of life beyond Earth as we venture longer and deeper into outer space. But what about the human body’s response to real-life spaceflight – what are the health effects? Will space travelers age at different rates than those of us on Earth? Just how adaptable to the space environment are we?

Certainly these are concerns for NASA. How space travel and long-duration missions might change the human body, and whether those changes are permanent or reversible once astronauts return to Earth, is largely unknown. The opportunity to explore these intriguing questions arose with identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly.

In November of 2012, NASA selected astronaut Scott Kelly for its first one-year mission. At a press conference not long thereafter, it was Scott who hinted that that this mission might provide the chance to compare the impact of space living on his body with his Earth-dwelling identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, who had also been an astronaut and former Navy test pilot. Remarkably, the Kelly twins were individuals of similar “nature (genetics) and nurture (environment),” and so the perfect space experiment was conceived – featuring “space twin and Earth twin” as the stars. Scott would spend a year in space aboard the International Space Station, while his identical twin brother, Mark, would remain on Earth.

The NASA TWINS Study represents the most comprehensive view of the human body’s response to space flight ever conducted. Results will guide future studies and personalized approaches for evaluating health effects of individual astronauts for years to come.

As a cancer biologist at Colorado State University I study the impact of radiation exposure on human cells. As part of the TWINS Study, I was particularly interested in evaluating how the ends of the chromosomes, called telomeres, were altered by a year in space.

Teasing apart health effects of space living

NASA put out a call and selected 10 peer-reviewed investigations from around the country for the TWINS Study. Studies included molecular, physiological and behavioral measures, and for the first time ever in astronauts, “omics”-based studies. Some teams evaluated the impact of space on the genome – the entire complement of DNA in a cell (genomics). Other teams examined which genes were turned on and producing a molecule called mRNA (transcriptomics). Some studies focused on how chemical modifications – which do not alter the DNA code – affected the regulation of the genes (epigenomics). Some researchers explored the proteins produced in the cells (proteomics), whereas others scrutinized the products of metabolism (metabolomics).

There were also studies examining how the space environment might alter the microbiome – the collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in and on our bodies. One investigation examined the immune response to the flu vaccine. Other teams searched Scott’s biological samples for biomarkers of atherosclerosis and upward fluid shifts in the body due to microgravity, which can affect vision and cause headaches. Cognitive performance was also evaluated using computer-run cognition tests specifically designed for astronauts.

More than 300 biological samples – stool, urine and blood – were collected from the twins at multiple times before, during and after the one year mission.

The Kelly twins are without a doubt one of the most profiled pairs – on or off our planet. They are also one of the most interviewed. One question often asked is whether Scott will return from space younger than Mark – a situation reminiscent of “Interstellar” or Einstein’s so-called “ Twin Paradox .” However, because the ISS is not traveling anywhere near the speed of light relative to us, time dilation – or the slowing of time due to motion – is very minimal. So any age difference between the brothers would only be a few milliseconds.

Even so, the question of spaceflight-associated aging and the accompanying risk of developing age-related diseases like dementia, cardiovascular disease and cancer – during or after a mission – is an important one, and one that we aimed to address directly with our study of telomere length.

Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that protect them from damage and from “fraying” – much like the end of a shoestring. Telomeres are critical for maintaining chromosome and genome stability. However, telomeres naturally shorten as our cells divide, and so also as we age. The rate at which telomeres shorten over time is influenced by many factors, including oxidative stress and inflammation, nutrition, physical activity, psychological stresses and environmental exposures like air pollution, UV rays and ionizing radiation. Thus, telomere length reflects an individual’s genetics, experiences and exposures, and so are informative indicators of general health and aging.

Telomeres and aging

Our study proposed that the unique stresses and out-of-this-world exposures the astronauts experience during spaceflight – things like isolation, microgravity, high carbon dioxide levels and galactic cosmic rays – would accelerate telomere shortening and aging. To test this, we evaluated telomere length in blood samples received from both twins before, during and after the one year mission.

Scott and Mark started the study with relatively similar telomere lengths, which is consistent with a strong genetic component. Also as expected, the length of Earth-bound Mark’s telomeres was relatively stable over the course of the study. But much to our surprise, Scott’s telomeres were significantly longer at every time point and in every sample tested during spaceflight. That was exactly the opposite of what we expected.

Furthermore, upon Scott’s return to Earth, telomere length shortened rapidly, then stabilized during the following months to near pre-flight averages. However, from the perspective of aging and risk of disease, he had many more short telomeres after spaceflight than he did before. Our challenge now is to figure out how and why such spaceflight specific shifts in telomere length dynamics are occurring.

Our findings will have relevance to earthlings as well, since we all grow old and develop age-related conditions. These TWINS Study results may provide new clues into the processes involved, and thereby improve our understanding of what we might do to avoid them or extend health span.

The long-term health effects of long duration spaceflight are yet to be determined, but the TWINS Study represents a landmark step in humankind’s journey to the moon, Mars and beyond…and to making science fiction science fact.

• International Space Station (ISS)
• Scott Kelly
• Twin studies
• Epigenomics
• Life in space

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Does space travel make people age more slowly?

• 2 min. read ▪ Published February 22, 2021
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Scientists have recently observed for the first time that, on an epigenetic level, astronauts age more slowly during long-term simulated space travel than they would have if their feet had been planted on Planet Earth.

“Many of us assume that being exposed to radiation or other harm in space would be reflected by increased aging. But there’s also been a lot of research that has shown the opposite,” said Jamaji C. Nawanaji-Enwerem, Berkeley Public Health postdoctoral fellow and first author of a study published in Cell Reports in November 2020. The study reviewed data from the six participants of the Mars-500 mission, a simulated space travel and residence experiment launched by the European Space Agency in 2010.

In space, people usually experience environmental stressors like microgravity, cosmic radiation, and social isolation, which can all impact aging. Studies on long-term space travel often measure aging biomarkers such as telomere length and heartbeat rates, not epigenetic aging. To fill in the gap, Nawanaji-Enwerem and his team members took the novel step to look at epigenetic biomarkers such as DNAmPhenoAge, a robust marker of disease risk, and DNAmGrimAGE, a predictor of mortality risk.

The findings show that space mission duration will lead to a slower aging process, which looks like a good thing. “But if the mission goes on for longer, it can actually be a bad thing for you,” said Nawanaji-Enwerem.

“It also informs future research in terms of what biomarkers of aging are important to measure,” said Andres Cardenas, study co-author and assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Berkeley Public Health.

During the Mars-500 experiment, six astronaut crews stayed in an isolated space and lived as if they were on Mars for 520 days. Cosmic radiation and microgravity were not replicated in the experiment, so the slower aging process found by scientists is caused by social isolation and other relative effects.

Although it’s not clear why space travel would lead to slower epigenetic aging, the findings will be valuable for understanding the health implications for future space travel.

“It’s not if, but when, we’re going to transition to space living,” said Cardenas.

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A Groundbreaking Scientific Discovery Just Gave Humanity the Keys to Interstellar Travel

In a first, this warp drive actually obeys the laws of physics.

If a superluminal—meaning faster than the speed of light—warp drive like Alcubierre’s worked, it would revolutionize humanity’s endeavors across the universe , allowing us, perhaps, to reach Alpha Centauri, our closest star system, in days or weeks even though it’s four light years away.

However, the Alcubierre drive has a glaring problem: the force behind its operation, called “negative energy,” involves exotic particles—hypothetical matter that, as far as we know, doesn’t exist in our universe. Described only in mathematical terms, exotic particles act in unexpected ways, like having negative mass and working in opposition to gravity (in fact, it has “anti-gravity”). For the past 30 years, scientists have been publishing research that chips away at the inherent hurdles to light speed revealed in Alcubierre’s foundational 1994 article published in the peer-reviewed journal Classical and Quantum Gravity .

Now, researchers at the New York City-based think tank Applied Physics believe they’ve found a creative new approach to solving the warp drive’s fundamental roadblock. Along with colleagues from other institutions, the team envisioned a “positive energy” system that doesn’t violate the known laws of physics . It’s a game-changer, say two of the study’s authors: Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics, and Jared Fuchs, Ph.D., a senior scientist there. Their work, also published in Classical and Quantum Gravity in late April, could be the first chapter in the manual for interstellar spaceflight.

POSITIVE ENERGY MAKES all the difference. Imagine you are an astronaut in space, pushing a tennis ball away from you. Instead of moving away, the ball pushes back, to the point that it would “take your hand off” if you applied enough pushing force, Martire tells Popular Mechanics . That’s a sign of negative energy, and, though the Alcubierre drive design requires it, there’s no way to harness it.

Instead, regular old positive energy is more feasible for constructing the “ warp bubble .” As its name suggests, it’s a spherical structure that surrounds and encloses space for a passenger ship using a shell of regular—but incredibly dense—matter. The bubble propels the spaceship using the powerful gravity of the shell, but without causing the passengers to feel any acceleration. “An elevator ride would be more eventful,” Martire says.

That’s because the density of the shell, as well as the pressure it exerts on the interior, is controlled carefully, Fuchs tells Popular Mechanics . Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, according to the gravity-bound principles of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity . So the bubble is designed such that observers within their local spacetime environment—inside the bubble—experience normal movement in time. Simultaneously, the bubble itself compresses the spacetime in front of the ship and expands it behind the ship, ferrying itself and the contained craft incredibly fast. The walls of the bubble generate the necessary momentum, akin to the momentum of balls rolling, Fuchs explains. “It’s the movement of the matter in the walls that actually creates the effect for passengers on the inside.”

Building on its 2021 paper published in Classical and Quantum Gravity —which details the same researchers’ earlier work on physical warp drives—the team was able to model the complexity of the system using its own computational program, Warp Factory. This toolkit for modeling warp drive spacetimes allows researchers to evaluate Einstein’s field equations and compute the energy conditions required for various warp drive geometries. Anyone can download and use it for free . These experiments led to what Fuchs calls a mini model, the first general model of a positive-energy warp drive. Their past work also demonstrated that the amount of energy a warp bubble requires depends on the shape of the bubble; for example, the flatter the bubble in the direction of travel, the less energy it needs.

THIS LATEST ADVANCEMENT suggests fresh possibilities for studying warp travel design, Erik Lentz, Ph.D., tells Popular Mechanics . In his current position as a staff physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, Lentz contributes to research on dark matter detection and quantum information science research. His independent research in warp drive theory also aims to be grounded in conventional physics while reimagining the shape of warped space. The topic needs to overcome many practical hurdles, he says.

Controlling warp bubbles requires a great deal of coordination because they involve enormous amounts of matter and energy to keep the passengers safe and with a similar passage of time as the destination. “We could just as well engineer spacetime where time passes much differently inside [the passenger compartment] than outside. We could miss our appointment at Proxima Centauri if we aren’t careful,” Lentz says. “That is still a risk if we are traveling less than the speed of light.” Communication between people inside the bubble and outside could also become distorted as it passes through the curvature of warped space, he adds.

While Applied Physics’ current solution requires a warp drive that travels below the speed of light, the model still needs to plug in a mass equivalent to about two Jupiters. Otherwise, it will never achieve the gravitational force and momentum high enough to cause a meaningful warp effect. But no one knows what the source of this mass could be—not yet, at least. Some research suggests that if we could somehow harness dark matter , we could use it for light-speed travel, but Fuchs and Martire are doubtful, since it’s currently a big mystery (and an exotic particle).

Despite the many problems scientists still need to solve to build a working warp drive, the Applied Physics team claims its model should eventually get closer to light speed. And even if a feasible model remains below the speed of light, it’s a vast improvement over today’s technology. For example, traveling at even half the speed of light to Alpha Centauri would take nine years. In stark contrast, our fastest spacecraft, Voyager 1—currently traveling at 38,000 miles per hour—would take 75,000 years to reach our closest neighboring star system.

Of course, as you approach the actual speed of light, things get truly weird, according to the principles of Einstein’s special relativity . The mass of an object moving faster and faster would increase infinitely, eventually requiring an infinite amount of energy to maintain its speed.

“That’s the chief limitation and key challenge we have to overcome—how can we have all this matter in our [bubble], but not at such a scale that we can never even put it together?” Martire says. It’s possible the answer lies in condensed matter physics, he adds. This branch of physics deals particularly with the forces between atoms and electrons in matter. It has already proven fundamental to several of our current technologies, such as transistors, solid-state lasers, and magnetic storage media.

The other big issue is that current models allow a stable warp bubble, but only for a constant velocity. Scientists still need to figure out how to design an initial acceleration. On the other end of the journey, how will the ship slow down and stop? “It’s like trying to grasp the automobile for the first time,” Martire says. “We don’t have an engine just yet, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Warp drive technology is at the stage of 1882 car technology, he says: when automobile travel was possible, but it still looked like a hard, hard problem.

The Applied Physics team believes future innovations in warp travel are inevitable. The general positive energy model is a first step. Besides, you don’t need to zoom at light speed to achieve distances that today are just a dream, Martire says. “Humanity is officially, mathematically, on an interstellar track.”

Before joining Popular Mechanics , Manasee Wagh worked as a newspaper reporter, a science journalist, a tech writer, and a computer engineer. She’s always looking for ways to combine the three greatest joys in her life: science, travel, and food.

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Exploration of space

How fast does spacex rocket go?

SpaceX is a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company founded in 2002 by Elon Musk. The company has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both designed to be reusable. SpaceX also manufactures the Dragon spacecraft, which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with cargo, and bring back to Earth cargo as well.

The speed of a SpaceX rocket can vary depending on the mission it is performing. For example, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket has a max speed of 5,400 km/h, while the second stage maxes out at 9,000 km/h.

How fast is a Falcon 9 rocket?

This is an exciting moment for SpaceX as the company’s Falcon 9 rocket hits a major milestone. Falcon 9 is now 80 kilometers (50 miles) high and traveling at 10 times the speed of sound. Three seconds after MECO, the first and second stages will separate. This marks a significant achievement for SpaceX and the team is looking forward to the next phase of the mission.

This is an incredibly fast acceleration rate, and it is made possible by Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket. This rocket is able to propel a spacecraft or other payload at an astounding rate, making it ideal for space travel.

How fast is a rocket launch mph

A rocket launch is a high-speed event that can be used to achieve orbital speed. The high exhaust velocity of a rocket allows it to reach speeds of up to 4,500 m/s, making it an ideal choice for reaching high speeds.

The rocket took about 8 minutes to reach an orbital velocity of ~74 km/s (16,500 mph) Falcon Heavy reached the threshold of space (100 km = 60 miles) about 35 minutes into the flight.

What is the fastest rocket in the world?

The Parker Solar Probe is a spacecraft launched by NASA to study the sun. The probe holds the record for the fastest speed by a spacecraft, reaching a speed of 163 km/s (586,800 km/h; 364,660 mph) on 20 November 2021.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity showed that the universe does have a speed limit: the speed of light in a vacuum. This means that nothing can travel faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second). This is a fundamental law of physics that governs the behavior of matter and energy in the universe.

Is a rocket faster than a plane?

Rockets definitely fly faster than jets! A supersonic airplane can fly faster than the speed of sound (1,236 kmh or 768 mph). The SR-71 Blackbird holds the record for fastest jet, flying at 3,418 kmh (2,124 mph). The Space Shuttle, though, accelerates to 29,000 kmh!

The Rocket 3 is a true muscle bike, able to go from 0-60 mph in just under three seconds. With its massive engine and aggressive styling, it’s sure to turn heads wherever it goes. Whether you’re looking for a bike to commute on or to take on the open road, the Rocket 3 is sure to exceed your expectations.

How much fuel does SpaceX use

Starship and SuperHeavy use a lot of propellant! In total, they use around 4,500 tonnes of propellant, which is made up of about 1,200 tonnes of Starship propellant and 3,300 tonnes of SuperHeavy propellant. Starship uses about355 tonnes of liquid oxygen (LOX) for every 1 tonne of liquid methane (LCH4), while SuperHeavy uses about 4,500 tonnes in total.

How fast is NASA’s fastest rocket?

The Parker Solar Probe is a spacecraft launched by NASA to study the Sun. It will approach to within 986 solar radii (69 million km or 43 million miles) from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h (430,000 mph), or 0064% the speed of light. It is the fastest object ever built.

Gravity is a force that every object in the universe experiences. It is the force that keeps us glued to the ground and is what gives things weight. On Earth, gravity is what makes it possible for us to walk and keeps the planets in orbit around the sun. In space, gravity is what keeps the moon in orbit around Earth and the planets in orbit around the sun. It is also what gives black holes their incredible power.

Can SpaceX go to the Moon

SpaceX’s Starship will land astronauts on the moon in 2025 and 2027, if all goes according to plan. This will be the first time astronauts have set foot on the moon since 1972. SpaceX is currently developing the Starship spacecraft, which is designed to carry crew and cargo to the moon, Mars, and beyond. NASA has contracted with SpaceX to fly two crewed missions to the moon, one in 2025 and one in 2027. These missions will be the first crewed launches from American soil since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011. If all goes according to plan, SpaceX will become the first private company to send humans to the moon.

The SLS is the most powerful rocket ever launched, producing 88 million pounds of thrust. This is equivalent to the combined output of nearly 25,000 train engines in the US, making it an impressive feat of engineering. The SLS will be used to power NASA’s future missions to deep space, including a planned mission to Mars in the 2030s.

How fast is the fastest rocket engine?

The STAR-48 engine is considered the fastest rocket engine. This engine was first launched in 2006 by NASA and could travel approximately 36000 miles per hour. The STAR-48 is a chemical rocket that has been used in various space propulsion.

As the final X-43A flew, blistering temperatures created by the nearly Mach 10 (7000 mph) speed were in the neighborhood of 3600 degrees. The hotspot this time was the nose of the vehicle. Despite the challenges posed by the heat, the X-43A successfully completed its flight.

SpaceX rockets travel at a speed of 18,000 mph.

SpaceX rocket goes pretty fast. The company claims that their rockets can reach speeds of up to 18,000 miles per hour, which is pretty darn fast.

Thelma Nelson

Thelma Nelson is passionate about space exploration and the possibilities it holds. She has been an avid supporter of SpaceX and other private space companies, believing that these organizations have the potential to unlock the mysteries of the universe. She has been a vocal advocate for more investment in research and development of space technology.

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