is there going to be a spacecraft that will be able go the speed of light?
148002
It's technically impossible for something with mass (like a spacecraft) to go the speed of light in our universe under the laws of physics.  As something approaches the speed of light, it gains mass.  In theory, if something were to actually go the speed of light, it would have infinite mass, which is impossible.  \n\nOf course, no one can say for sure.  Science fiction on television and in books have gotten around these rules by using wormholes, subspace, etc., none of which are known to actually exist.
695521
Higgs particles have never been directly observed, because no accelerators powerful enough yet exist. But there is hope the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will be sufficiently energetic.\n\nThere are no plans for spacecraft exceeding light speed, because according to modern physics it's impossible. That's not to imply that no "warp drive" has been conceived; in fact there is a department at NASA, the Future Propulsion Group, that is working on just that (and a few other ideas). But it is not a faster-than-light drive, it's an energetic field that bends space and moves a spacecraft. The problem is, you need a powerplant the size of the Sun to drive any reasonable-sized craft -- so it's not exactly viable.
522026
Excuse me, @@ ljdynamique2???\n\nTraveling at the speed of light IS possible. I, personally, have never seen light just "mosey" along on its way. \n\nAnd there is not one shred of evidence that life does not exist in other galaxies. In fact, all experts consider it more than likely that there is.
337121
yes.\nSome very clever people managed to teletransport a photon of light from one side of a lab to the other. But dont get your hopes up being able to transport people between starships and the planet they orbit.....
746381
No, the laws of physics currently prohibit any type of matter from accelerating to light speed, since it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so.
117448
From our current undestanding of physics, we cannot. That does not mean in 500 more years or 5000 more years we will not have a better understanding of physics that includes methods for travelling faster than the speed of light in a vaccuum. However, at the moment it looks very doubtful. \n\nWe have substantial evidence that special relativity is true from years of operating particle accelerators. From special relativity, it appears that it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to the speed of light. The glib manner people here are discussing an infinite amount of energy tells me that people do not understand what infinite means. \n\nAn infinite amount of energy is more energy than the sun produces. It is more than the energy produced by a billion suns. It is more than the energy produced by a billion galaxies full of hundreds of billions of stars. It is more energy than would be produced if every particle in the universe (about 10^70, the Eddington Number) was converted into a star like our sun. In fact, it is an INFINITELY greater amount of energy than 10^70 suns would produce. \n\nIf something is going at a speed greater than the speed of light in a vacuum (tachyonic speeds), then presumably the formulae we have for special relativity would not apply. There has been some occasional attempts to look for tachyons (particles going faster than the speed of light), but they have never been reliably discovered. \n\nThere are postulated entities called wormholes that might enable this kind of travel. Of course, we have no evidence for them at all.\n\nHowever, our understanding of physics is still very crude. We do not understand dark matter. Unifited field theory is still unproven. Even if it is proven, we do not understand the consequences of it (a lot of technology came from unifying electricity and magnetism). We do not understand what happens in black holes. We do not understand how the quantum world and gravity fit together. Even in quantum electrodynamics, which is viewed as settled and accepted, we end up performing illegal mathematical operations to get answers that agree with experiments. The role of the observer in quantum mechanics is not understood. We do not understand quantum teleportation very well. We do not understand BCS theory and its instantaneous coupling very well. We do not understand the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe (a sort of anti-gravity). There are immense holes in our understanding. Therefore, I would not be too confident that our current physics means very much here. \n\nThe only way to address this, is to continue to enhance our basic understanding of the way the physical universe operates. This might not be as romantic as it appears in the movies, but the hard work has to be done.
672393
Right now, many scientists believe that we cannot go faster than the speed of light.  As you get closer, the plane would get heavier and heavier until it slowed down.  Right near the speed of light, the plane would weigh almost infinity so it wouldn't be able to go faster.\n\nIt might be possible to somehow bypass it, but that's mostly science fiction right now.
113872
A tachyon is a theoretical particle that always moves faster than the speed of light. However, no such particles have been found and it is likely they don't exist.\n\nIn Special Relativity nothing can go at the speed of light (except something with no mass, like light). So, we cannot accelerate a spacecraft to go faster than light. As we pour more and more energy out the engine we get closer and closer, but never actually reach the speed of light. This has all be verified with lots of experiments on elementary particles, and in astronomy, much bigger things.\n\nBut, theoretically, if something started out going faster than light it would never be able to go slower. So, again theoretically, if you have a particle accelerator the energy of a collision of protons or electrons or whatever could produce a tachyon. \n\nThough, none has ever been detected, and most physics types believe it is very unlikely that they exist.\n\n\nOne thing to be aware of is that some scam places will sell you magical devices that use "tackions" or something - they often spell it wrong for legal reasons - to cure you of all disease or other nonsense. So stick with scientific tachyons!
164037
The speed of light is much, much faster than the earth's rotation.
1162111
Yes it would, but it would have to be going at approx 12% the speed of light. It would be "blue shifted" the opposite of the redshifting associated with cosmological expansion
204272
Light travels faster than sound.
1061558
Moving faster than light isn't really the real issue for space travel as traveling AT the speed of light solves all the distance problems(unless you are interested in time travel!). Of course that in itself is a big challenge. If one could demass the vehicle then surely one could achieve the speed of light!!! Afterall photons do travel at this speed.\nBut we would do very well even with speeds like .99999c because time dilation will reduce the time required drastically. Have the science, just need the technology!
214684
No massive object can move at the speed of light, so the question is ill-posed. Sorry.\n\nAs a physicist, please let me give you a little advice: don't loose your time with this nonsense, try instead to focus on the mathematics of the relativity theory, that's the way to understand it. The rest is pseudo-science.
366136
Not really - As it would travel at the speed of light (or the lack of) - but there would be a delay of a few picoseconds.....
50535
OK, first fo all Mr cliffx has it backwards.  As you continue to acellerate tworads the speed of light time will slow down for you and stay normal for everyone else.  Thus at that speeds you could travel 10000 lightyear in only 1 year, your lifetime, but thousands of years could pass on earth.\n\nIt has been theorized that time travel is posible but you could not simply accelerate to that speed.  Even if we could travel that fast the economical need would be currently beyond what any country has, even if they put all there funding into that one project.  but I am getting off the subject.\nOne theory is to travel into a black hole.  The gravetational field in a black hole is so strong that it has been theoryzed that even time cannot escape.  Thus if we were able to travel into a black hole we could use the captuered time there, so to speak, and transverse the timeline.\n\nThen there are ideas of actually traveling on light waves, lasers, to allow us to travel to the speeds necisary.  Of course then we could only travel to the time of how long that peice of machinery is on.  Also we would have to convert ourselvesinto an electrical signale, data (essicially transport), which would then bring up the promblum of measuring matter without moving it and blah blah blah.\n\nSummery, Yes it is possible to travel through time.  We just do not havet he knowledge and/or technology to do it yet.
855043
It's all theory, we don't know if (something) can exceed the speed of light. I would argue that time would be void at that moment, but again it's my theory. Interesting thought though.
532772
nothing but light can travel at light speed.  the faster you go, the more energy it requires to accelerate.  at speeds that are close to the speed of light, you would need what is basically an infinite amount of power to accelate.  with current technology, it is impossible.  the only reason light can travel that fast, is because when it is created it is already traveling that fast.  it doesnt have to accelerate.