Let's say a spaceship is built that can move at the speed of light. What will happen to the pilots who board it? We are publishing a translation of an article on why interstellar travel is fatal.
Even if we could construct prototypes of spacecraft invented by NASA scientists and capable of moving at a relativistic speed, and also found an obscenely large source of energy to launch them into the heavens, our journey would not be as pleasant as it could be. emerge from the Millennium Falcon. It is not technology that separates us from the ability to fly to neighboring stars - it is only a matter of several centuries. The problem is how dangerous space is if it becomes a habitat, and how fragile the human body can actually be.
If we began to move at the speed of light (300,000 km / s) in interstellar space, we would die in a couple of seconds. Despite the fact that the density of matter in space is very low, at this speed even a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter will crash into the bow of the ship with an acceleration that is achievable on Earth only at the Large Hadron Collider. Because of this, we will receive a radiation dose equal to ten thousand sieverts per second. Given that the lethal dose for humans is six sieverts, such a radioactive beam would damage the ship and destroy all life on board.
According to research by scientists from Johns Hopkins University, no amount of armor can protect us from this ionizing radiation. A bulkhead made of aluminum ten centimeters thick in this case will absorb less than 1% of the energy - and the size of the bulkheads cannot be increased indefinitely without risking the possibility of taking off. However, in addition to radioactive hydrogen, our spacecraft at the speed of light will be threatened by erosion due to the impact of interstellar dust. In the best case, we will have to settle for 10% of the speed of light, which will make it difficult to reach only the closest star - Proxima Centauri. Given the distance of 4.22 light years, such a flight will take 40 years - that is, one incomplete human life.
Cosmic radiation is still an insurmountable obstacle for us, however, if in the distant future we can overcome it, traveling at the speed of light will be the most incredible experience that only a person can have. At such a speed, time will slow down, and aging will become a much longer process (after all, even astronauts on the ISS manage to age 0.007 seconds less in six months than people on Earth). Our visual field during such a flight will bend, turning into a tunnel. We will fly forward along this tunnel, towards a shining snow-white flash, not seeing the traces of the stars and leaving behind the darkest, most absolute darkness that one can imagine.
Natalia Kienya