MadSci Network: Physics |
At the speed of light? No even in deep space. That would require infinite energy to accelerate the person to that speed. As far as aircraft, you're talking about insane amounts of energy but also material impossibility. There are approximately 25,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules per cubic centimeter at atmospheric pressure, all of which would be moving at energies far exceeding the binding energy of atoms in their molecular matrix by many millions or billions of times as you went close to the speed of light, which would tear through the "aircraft" in question in nanoseconds (literally, at close to the speed of light 1ft is approximately 1 ns). On top of that ridiculousness, at close to the speed of light you'd be in and out of the atmosphere of the Earth (having been thoroughly evaporated into a stream of particles by the impact) in milliseconds with no force in the universe able to keep you in the atmosphere. Close to speed of light travel is only remotely possible at the distances of interstellar travel as well as the vacuum of deep space, and even then enormously technologically challenging for us as a species. In short, no, no, and more no on going even close (anything much higher than the aircraft speed record of approximately 0.0007% of the speed of light) of the speed of light. The difficulties get insanely higher after the current speed records, which were essentially already set by a rocket "aircraft" that was really already mostly in the vacuum of space.
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