Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 06, 2011

but any science that is far enough advanced from ours would be indistinguishable from magic.

Jammie Danae jammie!

And any science that is distiguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

On the other hand, any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from science.

Add the expansion rate of the universe to the current distance to that star so you can calculate the extra sandwiches you will need for that trip.

By the way, don’t be concerned about a round trip….you’ll be dead before you get there…only your offspring (s) will make it, so take a date with you.

Someone wanna ask Danae to disengage the Improbability Drive?

Any sufficiently advanced mad science is indistinguishable from sorcery.

100 million miracles happen every day.

You’ll need to develope ludicrous speed, Danae.

“Warp drive” is the modern way of saying “by magic”.

She’s going mining for a Heart of Gold…

Maybe she should borrow Ralph and Alice Cramden. Don’t believe the’’re busy now,

Right you are, Jeffrey. It’s not enough to say you’ll do it by magic. The politically-correct term for “magic” these days is “software.”

Danae is a “big picture” person. Her minions will fill in the details.

Danae, now is the time to consult with Lars from Mars.

The big problem is accelerating to a speed close to light;Obtaining fuel along the way,Protecting yourself from everything slamming into you not going at your speed (everything)Once you get there deceleratingDealing with the time distortions from home base – for an object 20 light years away, might take less than 20 years to get there but at home a lot more time will have passed.Oh yeah, and as kreole said, making enough sandwiches…

“an object 20 light years away, might take less than 20 years to get there”

Yes. Because when you are approaching the speed of light (which is a difficult enough feat), distances between objects start shrinking

The shortest distance between two points is nothing. The difficulty is finding that particular nothing that exists between the two points you want to travel between… – Clothahump from The Spellsinger by Allan Dean Foster

Yes—handwavium is acceptable, as long as you have the math (and the testability) to back it up. . . .

I like Frank Herbert’s idea of folding space myself…

You’ve all shown the truly difficult part: Finding a collection of idiots who HAVEN’T read a bunch of old SF and base their “original” ideas on un-cited quotes from old geniuses. Art Clarke from “profiles of the future” stating the diff between science and magic is an excellent e.g.

Folding space is really a part of superstring theory. wormholes are one result. Alcubiere Drive is the closest “real” theory we have related to "warp’ drive. You’ll need a nice accumulation of antimatter in a magnetic bottle to make it work.

If we’re stealing, steal from the Best-er writer of all: Teleportation, which we have the ability to do,we just don’t know it yet. The Stars, my destination!

I’m wondering who those 150 invitations went to.Once you get past Stephen Speilberg, George Lucas, Mr. Fantastic, Dr. Strange and Bruce Banner, I’m lost.

Dang, he’s got you there, Danae.

Assuming you can come up with a way to travel 25 trillion miles in short order, even though in may take generations to accomplish, during that time scientists are likely to come up with a way to do it faster, so that someone who starts later will actually beat them to it. Relativity notwithstanding, of course.

So . . . all we have to do is travel one mile every time the National Debt increased by one dollar. Piece a cake. We’ll be there by the end of the year.

Why not? It has worked for creationism?