Landing in August: plutonium powered car sized rover

[dom]

This is awesome

Code: Select all

[*BlackFox]

ROFL... Good luck with that!

[BuDo]

Mankind is brilliant....we are the aliens we dream about.

[EvGa]

That is some badass engineering right there, folks. Dayum.

[CrimsonNuker]

Hans Zimmer's music pierces my soul.

[Squirt]

This makes me want to become an aeronautical engineer

[*BlackFox]

Any thoughts on starting a "martians" charity?

[penfold1992]

chance of all these things working? close to 0.

[ltsune]

Trust me, I'm an engineer!

But seriously, that's pretty much insane :o

[Shomari]

This makes me feel inadequate.

[dom]

Can you imagine if NASA had a budget that exceeded its current half a penny of each tax dollar? Imagine what they could do with a full penny or even 5 pennies.

Just the necessary buildings, new industries, third parties, and need for educated people would create massive jobs. Not to mention that it gives something to dream about.

[EvGa]

I'd gladly give 5 pennies from each of my tax dollars.

The current lack of scientific and technological fervor in America makes me sad. Not saying it isn't there, but it should be the central focus. Everything else would fall into place behind the S&T industry.

[penfold1992]

nasa isnt exactly a good use of money in terms of space exploration as its not going to directly profit america in at least the next 10 years (if the money went in now, projects would take 10 years from THAT money is what i mean)

but i agree that it should help with other technological advancements.

as dom said the jobs it would create would be extensive and considering nasa wants to head towards the "third party" route in helping other third parties to fund there own space missions... it would be even bigger.
but where is the money going to come from to pay those people? theres no selling or product in it initially

[Skyve]

nasa isnt exactly a good use of money in terms of space exploration as its not going to directly profit america in at least the next 10 years (if the money went in now, projects would take 10 years from THAT money is what i mean)

but i agree that it should help with other technological advancements.

as dom said the jobs it would create would be extensive and considering nasa wants to head towards the "third party" route in helping other third parties to fund there own space missions... it would be even bigger.
but where is the money going to come from to pay those people? theres no selling or product in it initially

An investment that profits 10 years later really isn't that bad.

[penfold1992]

but where is the money going to come from to pay 10 years worth of salary to all the new jobs created?

[BuDo]

This makes me feel inadequate.

lol....It makes me feel intrigued and a little proud...

[BuDo]

but where is the money going to come from to pay 10 years worth of salary to all the new jobs created?

And this is the huge speed bump that impedes our technological progress....We don't (or place ourselves in a situation where we can't) do anything major without it being financially profitable....We're reluctant to toss resources at any project for the sake of learning

Learning about our world/universe is secondary to how much money we can make from the process. Collectively it shouldn't be an issue where the money is coming from but it is because we've created a world where it has to be an issue......Sad really...

When the driving force isn't about profit anymore I think we'll be moving at a much better pace in learning about our world.

[*BlackFox]

Learning about our world/universe is secondary to how much money we can make from the process.

Well.. the "secondary bar" seems to not be working always! I'm Just saying

[dom]

Code: Select all

Bonus:

Spoiler!

but where is the money going to come from to pay 10 years worth of salary to all the new jobs created?

And this is the huge speed bump that impedes our technological progress....We don't (or place ourselves in a situation where we can't) do anything major without it being financially profitable....We're reluctant to toss resources at any project for the sake of learning

Learning about our world/universe is secondary to how much money we can make from the process. Collectively it shouldn't be an issue where the money is coming from but it is because we've created a world where it has to be an issue......Sad really...

When the driving force isn't about profit anymore I think we'll be moving at a much better pace in learning about our world.

Code: Select all

[EvGa]

That video inspires and makes me rage at the same time.

While we're on deGrasse vids:

[dom]

Bad ass

[Skyve]

Bad ass

^
obvious redditor

[Avalanche]

Of course FAUX.. er I mean FOX News is too busy thinking of headlines like this:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/ ... t-landing/

[*BlackFox]

What are we waiting for? There's a whole new planet to explore!
"A Super-Sized Alien Version of Earth"

-New Discovery by Kepler Planet Sleuths
Orbiting a star in the Cygnus constellation referred to as Kepler-36a, the planets are designated Kepler-36b and Kepler-36c. Planet b is a rocky planet like Earth, though 4.5 times more massive and with a radius 1.5 times greater. Kepler-36c, which could be either gaseous like Jupiter or watery, is 8.1 times more massive than Earth and has a radius 3.7 times greater.

Read More Here

[poehalcho]

What are we waiting for? There's a whole new planet to explore!
"A Super-Sized Alien Version of Earth"

-New Discovery by Kepler Planet Sleuths
Orbiting a star in the Cygnus constellation referred to as Kepler-36a, the planets are designated Kepler-36b and Kepler-36c. Planet b is a rocky planet like Earth, though 4.5 times more massive and with a radius 1.5 times greater. Kepler-36c, which could be either gaseous like Jupiter or watery, is 8.1 times more massive than Earth and has a radius 3.7 times greater.

Read More Here

If my calculations are correct b has over double earth's gravity, while c has about half...
B's gonna be pretty hard to land properly on... And since C's a gas planet that's not gonna work out too well either... not to mention they're probably still a couple of lightyears away...

I think we should work on our warp drive engine first :/

[BuDo]

Not sure how we will travel to a planet that is light years away but we will figure it out. Just look how far we've come in a short time from a primitive state of living....The universe has secrets yet to be discovered and those secrets will allow us to travel to other planets in a reasonable amount of time...

We just need to get over the socioeconomic barrier that we've foolishly placed in-front of ourselves.

[*BlackFox]

I think we should work on our warp drive engine first :/

Instead of warp engine what about teleporting.. eh?

[poehalcho]

I think we should work on our warp drive engine first :/

Instead of warp engine what about teleporting.. eh?

I'm not too fond of the idea of teleporting... or at least some versions of it Q_Q.
The idea is that you get deconstructed and reconstructed elsewhere. That basically means that you die the moment you get teleported and elsewhere in the universe an exact copy of you gets created. but it's still a copy...

[Skyve]

I think we should work on our warp drive engine first :/

Instead of warp engine what about teleporting.. eh?

I'm not too fond of the idea of teleporting... or at least some versions of it Q_Q.
The idea is that you get deconstructed and reconstructed elsewhere. That basically means that you die the moment you get teleported and elsewhere in the universe an exact copy of you gets created. but it's still a copy...

Learnt in Physics that theoretically teleportation is possible with electrons. There's a very very rare chance that an electron gets bumped out of it's energy level all the way to "x" spot in our galaxy.

[dom]

Learnt in Physics that theoretically teleportation is possible with electrons. There's a very very rare chance that an electron gets bumped out of it's energy level all the way to "x" spot in our galaxy.

Some things I never looked into so I don't know if they're possible of being theorized.

But couldn't you technically use things with high mass (sun) to sling shot yourself back and forth between other high mass objects until you pick up enough speed where the distance covered isn't that big of a deal (since time is relative). The time it takes to travel a couple light years is huge on Earth but what if you're going so fast that the relative time is only a fraction of what has passed on Earth?

While it would take you x sols to travel to your destination, on the spacecraft only a fraction of x sols has passed?

IIRC it was one of Stephen Hawking's books where he talked about using high mass stars/planets/black holes to time travel into the future. Why couldn't the time travel be applied to make a trip feasible?