Poll: Space...the final frontier
- Thread starter Kaboose the Moose
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Ahh, but time is relative!Mister Eff said:
Maybe one day we will be left with no choice. If "Global Warming", "Zombie Apocalypse" or heavens-forbid "World War 3" ravages our planet and we don't build Fallout style Vaults..then we may as well look to the stars to re-populate and survive.nikki191 said:
It never hurts to have a plan B.
there is a possibility that as you go further away from gravity u could travel quicker and thus achieve light speed but that's provided gravity and light are linked otherwise we're f**ked unless we can access Hyperspace and travel in there as an inch there will be a mile here most likelyDestal said:
Why would you put "Let's leave this galaxy" as an option? I'm fairly sure that you mean Solar System, because the galaxy is fucking gigantic and leaving it would not only seem silly but also suicidal. The next nearest galaxy is several BILLION light years away if I recall correctly.
While I take comfort in knowing that the moon is usually bombarded with things bigger and greater than a school bus I would have thought that NASA would have taken a less "kinetic" route into exploring the moon's core. Afteral I do recall that they used an imaging camera to map potential ice caps on Mars and none of that mission involved a kinetic impact with the planet. So why does the moon get special treatment?.Avaholic03 said:
Also: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/28/warp-speed-engine.html. Holy Crap!. Warp drive is possible. Einstein was right!
No it's not. It should learn to pull it's own weight. Heavenly body my arse.DanielPowell33 said:
Murphy's law + Sod's law tells me that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Even if that anything means the splitting of the moon.Maze1125 said:
That's actually a good point!. "Solar system" was what I meant and yes..leaving the galaxy might take a while even with theoretical warp drive.LaBambaMan said:
More research should be put into close to light/light/faster than light travel first. We have some technology that can propel a spacecraft fast enough to get us to a place like Mars pretty damned quick, but the problem is they are expensive to research and would be dangerous to operate.
A camera can only capture the surface. There is surface "ice" on Mars. Not the case with the moon. The impact is designed to create a debris cloud so the other half of the probe can look for the presence of water and/or hydrocarbons that could be potentially sitting under the moon's surface. Those items would be vital to setting up a permanent, self-sustaining moon base in the future.McHanhan said:
The reason for the kinetic approach is because it's cheaper. They were planning on crashing part of the spacecraft into the moon anyways. But since the Centaur was going to be lifting the spacecraft, they decided to take it along as well, since it could create a much bigger impact. In all, there will be 2 impacts, one right after the other.
I think at the moment we need to focus on developing more efficent, cheaper and more powerful rocket engines to take us throughout the inner solar system. Mars is about four months away with current technology, relative 18th century sea faring, four months is a relatively short amount of time.
Firstly, cost's need to come down so private companies can get in on the space technology, that way efficiency will improve, and from that power. If we can get a lunar colony that will make space travel throughout the inner solar system a lot easier and cheaper than it is on Earth. (On the moon you have much less gravitational pull, so you need less fuel and power to get into space, so space flight from the moon is a heck of a lot cheaper than it is from Earth, and also the moon can be relatively easily supplied)
Firstly, cost's need to come down so private companies can get in on the space technology, that way efficiency will improve, and from that power. If we can get a lunar colony that will make space travel throughout the inner solar system a lot easier and cheaper than it is on Earth. (On the moon you have much less gravitational pull, so you need less fuel and power to get into space, so space flight from the moon is a heck of a lot cheaper than it is from Earth, and also the moon can be relatively easily supplied)
I am sure that there are inherent difficulties with that plan. I am no theoretical physicist (I dabbled in a few courses) but I think that if we were any closer to cracking the mass and acceleration dilemma in 1994 (given that it is based off Michael Alcubierre's "Alcubierre drive") we would have seen at least a small scale prototype in the works by now.McHanhan said:
Einstein's theory of relativity clearly states that in normal space any object approaching the speed of light will increase in mass exponentially, and require an exponential increase in the amount of power needed to propel the craft forward and as a result it provides a convenient barrier to prevent us from zooming around in space at the speed of light.
At present I don't know of any functioning models that can effectively achieve:
a) Speeds greater than C without reaching critical mass
b) A field capable of bending the fabric of space.
Like the scientist said: "Warp drive isn't doable now, and probably won't be for the next several millenia,".But it's fun to hope.
Alternatively, we could hunt for wormholes in space. They quite conveniently can provide a shortcut through space, provided that they don't collapse. A ship crossing this "bridge" would theoretically move at below light speed, but still arrive before a beam of light that would have had to go the long way around. It's not the same as warp drive but it nets the same results.
