One of the most memorable films of the Star Trek franchise was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Not only was it the best of the series and a classic action movie, it sported a bigger-than-life villian and galaxy spanning adventure. Unfortunately, now it seems that scientists have pour cold water on dreams of humanity’s chance of “five-year missions: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new
life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

New Scientist is reporting that Star Trek fans should “prepare to be disappointed. Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew would die within a second of the USS Enterprise approaching the speed of light.”

The problem lies with Einstein’s special theory of relativity. It transforms the thin wisp of hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space into an intense radiation beam that would kill humans within seconds and destroy the spacecraft’s electronic instruments.

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Worse is that the atoms’ kinetic energy also increases. For a crew to make the 50,000-light-year journey to the centre of the Milky Way within 10 years, they would have to travel at 99.999998 per cent the speed of light. At these speeds, hydrogen atoms would seem to reach a staggering 7 teraelectron volts – the same energy that protons will eventually reach in the Large Hadron Collider when it runs at full throttle. “For the crew, it would be like standing in front of the LHC beam,” says Edelstein.

You can read the whole article here.

Live long and prosper.

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