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To: Mister Da

Ain’t never going to happen. Even if you assume that was in priciple possible I remember reading an article in Scientific American several years ago that discussed a possible plan to send a probe to Alpha Proxima the closest star other than the Sun. They proposed a fusion powered rocket. They calculated that the space ship would be massive—a spherical fuel tank about a mile in diameter. The payload would be a camera weighing a few ounces. You’d run the rocket engines full time for 50 years. In 50 years, the probe would arrive at Alpha Proxima, the closet star at 4.5 light years. But it would be traveling at about 10% of the speed of light and would zip thru the solar system in a few hours. So you ca see the difficulty involved in interstellar travel. Vast amounts of fuel. Long missions. Tremendous speeds. And technology which is visionary. And that just gets us to our nearest neighbor.


30 posted on 08/31/2010 4:59:43 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: Brilliant
Anything that is conceivable, is doable. Certainly not in our lifetimes, but in the next 1000 years it is highly probable, IMO.

One thousand years ago, the fastest modes of transportation maybe could do 15 mph. People believed the earth was flat & the sun revolved around the Earth. Today, the Shuttle & satellites routinely do 15,000+ mph. One thousand years from now, I expect the same quantum leap in technology. A million years from now, the speeds possible might very well be light years per SECOND, making your vacation trip to Proxima Centauri* take 4.5 seconds, plus 3 hours in the security check line. Of course, if you manipulate space/time properly, you can get there before you leave.

“Ain’t never going to happen.”

No disrespect intended, but history has frequently proved that statement to be incredibly wrong.

*I believe you meant Proxima Centauri vs. Alpha Proxima. Anyway, PC is a red dwarf & not very appealing. Also, no pool at the Holiday Inn & the neutral gravity beds are lumpy.

34 posted on 08/31/2010 8:04:59 PM PDT by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
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