MagnaCool--Habitable Exoplanet!

[Kuciwalker]

I will be all kinds of amazed if by the time I die, assuming I meet the average life expectancy of an American male

That was a long way of saying "in about 50 years."

I seriously doubt that by 2100 mankind will have sent ANY interstellar craft, and certainly nothing manned.

Because you've given us such a good impression of your technical knowledge...

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I will be all kinds of amazed if by the time I die, assuming I meet the average life expectancy of an American male

That was a long way of saying "in about 50 years."

I seriously doubt that by 2100 mankind will have sent ANY interstellar craft, and certainly nothing manned.

Because you've given us such a good impression of your technical knowledge...

Only a fool would think technology would be what determines when such a thing happens.

The cost of even going to Mars is astronomical. There simply would be no point for anyone to spend the kind of money it would take to mount even the most primitive interstellar object any time soon. Mankind will be spending it's limited resources at home for the forseable future.

[Kuciwalker]

Only a fool would think technology would be what determines when such a thing happens.

[Kuciwalker]

Especially since you contradict yourself in the next three sentences...

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Especially since you contradict yourself in the next three sentences...

You are dense...

OK, lets make it simple:

Things do not happen simply because they becomes technically possible. There must be an underlying economic or political reason for someone to do it.

We obviously have the technology to send people to the moon. No one has gone to the moon since 1975 because there is no political or economic reason for anyone to bear the cost of sending people there.

Is that so freaking hard to comprehend? Really, is it???

[Impaler[WrG]]

A solar sail based craft is inprinciple viable but would be considerably more sophisticated then an Orion to build and if powered by a massive stationary Laser it would face a very difficult de-acceleration problem at its destination.

I think the Solar Sail would be most useful as a means of defense against impacts for a fast moving ship. After the ship has accelerated rapidly and reached cruising speed a solar sail is deployed from the nose and pushed ahead of the ship by a laser, it would be attached by a few ultra thin wires more then a hundred kilometers long which act not to pull the craft but to keep the sail at the proper distance by tensile force balancing the weak push from the laser. Any object colliding with the sail would easily punch a hole in it but the tiny amount of sail material annihilated in impact would also annihilate the impacting object. Only a narrow spray of vapor still moving at near light speed would be left, this would spread out sufficiently over the hundred kilometers separating the sail from the ship that a more conventional armor of stone, ice or metal on the front of the ship would be sufficient protection as the impact would be spread over an area millions of times greater then the original object. The sail would be disposable, simply cut the wires and push it off with the laser at a bit of an angle so it wount foul up the next sail which would be pushed ahead in an identical mannor. So even if the sail should be completely trashed by an impact it wont present a problem.

[Asmodean]

I just hope that the Orion wont be launched from my home city.

Seriously, any feasible Orion would have to be launched from space, wouldn't it?

Asmodean

[Ned]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


That's because you have absolutely no scientific training.

I don't pretend to be an expert in physics, as do some.

Let me say, KH, I respect what you have to say on topics related to physics. Could you tone down your arrogance just a notch? I am really trying to be polite to you, if you haven't noticed yet.

[Ned]

Impaler, I still find it hard to believe that there would be any active components on the ship as it cruises for potentially thousands of years over deep space. Things degrade and wear out, even lasers.

I think the mission will deploy only passive defenses and rely on probability (redundant vehicles) for mission success. Active defense would only be required if the probability of avoiding mission ending collisions were to low.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Things do not happen simply because they becomes technically possible. There must be an underlying economic or political reason for someone to do it.

Yes. It's a cost-benefit equation. And the cost side is entirely dependent on the technical state of the art.

Is that so freaking hard to comprehend? Really, is it???

I think I get this much better than you do. You have a vague idea that "it's expensive." I have a vague idea of why it's expensive

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Yes. It's a cost-benefit equation. And the cost side is entirely dependent on the technical state of the art.

Technology tells you what can be done. Politics and economics is what determines what actually is done.

People today seem to have taken the last 150 years and assumed that future technological breakthroughs will be even more accelerated, but there is no reason to think that will be the case in all fields. Have we made any breakthroughs in propulsion in space in the last 50 years? Anyone here see any brealtrhoughs coming by 2050?

I think I get this much better than you do. You have a vague idea that "it's expensive." I have a vague idea of why it's expensive

More important is having a clear notion of who with those kinds of money would have any incentive to spend their money that way. Unless being the first to have a probe reach an interstellar object becomes some sort of prestige issue, like reaching the moon was back in the 60's, with all the likely coming costs at home interstellar scientific probes will probably be pretty low in the agenda.

I think fully exploring our own solar system will use up the bulk of the space science budget. We still have far too much to learn about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, or the outer solar system, so spend our money light years away.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ned


I don't pretend to be an expert in physics, as do some.

Let me say, KH, I respect what you have to say on topics related to physics. Could you tone down your arrogance just a notch? I am really trying to be polite to you, if you haven't noticed yet.

a) It wasn't an insult; it was a statement of fact. Anybody with such scientific training would immediately think to calculate the energies involved and would realise how huge they are. Despite what I may think of your overall intellectual capabilities, I said nothing of them; I simply cited your lack of education in science.

b) I don't particularly care how polite or not you are to me, Ned. You're one of a dozen or so people here who are simply going to be my playthings for as long as we both inhabit the same space.

[Geronimo]

I wonder how much more difficult it would be to build a space based telescope (optical interferometry of some kind? I'm not well acquainted with it's limitations) so gargantuan it could provide voyager quality data about planets at the distance of the gliese system? I suppose that even very sophisticated use of interferometry could do little to scale down the vast amount of infrastructure required for such a project.

Would it be even harder than building a probe to get there in under 100 years?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by GePap
Things do not happen simply because they becomes technically possible. There must be an underlying economic or political reason for someone to do it.

Yes. It's a cost-benefit equation. And the cost side is entirely dependent on the technical state of the art.

In this GePap is entirely right. Had the US had the first man in space there would have been no Apollo Programme. It was entirely political why it was done (cost almost be damned), it was only technical in the sense that it could be done.

[Kuciwalker]

I never argued that his conclusion was wrong. I argued against his (absurd) claim that technical ability had nothing to do with it.