The Need for Speed Why is it humans are so interested in speed? Throughout our history we have tried to get to increase our speed. We found out if we ran, we could get there faster and to this day running speed records get broken. We realized somewhere along the way even running was not fast enough for many tasks especially war. We discovered that animals which could run faster than us might let us ride them with the proper training and horse riding was born. So was camel riding. Did we try other animals first? We found out riding elephants in war could give quite an advantage. In some places in the ancient world elephants became the tanks of ancient warfare and were even more formidable when armored. It isn’t only humans that ride animals, animals have been seen riding each other from time to time. A weasel was seen riding a bird and a small bird riding a large one and there are more events like this. We invented the wheel and eventually the chariot. We found it was even better to have several horses pulling us then riding on one for a couple of reasons. It was found out they not only didn’t go faster than a calvary horse, they were slower. What they did have however was a weapons platform and some protection. It seems before mechanization, the horse was the fastest option, but the range was very limited because the horses would get tired. When it came to travel on water probably the first thing we did was swim. We needed more speed and endurance and someone had the idea to hollow out a log. They probably soon realized they need to create propulsion and steering and the idea of paddles was born. The shape was refined and the canoe was born. It was fit for rivers and lakes, but very dangerous to use in an ocean trip. It was also far too slow in the ocean and not fitted for battling the waves. Larger wooden vessels were eventually made when people banded together, but they were still powered by oars. It has been said the square sail appeared around 1,000 B.C. This allowed the ship to be much faster for much longer as long as the wind was blowing. A rudder was developed and for a while, ships had both a sail and oars. They were hybrids much as we have hybrid electric cars today. Someone must have had the idea if one square sail was good, many added would be even better and eventually ships became all sails and their shapes were streamlined. Steam came along and ships got even faster and no longer depended on the wind and today we even have nuclear powered ships. Napoleon wanted to speed up the transportation of supplies to his army and tested the use of steam powered carts. They were too slow and unreliable and had problems climbing steep areas. I believe it would have been the first time a military used a truck like object to move things. The first steam powered car was invented in 1769 and when autos started to become popular, we had steam powered cars, electric cars and gasoline powered cars. We just kept building faster and faster cars until a jet car broke the speed of sound at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Flying machines were to become the fastest vehicles we had. The Wright brothers achieved the speed of 31 mph on their flight. As the years went by propeller planes kept getting faster until they reached a speed of 576.3 mph. It is said to be the Piaggio P 180 Avanti. When the jets came along, they were much faster and the Piaggio was developed after the jets were in play. Officially the fastest jet plane is the X-43 scramjet which reached a speed of 7,366 mph. Rockets came out of hiding and they went much faster and led us into space. While they had some incredible speed it was not enough for true space exploration, but some of the probes they launched achieved tremendous speed. An example of this is the Parker Solar Probe which orbits the sun and has hit 400,000 mph. This speed has allowed it to get nearer to the sun than anything else and still function. Travel on the earth is at a point where it is viable. Plane travel could be faster but it is doable for any spot on earth, in a couple of days. Think about what an improvement this is from just 100 years ago. That is why we now have to put our ideas into how to travel in space faster. We don’t even have enough speed to allow humans to travel around the solar system. If we could get up to light speed it would work for solar system travel. It would take about 3 hours to reach Uranus. It would not work for the nearest star system Alpha Centauri which is said to be 4.367 light years away. At a minimum it seems to me the speed would have to be 10 times light speed for a practical long flight, and guess what? This would not be fast enough for further manned travel.
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