Space — the final frontier. These are the words that introduce every episode of classic "Star Trek," the show that essentially popularized the concept of traveling the stars at the speed of light – or faster. While "Star Trek" has accurately predicted a lot of technology, its depiction of an interstellar society will probably never be realized.
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So just what is preventing us? A lack of alien neighbors? Our refusal to give up money-based capitalism in favor of whatever the Federation of Planet uses? No, the answer lies in the interstellar part. We have no trouble traveling anywhere on Earth, but anything outside its atmosphere is significantly harder because it is so far away. So far, in fact, that having enough energy to make the trip and doing so in a timely manner precludes not only the journey but any inclination to develop the necessary technology. The real kicker, however, is that we will probably never overcome this problem due to the insurmountable barriers presented by real-world physics.
While there's always a chance we somehow skirt around the laws of nature as we currently know them and invent a technology that lets us quickly travel to distant stars, odds are that will never happen. I will explain exactly why this is with the help of my background in science writing and degree in engineering.
Uh, it's not science fiction when others are already doing it.
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