# Does current technology exist to allow significant time travel **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 30, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004 "2010-06-30T00:17:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/1 "2010-06-30T00:17:56Z")
[This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=568791) got me to thinking about the actual feasibility of traveling into the significant future. And by significant, I mean at least a couple of hundred years. Here are the limitations as I see them: Taking enough fuel Taking enough provisions Going fast enough to make it possible So suppose the US decided to try to get someone to the year 2210 and was willing to spend the funds for it could current technology do it. If we built our fastest ship, loaded with supplies for say a 50 year trip (out and back), and further suppose you could refuel after leaving earths orbit before starting would it be possible? If not, how far into the future could we send someone with current technology? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/2 "2010-06-30T00:27:14Z")
Our best technology today wouldn’t make a noticeable decimal point’s worth of difference. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/3 "2010-06-30T00:28:13Z")
We don’t have the technology to achieve a significant fraction of the speed of light, so no relativistic time effects. With that, I’ll answer [122 years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_people). ---
**Author:** ![markdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/4 "2010-06-30T00:44:42Z")
Technically speaking, it’s not time travel, right? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/5 "2010-06-30T00:47:17Z")
The fastest space probe we’ve ever launched is traveling about 1.5 kilometers per second. If we somehow were able to launch a probe that could travel **10,000 times faster** than that (15,000 km per second) that still would only be 1/20th the speed of light. At 1/20th the speed of light, the time dilation is about 1/10 of one percent. That would shave about a month off the travel time for a 100-year trip. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/6 "2010-06-30T00:50:15Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > That would shave about a month off the travel time for a 100-year trip. Wow, I would have guessed much more… but what do I know. Thanks for the doing the maths. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/7 "2010-06-30T01:08:01Z")
Don’t forget that time and space are related. If you don’t take into account the earth’s rotation(along with the motion of the earth around the sun, the sun’s rotation around the galactic center, etc.) when you get to the desired time, the space could be totally elsewhere. When you have the technology to arrive at the “same” spot you left, you’ll also have the tech to plop yourself wherever you want to be. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/8 "2010-06-30T02:09:59Z")
> [@Johnny\_Q](#): > > Don’t forget that time and space are related. If you don’t take into account the earth’s rotation(along with the motion of the earth around the sun, the sun’s rotation around the galactic center, etc.) when you get to the desired time, the space could be totally elsewhere. > > When you have the technology to arrive at the “same” spot you left, you’ll also have the tech to plop yourself wherever you want to be. You’re talking about time travel as the “poof we’re there” theoretical - and totally imaginary - kind of time travel. Since nobody has a clue as to how that would work, nobody can say ahead of time what the technical requirements would be. The motion of the earth, sun, and galaxy are sufficiently well known that a relativistic speed trip through space that returns to an aged earth with a still young crew of the sort the OP refers to wouldn’t be any problem. We’re going to be in approximately the same place a mere 200 years in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/9 "2010-06-30T02:24:15Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > Wow, I would have guessed much more… but what do I know. It’s my understanding that you need to be close to the speed of light or in really intense gravity for large differences in the relative passage of time to show up. We aren’t close to being able to travel that fast, and there aren’t any supermassive black holes conveniently nearby. ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-current-technology-exist-to-allow-significant-time-travel/545004/10 "2010-06-30T09:15:15Z")
I expect that, long before we achieve the ability to build spaceships which can reach that kind of relativistic speeds while sustaining human life, we will have the ability to freeze people and revive them hundreds of years later. Or even to achieve immortality so that you can travel forward in time “the long way round”. Those would seem to me to be more practical forms of time travel.