Home Space What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Space By Joe Burgett -

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Nanoparticle removing virus. Photo Credit: K_E_N/Shutterstock

Nanobots

  • Level Of Need: 10

Nanobots are revolutionary and will one day be the answer to several major technological breakthroughs. Of course, the nanobot industry is still in its infancy. But they are basically little robots that are the size of a nanometer. This is smaller than one billionth the size of a normal meter. Basically, we’re saying they are small. Due to their smallness, they can be used in numerous areas, especially the human body. That is why the medical community is heavily researching them now.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Nanobot on virus. Photo Credit: Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

Yet their small size also makes them capable of entering into armor or ships. Plus, they are hard to detect on radars. They can also form together to make things. You could very well fly nanobots into a room and have them form together to make a humanoid robot. This is very well within their future capability. The toughness of nanobots is also incredible, making them potentially capable of emergency armor or shield defense. That makes them critical for our space travel checklist.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Wormhole Control Technology. Photo Credit: Liu zishan/Shutterstock

Wormhole Control Technology

  • Level Of Need: 10

Our space travel checklist certainly needs to have controllable wormhole technology. With it, we could literally go anywhere we want in seconds. Of course, a wormhole allows us to sort of bend time and space and essentially cut through it. You can compare this to a pizza that folds up to be a calzone. First, think about the pizza itself and imagine you cannot cut it. Instead, you must eat from the bread on one end to bread on another.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Colorful light streaks. Photo Credit: RCW.studio/Shutterstock

If you fold the pizza, you now eliminate how long it takes to reach the middle or even the other side. You can literally eat the middle immediately if you want. This is essentially what a wormhole does for us. It skips the normal steps and allows us to cut in line, and move hundreds to thousands of light-years away from our current destination. Right now, we know wormholes are possible but we have no way to control them. Knowing this could allow us to travel space without light-speed technology.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Robots replacing human workers. Photo Credit: Danomyte/Shutterstock

Sophisticated, Completely Functional Androids

  • Level Of Need: 9

A lot of people assume that when we reference “androids,” we mean something exactly like “Data” from Star Trek. While an android as sophisticated and humanoid as Data would be very valuable to have, that is not expected. What we DO expect, however, is to have androids or other robotics capable of specific jobs. Those of which humans do now that they will be able to do for us. Whether that is farming or other labor jobs or something as simple as making repairs.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Sophia The Robot Saudi Arabian Citizen. Photo Credit: paparazzza/Shutterstock

They are also critical for our space travel checklist, as they will likely be what we will use as “first contact” with any new species we come across. Due to not knowing how we will be able to handle a planet’s atmosphere, we will likely need to send androids down to a planet to keep ourselves safe. We also do not know if the species present there will be hostile. Once a proper evaluation has been made, THEN we can send people down. We could also send them into battle zones, having them pilot warships for us. As you can see, androids will be a major asset and something we will need to perfect soon.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Sci-fi future soldier with advanced military weapon. Photo Credit: Maxim Apryatin/Shutterstock

Advanced Weaponry

  • Level Of Need: 10

While every space travel checklist will most certainly have weaponry on it… the real problem is what weapons we will need. It is likely ships will need to be decked out with them. Warships will likely have more weapons while exploration ships will likely need to have the most advanced weapons. This is due to potentially experiencing attacks from enemies that cannot be harmed by our traditional weapons. Most weapons will need to use something that will affect any living creature.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Advance military concept of the future. Photo Credit: K_E_N/Shutterstock

If we base this on what we see in our universe, then weapons will need to be able to harm the most abundant chemicals. Things like hydrogen, carbon, and many other chemicals can be disrupted. Using weapons that can be adjusted to harm those specific chemicals will allow us to battle any being. Whereas we will also need to study any potential metals, among other things, that a ship or shelter can be made from. This knowledge will allow us to make weapons to affect them too.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Warp drive speed tunnel. Photo Credit: Sashkin/Shutterstock

Warp Drive

  • Level Of Need: 10

Warp Drives work similarly to wormholes. They literally enter into a speed that will allow someone to travel extremely long distances in the blink of an eye. Warp drives will allow us to travel faster than the speed of light, which is important. Remember, moving at the speed of light is very fast. But anything claiming to be a “light-year” away will take us a year to reach, in spite of moving very fast. If a species is potentially in danger, it cannot wait a year for us.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
NASA artist’s 1998 rendition of warp drive travel. Photo Credit: NASA

We need to be able to get to them as fast as possible. Warp drives would allow this, as we’d travel at a speed so fast that we’d literally bend space and time around us to do so. There are several theoretical issues with this, such as entering into a speed that might bend time to a point that we’d exit out somewhere in the distant future or even the distant past. While there are many issues that could come, we’d need them on a space travel checklist. Otherwise, we’d always be behind or take far too long to reach a destination.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
Teotihuacan Sun Pyramid in Mexico. Photo Credit: Javrob/Shutterstock

Our Version Of A “Prime Directive”

  • Level Of Need: 10

Star Trek viewers will recognize the “prime directive” concept instantly. This is mostly a diplomatic concept that Starfleet came up with to not disrupt the fragile evolution of a species. Basically, if they have never seen specific technology then they should not see it at all from us. This could cause their species to evolve too fast or they might wipe themselves out before understanding the harm something can cause. Moreover, if a species is unaware of any living beings besides themselves, then we cannot interact with them at all.

What Humanity Needs To Travel The Universe
A fantastic city from the future. Photo Credit: iurii/Shutterstock

It is critical to avoid this, as beings less evolved might assume our advanced tech makes us God-like. They would then idolize a false God, potentially harming the species further. If there is a war going on or the species is experiencing a plague, we still cannot get involved. All of this is problematic, but the prime directive prevents us from interfering in a planet’s natural problems. Only ever getting involved if the planet experiences an extinction-level event. This directive will give us guidelines to follow that won’t affect our universe negatively.

Advertisement
Advertisement