WTXL is looking at different aspects of the world famous film franchise all month long. Tune-in Mondays at 5:30 p.m. Next week, we will take a look at space food and nutrition.
TALLAHASSEE, Fl. (WTXL) -- In the Star Wars movies, there are spaceships galore. Some big, some small, some slow, and some fast. Back on this planet, we've been to outer space, we've gone to the moon and beyond.
And while these spacecraft are fast, they're not quite as fast or mobile as the vision in Star Wars creator, George Lucas's mind.
Rajan Kumar and David Collins are both assistant professors at Florida State University. Their experience in mechanical engineering and physics helps paints a much different kind of picture on our of the future of space flight.
Han solo's Millenium falcon: It's fast, but can a spaceship really travel the speed of light or into hyperspace?
"The fastest spacecraft that we've ever launched, launched at about 38,000 miles an hour for the peak velocity", said Collins. "That was for the New Horizons spacecraft."
The speed of light is over 670,000,000 miles per hour. Doing the math, that means it would take New Horizons about 18,000 times its max speed to match that of the speed of light.
"I think there is some time before you start seeing those things in reality," said Kumar. David Collins added, "In our lifetime the speed of light is a very real barrier."
Technology is getting closer to light speed, but not for space travel. "If you're talking about a very small object, we can get them extremely fast", said Collins. "For particle accelerators, they get particles going to 99.99% the speed of light."
As for larger objects like ships that carry humans? "The max speed is sort of inversely proportional to the mass of the object so more mass of objects take a lot more energy to accelerate," added Collins.
So we can't travel the speed of light yet, but what about escaping the earth's gravitational pull?Normally, space shuttles or satellites are launched into space with the help of rockets, that provide fuel to support a flight out of earth.
"The conventional gas engines are limited in terms of powers they generate, or the altitude they can operate at because those are all air-breathing engines and they require air to breathe in and go through the propulsion system," said Kumar.
Something the Rebels and Imperial Army don't seem to need
"There is no real physical block to get there", said Collins. "There is no physical limit to that but current technologies require substantial amount of fuel to get that kind of acceleration."
Existing air craft, like Scram Jets and Blackbirds don't have that kind of acceleration, though some can travel at hyper sonic speeds, but that's only fast enough to leave the atmosphere and not the actual planet's gravitational field.
Kumar said, "There are challenges, which are propulsion challenges, material challenges which need to still be resolved before we can say that our vehicles can do everything that those movies typically show."
"Space travel in the movies is like driving a boat through the ocean", said Collins. "And we're pretty far from that now. Because every time you have to change course it takes fuel."
So in the end, next time you call it a hunk of junk, realize that looks can be deceiving. It also helps to be in a movie as well.
