OP post reminds me of the 747 on a giant treadmill. "SEE GUYS! I'VE ELIMINATED THE NEED FOR A RUNWAY. WERS MY MEDAL?"

Not to be taken as bashing. :C

If a spaceship went really fast. Its crew would have no problem reaching other stars in their lifetime. Getting information about them back to earth is an entirely different matter.

Yes, because transporting the mass of a human at light speed is so much easier than transporting radio waves...

Well, if the star is 200 light years away. Then a human could reach it in their life time due to time dilation, but the radio waves wouldn't reach the earth from the star for 200 years.

Planes on a treadmill can take off.


Not light speed, just really fast. Due to relativistic effects, they'd experience much less time than those on Earth.

8 years isn't many lifetimes unless you're a gerbil.

I think you missed the point. Yes, planes on treadmills can take off, but they still move forward; hence, a treadmill wouldn't be any more useful than a runway.

There is one last important thing I would like to say about ridiculously fast travel. And you will all probably troll me for it, but you need to open your minds up.

You're all assuming that relativity is more than a theory.

Won't move forward until they are going fast enough to take off though, the really limiting factor here is, it's cheaper to build a tarmac runway than the world's largest treadmill.


It's been tested and proven.

How can they be moving fast enough without moving forward? lol

even if you could collect the water, you could only travel so far from any source of light, since eventually the energy from the sun and such will not be enough to convert the water to hydrogen and oxygen.

Actually, having a treadmill under a plane won't do anything. The wheels only roll because they're attached to the plane, which is propelling itself with its engine(s), and being pressed on the ground at the same time. If the ground moves backward relative to the plane, then the wheels will just turn that much faster; it has no effect on how fast the plane moves. The wheels are free-spinning. If you don't believe me, Mythbusters did it, too.

There is some friction between the plane and the treadmill, so it will require a little bit more force than usual from the engines to get the plane off the ground, but not a significant amount.

Doodle is right, for the duration the wheels are on the ground, because the wheels would be moving slightly faster if the plane was on a treadmill, it would take slightly more energy to launch the plane.

It's not because of the friction between the plane and the treadmill, it's because of friction between the wheels and their axises though.

If you know of a theory aside from general relativity that explains the difference in time keeping between an atomic clock in orbit around the earth (in the international space station) and an atomic clock at sea level, I'd love to hear it. It should be pointed out that general relativity not only predicted that there would be a difference, but accurately predicted the degree of that difference. It did so decades before we conducted this experiment.

It's not at all constructive to doubt a theory that people believe in without either:
1. Proposing an alternate theory explaining the phenomena that the theory in question explains.
2. Bringing up evidence that contradicts the theory in question.

Please make an effort to make your posts at least some what constructive/amusing/humorous etc.
On top of being not being constructive, your post also attacked the good people of SEN by implying that we have closed minds. The next time you attack anyone without evidence, I'm reporting you.

Way to be sticklers about my phrasing. This is Null, I was using hyperbole.
Why so serious? It's just Kame.