In 1977, Star Wars made lightspeed travel popular with the introduction of spaceships such as the Millennium Falcon and imperial starship cruisers. Since then we’ve seen other movies incorporating light speed, travel with depictions that include streaking stars and plasma-like wormholes. The other day I decided to sit down and think about this logically and even do a few simple calculations to see if what movies portray would be true in real life. Guess what I found out — real life light speed travel would be nothing like the movies. Here’s why…
Science Versus Superstition
Prior to October 14, 1947 when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, there were a ton of superstitions surrounding the idea that man could travel faster than sound. Many people thought such a feat was impossible, but none of them actually had hard science to make that claim. Then, on that day, when Chuck Yeager made history, it was almost anticlimactic. Sure there were a few moments of turbulence just before reaching Mach 1, but once that speed was reached, everything smoothed out remarkably well.
The superstitions were proven wrong, and man has been flying a countless number of aircraft well past the speed of sound ever since.
Oddly enough, we now find ourselves in the exact same conundrum when it comes to the idea that man could travel at the speed of light (or even faster). This would be a great time to do something I’ve written about many times here in my blogs — learn to ask the right questions.
In order to get an accurate idea of what it would take to travel at the speed of light, we need to start with a very simple mathematical fact: light travels at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km/s). At that speed, it takes 8 minutes for sunlight to travel from the sun to the Earth.
This is our starting point where we now unravel the superstitions and fiction regarding light speed travel.
Two Practical Examples (Earth-Sun-Moon)
Suppose you were on a spaceship that left the surface of the sun at 186,000 mi./s and you were traveling directly to earth. Stop and think about this… 8 full minutes would elapse before you were right up at the outer atmosphere of the earth. 8 minutes. Think about it.
Does it sound like an 8 minute trip would be so fast that stars and planets would streak by your spaceship in a blur? The answer is pretty clear: hardly.
Now, let’s try this again but this time we are traveling from earth to the moon. That’s a relatively short distance, only around 238,000 miles. At light speed, it would take only 1.2 seconds to arrive. That would definitely look like a very large white streak rapidly filling the view in front of you.
Remember the most basic fact of space: it’s huge. The distances we deal with in space are thousands to millions of times greater than what we are used to on Earth. The main point here is that we are dealing with relative distances. Sun to earth versus earth to moon. A vast difference in proportions.
In an attempt to make this easier to imagine, let’s look at this using earth-references. Consider this in terms of flying an airplane. You take off from one airport, fly for some time high above the surface of the earth and then, at some point, you start to see your destination airport in sight. While you’re up high, the ground passes by slowly and you can’t easily make out surface details.
Try this again from the perspective of a passenger window on a high speed train. Objects in the distance move slowly while the grass, houses and trees 20 feet away pass by in a blur. Again, the relative distance is what matters. The same is true for light speed travel.
It’s All Relative
Unless your hypothetical flight from the sun to earth passes within a couple planet diameters from Mercury or Venus, they are not going to look like a white streak out your window. You are going to have a pretty good view of them for about a few minutes or so before they vanish behind you.
Now, what about something farther away… like Mars or Pluto?
- Earth to Mars is an average of 140 million miles away. At light speed, that’s 12.5 minutes.
- Sun to Pluto is an average of 3.67 billion miles. At light speed, that would take 5.48 hours.
If you’d like to learn more about light speed distances, start with a website like this one: https://unittoolbox.com/light-travel-time-calculator/. There, you can get a greater appreciation of all this and learn more about things like light-year distances, astronomical units (AU), parsecs and much more.
Now does that give you the impression of watching stars streak past you in a plasma wormhole? Again, nope.
In fact, based on those simple calculations, we haven’t even left our solar system and we’re already counting up the hours! What’s it going to be like if we want to travel anywhere else in our own galaxy? Well, our Milky Way galactic center is 26,000 light years away. The next nearest galaxy from ours is 2.5 million light years away.
Speed Limit Or Superstition?
This is starting to sound a lot like what I wrote in my recent blog about my dreams of deep space travel beyond the speed of light.
To those who really think light speed is a “speed limit”, you might want to go back to what I wrote at the beginning here and review our own recent history. Science versus superstition. We solved the mystery of supersonic speed decades ago, what makes us think we won’t do the same for light speed travel?
Here’s something I’ve said many times before… we need to learn to ask the right questions. When we do that, we need to THINK BIGGER. As it relates to this subject here, that means thinking far beyond what scientifically minded people regularly do.
Particularly, we need to look at the origin of the universe and its creation. Obviously that’s another huge topic and it’s outside of our focus for today, but it’s worth pursuing on your own if you want to get the true answers to the issue I’ve raised here.
Consider The True Origins (Science + Supernatural)
Now we need to make a pretty big shift — one I can’t fully cover here, but I’ll point you in the right direction. This is something I’ve dealt with extensively on this site for the past 11 years.
Simply put: if the universe operates on scientific principles that God built into it from the beginning, then going to Him for the answers isn’t unscientific — it’s the most logical thing you can do. I started doing that years ago and the answers I received changed my life in the most astounding ways.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Romans 1:20 (KJV)
In short, we are required to think critically and come to the right conclusions, including about scientific matters. I started doing that years ago and the answers I received changed my life in the most astounding ways.
I know from my own God-given dreams at night that the technological means for light speed travel is coming soon. And since the God who created everything told me that, I’ve already begun drawing up plans to make it happen. If what I just said here caught you off guard, read my ongoing life story in a series I wrote specifically for things like this…
That ongoing series will tell you the most important aspects of how I got to where I am today and how I can make such “unusual” claims here on this website. That story is still being written and I invite you to follow along in the journey. Much of what you thought you believed will be challenged — just as it was for me.
In the meantime, here’s what I firmly believe based upon years of study… Light speed is not what it looks like in movies. It’s not a speed limit. There’s no invisible barrier to stop us from getting there. The only limit is God, when He allows us to make all this happen using the scientific principles He created into the order of the universe from the beginning of time.
My last bit of advice for today…
- Learn to ask the right questions.
- Think logically and independently.
- Don’t accept what everyone else says (especially scientists).
God has all the answers and He’s been giving them to lots of people all over the world. Ask Him about all this yourself and see where He leads you!
That’s all for today — as always, thank you for reading and supporting my work!
—Chris Michals, the supernatural scientist
PS: If you’re wondering what God has already shown me about the technology of light speed travel, check out my recent blog: Interstellar Space Dreams Confirming Future Human Deep Space Exploration?! What I’ve said today might be a shock to newcomers, but this is actually well-traveled territory here on this website where supernatural meets science with astonishing results.
Contact!
Send requests for dream interpretation using the contact form at this page:
Subscribe
Enter your email to receive notifications of new blogs.
Leave a Reply