Well, can I be right?

Question

I usually talk to my science teacher about space. I told him once that since there is no inertia in space maybe, we could travel very fast without anything to stop us. Though we have to send a rocket with a smaller rocket that could fit people in the smaller one we could release the smaller rocket in space and send the people at high speeds. Isn't it possible that if we do that if we focus on speeds faster than the speed of light we can make a warp hole and have time travel? Think about it, if we travel faster than the speed of light then add more speed by the amount speed travel in seconds we can make an estimate to travel back in time or into time by an estimate of how much light travels in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades and even centuries.

Answer 1

No inertia in space??? And your science teacher didn't correct you when you mentioned that to him?

Maybe you're discussing these things with the wrong science teacher.

Answer 2

right

Answer 3

No. The problem is that as you approach the speed of light, your effective mass increases. This is a measured effect that has to be allowed for in particle accelerators where electrons and protons are regularly accelerated to better than 99 percent the speed of light. As the mass of the spaceship increases, so does the inertia of the spaceship and it takes a stronger thrust to keep increasing its velocity by one more kilometer per second. By the time you get really, really close to the speed of light for a rocket ship weighing many kilograms, you have to expend energy at a rate comparable to the output of all the nuclear power plants now in operation. In most designs, you have to bring the weight of the nuclear fuel and the power plants with you too! This adds more weight and so requires even more thrust.

Answer 4

it sounds good, but has it ever been tried? maybe if nasa tries it we could learn lots more about time travel....love the concept