Posted on 10/29/2010 8:15:56 PM PDT by LibWhacker
what would really be funny if they ever did build such a thing.... half way into the trip a new ship would probably catch up with the original one that hadn’t even arrived yet :P
This means that at half the speed of light, it is 8.1 years away.
Voyager I travels at 1/18,000th the speed of light. At this rate, a journey to Proxima Centauri would take it 72,000 years.
Thanks for pointing that out.
It SHOULD have been pointed out in post #1 itself, and certainly, no later than post #2. But people seem to batter terms they do not understand, like "universe" when they mean "solar system" or possibly "galaxy."
This galaxy is so large that we can't even see the other side of it. We can't even see into the next spiral arm.
Hell...some astronomers disagree over WHICH spiral arm we are in to begin with!
And every few years, they revise their assessment of the size and shape of our own galaxy. E.g., they only recently declared our Milky Way to be a barred spiral.
The British press throws terms out meaninglessly, without any understanding of what they are saying.
Sauron
That’s the risk of such a long term project. That technology could overcome some of the speed barriers we face. And having waited may prove to be the answer, yet it’s a chicken and egg problem. If you don’t try, you don’t fail, and you don’t learn. So if we find a way to travel to a nearby star that has a habital planet, we must go even if the posibilty exists that future technology may make your first attempt seem juvinile and foolish. Won’t out great grand children look back at us and say “they had it all wrong”. I certainly hope so or we have failed as forefathers.
100 years?? How many years to send this administration into the sun?
From low earth orbit taxi service to galaxy exploration? Yeah...sure.
Or “The Ballad of Beta Two” by Sam Delaney.... similar faith in the ability of a society to function locked up in a can. ;)
Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship?
Fox News | 10/29/2010 | Fox News
Posted on 10/29/2010 2:27:01 PM PDT by Dallas59
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2617339/posts
One of my favorite movies!!
In 1970, this was supposed to happen by 2000.
With the damage this regime has done in just the last 2 years, we'd be lucky to make it back to the moon by 2100.
This Wikipedia summary may jog your memory. You may be surprised to see when the two parts were originally written.
Crew me up, up and away.
NASA’s way of telling us we are never getting off this rock if NASA has anything to do with it. Next thing you know they will be trying to sell us a bridge in the Oort Cloud.
Where are you going to get to in the galaxy in a hundred years? If you had a spaceship that travels at todays known technological speeds you are going to need to hollow out an astroid, have a reproducing community of travelers with all the accompanying life forms that make life for humans possible, the ability to manufacture fuel from gases and dust collected on the way, and a good set of thrusters to speed you up and eventually speed you down to complete your journey. This group should make it somewhere in about 15 generations if they are lucky. Hopefully they will be able to stay in contact with Earth for much of the time to accelerate technological advances with their ship.
Kaaaahhhhnnnn!
Do you think Jedi Mind Tricks would work on this group?
Definitely! It must be Orphans of the Sky. Heinlein lived from 1907 to 1988, and invented most of the cliches Hollywood uses today (Asimov invented the rest.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.