NASA budget cuts

[Cantelope]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well two years depending on where in the orbit we are respectively to Mars. It can be shorter or longer depending on where we are and where Mars is. Of course even at Lightspeed (FTL being Faster Than Light) it would take over 25 minutes to get from Earth to Mars if Mars was on the other side of the system from us, and more likely 45 minutes or more since you would want to avoid hitting the Sun on the way their. That is not taking into account the time used to get the spacecraft out of whereever it it docked on either end of the trip. Getting to Saturn say would take over an hour easily at Lightspeed. Neptune (current last planet in the system) would take at least 4 hours to reach.

We presently have the technology (if I remember correctly) to accelerate an object up to 0.01 of lightspeed. Not with a human in it mind you. At Lightspeed you would run into the Moon in a second (if I recall) and the Sun in eight minutes.

However at lightspeed it would still take over 4 years to reach the nearest star to Earth. The closest star that we know has planets around it would take at least 15 years to reach. Thus the drive to get a FTL drive that would make such trips more practical. Cause only at high end Star Trek speed do you have travel between two habitable star systems being less than a day, and more likely still take several days travel.

I felt the need to point out that once you achieve light-speed, the distance between points in spacetime shrink to zero. In other words, from the inertial reference point of ourselves moving at light-speed, Earth and the closest star is in the same place, and the trip takes no-time at all!

This is verifiable with a simple minkowski diagram, or just thinking about the fitzgerald contraction of the axes when all things in the universe are moving at a constant speed c relative to you.

The point is, whether it takes 4 or 15 or 1,000,000 years to get somewhere from a different inertial reference frame, it doesn't matter to you who is traveling at light-speed. Unfortunately, the catch 22 is that you'd have no idea when to stop because it's impossible to tell what "when" and even "where" is.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Cantelope

I felt the need to point out that once you achieve light-speed, the distance between points in spacetime shrink to zero. In other words, from the inertial reference point of ourselves moving at light-speed, Earth and the closest star is in the same place, and the trip takes no-time at all!

This is verifiable with a simple minkowski diagram, or just thinking about the fitzgerald contraction of the axes when all things in the universe are moving at a constant speed c relative to you.

The point is, whether it takes 4 or 15 or 1,000,000 years to get somewhere from a different inertial reference frame, it doesn't matter to you who is traveling at light-speed. Unfortunately, the catch 22 is that you'd have no idea when to stop because it's impossible to tell what "when" and even "where" is.

I might be wrong, but wouldn't what you said only apply to the person/thing/vehicle traveling at light speed? As in, to this light-speed object, it might be no time at all, but to everyone else x amount of time has still passed? So in effect it would be sort of like time travel.

[Ithekro]

It means nothing if there is no way to cut down on the time in takes to travel. Sure the person on the Lightspeed traveling object might see no time pass while at that speed, but the time will have still passed. Thus things like trade become impractical, and a round trip ticket a world 15 lightyears away might take not time for the traveller, the arrival back home will see 30 years have past.

Early interstellar exploration and colonies are likley one way trips for all those left on Earth are concerned. Even if they do come home, a generation or more of humanity will have passed by the time they return home. Thus the idea of mastering some form of science that gets past lightspeed (also gets around e=mc²) is ideal so that trips between stars can be done within reasonable time frames for trade and other such things.

But such efforts will take a long time and money to work out...something that doesn't seem to be in NASA's budget.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Wouldn't some of Jupiter and Saturn's moons qualify?

If they rotated directly around the main solar body or bodies yeah definitely.

But you'd have to stretch the "star" definition way out to include Jupiter (our might-have-been-star) much less Saturn.

Doing this off the top of my head (short on time), but basically:
1) rotates around a stellar energy source as primary (perturbations from other bodies allowed like Earth-Moon or Pluto-Charon)
2) large enough for gravity to effect some arbitrary level of roundness.

Really its a silly question of "how do you sort these marbles?" ... by size, shape, color, texture, taste? They're still the "things that they are" in a spectrum of sizes.

[Renegade334]

Well, this is it...good night, Discovery.

A couple of numbers and facts:
- 39 missions
- 148 million miles covered
- 5,830 orbits of Earth
- 365 days spent in space
- 27 years of service
- Most flown spaceship in history.


Two missions left now before the curtain finally falls on the space shuttle program. After that, they'll find a new home in museums like the Smithsonian Institution.

[JC...]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I wish microwave was that safe! The wife of the author of Frankenstein blew her head up in one.

She was a lesbian?

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by JC...

She was a lesbian?

And a time traveler apparently


(author of Frankenstein died in 1851... the word microwave was first used in the 1930s well after Maxwell predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves in the late 1800s. The first microwave oven was produced in the late 1960s. Now you know.. and knowing is half the batle rofl)

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by JC...

She was a lesbian?

I messed that up. It is Sylvia Plath.

Also, there is this report on effects of microwave on tissue damage.