Secret Aircraft

If we did manage to create aircraft capable of the speed of light, it would render them invisible to every form of detection available at the present time until they had passed. Some time in the future, maybe we will create some sort of super radar or something, but I do not see how.

The speed of light is calculated to be 670,617,629 mph or 1,079,254,458 kph. To put this into proportion, The Space Shuttle's re-entry speed is 17,322 mph or 27877 kph. If we were going to be trying this speed in the atmosphere, things would not end well. In space however,I can't see how we could not do it. Since there is no friction from an atmosphere in space, we theoretically should be able to reach an unlimited speed as long as we can be propelled for a long enough time, and we can dodge around asteroids and planets and whatnot. If this is true, we should be able to reach the speed of light with technology we have already, we just haven't bothered to try yet

Scientists have also been looking at the possibility of "wrinkling" space to essentially create a shorter distance to travel. You would not feel anything inside the aircraft, but it would appear that stars are streaking by outside the ship, sort of like warp drive in Star Trek.

This is as much as I know on the subject of light speed. There are probably a few holes in my knowledge, and I would appreciate it if you guys can correct me, as I like to learn.

Auravir said:

If we did manage to create aircraft capable of the speed of light, it would render them invisible to every form of detection available at the present time until they had passed. Some time in the future, maybe we will create some sort of super radar or something, but I do not see how.

Since there is no friction from an atmosphere in space, we theoretically should be able to reach an unlimited speed as long as we can be propelled for a long enough time, and we can dodge around asteroids and planets and whatnot.

If this is true, we should be able to reach the speed of light with technology we have already, we just haven't bothered to try yet

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If we can propel anything with mass at superluminal speeds, then information (detection) shouldn't pose too much of a problem. I can't see FTL being applied to aircraft, in 1/7th of a second you'd be round the world and back where you started, I'd suggest planetary travel might be accomplished by a next-gen HOTOL vehicle.

The friction experienced by atmospheric travel becomes progressively more noticeable as drag the faster you go, right up to re-entry for a space shuttle which requires a ceramic nose to keep it from incinerating itself. An increase in speed presents the atmosphere as more of a 'wall' to the vehicle.
The detritus in space is minimal and does not need to be considered for current space flight velocities but at FTL velocities this too could present more of a 'wall' to the vehicle.

I don't know if we've 'bothered to try', I'll be surprised if we have but we cannot reach light speed with current technology- we won't exceed any trans-luminal threshold with brute power.

Auravir said:

The speed of light is calculated to be 670,617,629 mph or 1,079,254,458 kph. To put this into proportion

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It's usually given in miles (or metres) per second: 186,000 miles per second or 3x10^8 metres per second. (Actually 299,792,458 metres/ sec, but 3E8 is close enough for back of the envelope calculations )

In space however,I can't see how we could not do it. Since there is no friction from an atmosphere in space, we theoretically should be able to reach an unlimited speed as long as we can be propelled for a long enough time, and we can dodge around asteroids and planets and whatnot. If this is true, we should be able to reach the speed of light with technology we have already, we just haven't bothered to try yet

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Unfortunately it's not true. Besides time slowing down as you approach the speed of light length contracts and mass increases. So the faster you go the more thrust you need to accelerate more since your vehicle/ craft gets heavier. At C your length is zero, your time has stopped (relative to where you left) and your mass is infinite.

Scientists have also been looking at the possibility of "wrinkling" space to essentially create a shorter distance to travel. You would not feel anything inside the aircraft, but it would appear that stars are streaking by outside the ship, sort of like warp drive in Star Trek.

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Google "Alcubierre Drive": a serious look at space-warp drives from a serious physicist. Unfortunately other serious physicists took it seriously and found even more serious faults.
Little things like not being able to navigate at all (you can't see through the warp bubble you'd be in to look where you're going), or needing exotic matter (something we haven't even found outside of the equations yet) in quantities that outweigh the universe itself.

Bombtaxi, the Heinlein book was 'A Life for the Stars'.