Will anti matter or dark matter be used in future space travel?

Question

Will anti matter or dark matter be used in future space travel?

Answer 1

Maybe in the very distant future. We're not near having technology that can use it, but when we do, I imagine it will be something along the lines of putting anti-matter in front of a spaceship, which will cause the ship to move forward to replace the anti-matter.

Answer 2

an anti-matter - matter reaction would produce 100% energy.... it would be the ideal power source for EVERYTHING we do, not just space travel....

we're no where near being able to use it as an energy source tho.

oh yeah, why 100% energy is important.... take combustion engines... they use burning gasoline to create energy... but the gasoline doesn't convert 100% to energy, some goes to smoke, some to other vapors, etc.... becasue of this loss of fuel-energy, you need more fuel to turn into energy to compensate when compared to a pure fuel to energy transfer... in pretty much anything we use that is powered in one way or another, size is ALWAYS a problem.... when it comes to flight (both in the atmosphere and out) fuel becomes a really big problem.

Answer 3

No, antimatter will not be used because when antimatter comes into contact with matter they negate each other and boom, now you're left with nothing. Example. 1 + (-1) = 0. This means there is now no antimatter left in the universe or else, we wouldn't be here would we? The current accepted theory is that antimatter can decay as matter and vice versa, and at the big bang there was 50% matter and 50% antimatter. Slightly more antimatter decayed as matter as opposed to the matter that decayed as antimatter, meaning there was slightly more matter left over, the universe we see today. It is possible, however, to create antimatter and I believe CERN have done it, I believe they even created anti hydrogen once with an antiproton and a positron (anti-electron). However, the amount of anti matter produced would be inefficient, and if you were to use anti-hydrogen as a fuel, why not just use hydrogen then you would at least be able to store it.

Answer 4

Antimatter is like the ultimate storage battery. But it takes more energy to make it than you can recover later from the matter-antimatter reaction. And it's a difficult thing to store safely. It would have to be in solid form because a fluid will diffuse too much, even in a magnetic field. And since the easiest kind of anti-element to make is anti-hydrogen, keeping it solid requires the same low temperatures that regular hydrogen does, and the necessary refrigeration requires energy. And then how do you get chunks of antihydrogen safely off the main lump and into the reaction chamber or magnetic field? I imagine that antimatter engineers and technicians would have to be paid a lot of money.

Answer 5

Maybe in a hundred years from now, right now we can't even make a tea spoon full of anti-matter let alone the amounts needed to run a spaceship, as for dark matter i wouldn't know i haven't read much about the subject.

Answer 6

If we can find a way of creating, storing and using anti-matter, then yes, that would be a tremendous boost to space travel capability.

As for dark matter, since we do not yet know most of its characteristics, no one can tell if storing and using it is feasible.

Answer 7

Antimatter, unlikely because making it is very very difficult.

And as for dark matter, we don''t know much about yet!

Answer 8

Antimatter will be likely, as it is so far even in pretty conservative calculations, the best possible energy storage. But it will also be the by far most expensive way to store energy.

Dark Matter on the other hand, will not be of any use. Dark matter is, per definition, just matter not visible for human telescopes.  

Answer 9

Who knows.  We have to figure out what the heck they are first.  We have to define them before we can manipulate them for space travel.  

Answer 10

if anti matter or dark matter or exotic matter is invented, it would make travel through wormholes possible. if wormholes exist, and if the source of a strong force that is required to force it open is invented, wormholes would be so brittle, that even a small photon of light may break it. to prevent that from hapenning, anti matter can be used. but the thing about anti matter is that with the virtually impossible to retrieve.

Answer 11

"dark" matter yes. I wont tell how

Answer 12

At this point in time, dark matter is the name scientists have given to something they can't measure or define, although they believe it must exist because it can explain certain anamolies in their data.

Anti-matter, on the other hand, has been known to exist for quite some time, although on a sub-partical level.  And, unlike on Star Trek, if atoms of matter and anti-matter meet, the universe is not annihilated instantaneously, rather, energy is generated.  So, the trick is to control it.

To quote from the CERN website: "... But now the first "self-contained antiproton factory", the Antiproton Decelerator (or AD), is operational at CERN . It will produce the low energy antiprotons needed for a range of studies, including the synthesis of antihydrogen atoms - the creation of antimatter"...

Way cool.

Answer 13

Where do you wish to build your antimatter factory?  And who is going to finance it?

At present, antimatter costs $62.5 trillion per gram. Projected improvements could bring this cost down to $5 billion per gram and the production level up ten times from 1.5*10^-9 to 1.5*10^-8 grams (from 1.5 to 15 nanograms).  An interstellar trip lasting 800 years one way to the nearest star would require perhaps 10 railway tanker loads of the stuff.  If you plan to slow down and visit local worlds, then return to earth, multiply this number by four.  BIG BUCKS.

Imagine a s***w-up at a antimatter factory.  Can you say "good-bye earth?"  And if you build your factory somewhere in space, the cost of the thing increases by at least 1000 times due to transportation costs.  And if you blow up mars, enough matter will probably come our way to do some serious damage.  What do you say we pass on this idea?  Antimatter is too dangerous to play with.

Answer 14

According to Futurama, It will be dark matter