OT: NASA

[Section22Sooner]

The New Horizon's mission to fly by Pluto is amazing. It is science and engineering at it's best. I cannot begin to comprehend the brain power behind such a feat.

In contrast....

A new planet has been discovered. The NASA press release has been covered with great excitement on all the news outlets. A new planet that has an atmosphere and possibly life. Even the local ditzy weather babe was amazed that it is "14 light years away" and "we may visit it in our lifetime". Oh boy.

First off, it is actually 1,400 light years away. So I crunched some numbers.

If New Horizons was on course to the amazing new discovery Kepler 452b, it would have to travel 2,222,000 times further than it's journey to Pluto. It took 10 years to get to Pluto. So it would arrive at this new and exciting planet in about...
22,000,000 years. (Twenty two million years).

But everybody in the media is instructed to be totally blown away and pumped up about a 1400 year old white dot, some theories based on math, and artist renditions that the masses probably think are actual photos.

It's nothing more than a push for more funding. But the sheeple are easy to impress.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

That's preposterous...

They should launch a search for intelligent life on this planet.

 

[Dastardly Deed]

That's preposterous...

They should launch a search for intelligent life on this planet.

Definitely like that one ... splashed some coffee on my tee. Matches the gravy from previous days.

On topic, however, if NASA can "aim" New Horizon at various planets on the way, it will pick up slingshots like it did near Saturn (I think I'm correct) and the speed would increase exponentially.

So, maybe only 8 million years? Piece of cake.

 

[JConXtsy]

But once we get a handle on wormholes in the next century, then we'll have a destination to target.

 

[sybarite]

When you question the cost effectiveness of research, you question the limits of man's ability to think and dream. We developed NASA simply to compete with the Russians during the Cold War. We had no idea that there might be a profit in the research that went into the space program. The fact that we developed entire industries around printed circuits, transistors, and semi-conductors that reaped for more than any investment that we had made into the program was not yet apparent. You don't know where you are going until you have been there.

We spent about $2 billion of the projected $4.4 billion to build a supercollider at Waxahachie, Tx. We cancelled the project in one of our economic moves to save the country from economic devastation. As a result of this stupidity on the part of Congress, the Large Hadron Collider, cost about $5 billion, became the mecca for intellectual activity in the area of physics, math, and particle chemistry. With each experiment, over 3000 computers are linked by telephone to the equipment in the LHC as scientists from all over the world pay to connect to the LHC for data-gathering. Now, aspiring young physicists and mathematicians from all over the world aspire to go to Geneva instead of Waxahachie. The industry that sprang up as a result accrues to Switzerland, rather than the DFW Metroplex. The cost overrun that killed Waxahachie was less than that of the average fighter-bomber, and it produces no new industry that would generate entire companies each of which are worth more than the entire expense of the supercollider. Ah, but we were no longer competing with the Russians in 1993.

We don't know what the value will be of an exploration of the universe. If it is anything like the past, the information gained yields an output that far exceeds the cost. But, those who place limits on the imagination of man don't have the imagination to dream that such progress will occur. It is simply a dollar and no sense procedure.

 

[Section22Sooner]

But, those who place limits on the imagination of man don't have the imagination to dream that such progress will occur. It is simply a dollar and no sense procedure.

You're saying that logical people have "no sense"? You're rude.

1,400 light years.
8.22989974 e+15 miles.

 

[veritas59]

Two things:

1. Many of the things that are part of our everyday lives were "impossible" 40 years ago. In fact, had you even mentioned the possibility of having a Dick Tracy watch on steroids, people would have thought you crazy.
2. Some of you didn't pay attention watching Star Trek.

 

[roygbell]

I wish we could go back to 1955 and just stay there for a long, long time. LIfe was better, though harder. Families were closer, thought less wealthy. Kids were fed a good breakfast before they went off to school. Drivers weren't distracted by text messages. We didn't have TV to take away family time as playing 13 point pitch by lamp light with our parents was me and my brothers evening entertainment. Kids could work after school. On Halloween, we could take the old outhouse behind the church and put it in front of the school front door. Kids could be disciplined at the ole school house.

Life was good.

 

[sybarite]

I wish we could go back to 1955 and just stay there for a long, long time. LIfe was better, though harder. Families were closer, thought less wealthy. Kids were fed a good breakfast before they went off to school. Drivers weren't distracted by text messages. We didn't have TV to take away family time as playing 13 point pitch by lamp light with our parents was me and my brothers evening entertainment. Kids could work after school. On Halloween, we could take the old outhouse behind the church and put it in front of the school front door. Kids could be disciplined at the ole school house.

Life was good.

You remember it that way? Let's see if you can remember some of this:
---men outnumbered women at OU about four to one
---there weren't even intramural sports for women at OU
---the gas station that was nearest the house had "colored-only" bathrooms and drinking fountains, neither of which worked.
---the only appliance in the kitchen was a mixer. Most meals had to be made from scratch. In fact, we had a wood-burning stove for cooking in 55.
--both of my grandparents's farms had outhouses. One had just got electriciity.
---we had the only television on our block, 15-inch black and white in a huge cabinet.
---the radio had a battery bigger than most car batteries and was four foot tall.
---the telephone was a party line. You actually turned the crank for short and long bursts which let people know who you wanted to talk to. It didn't matter because everyone listened to the conversation anyhow.
--the summer flu was polio, and everyone was terrified of it. Everyone had a friend that they pulled around in a little red wagon, if they had survived the immediate effects of the illness.
--I didn't walk two miles uphill both ways to school. But, a half-mile through three feet of snow was sufficient to remind us that we could get very wet and cold. There were no insulated, waterproof clothes and gloves yet. The radiators at the school smelled terrible while everyone dried their mittens and snowsuits on them.
---living on the farm was so peaceful and quiet that I had eight first cousins grow up entirely on a farm. Not one thought it was so nice that they farmed. Every one of them moved to the city, into the rat race.

The best time to live is tomorrow, unless we screw it up. Tomorrow has always been better than yesterday.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Well, be that as it may, when they come to take me to the old white guy re-education camps, they might get shot.

Just saying...

 

[Section22Sooner]

You remember it that way? Let's see if you can remember some of this:
---men outnumbered women at...
Bla bla bla puke

If someone said that they cannot wait to see what it will be like in 2045, you'd come back with a list of virtues as to why 1955 was better. I'm on to your scam.

 

[Dastardly Deed]

Tomorrow has always been better than yesterday.

Given the shape of the world today and the direction it's heading, I'm afraid you're going to have some tomorrows that'll make you wish for yesterdays.

 

[Plainosooner]

That's preposterous...

They should launch a search for intelligent life on this planet.

They better look somewhere besides this website.

 

[Soonersincefitty]

Ouch Plaino!

On the sabbath no less...

 

[iasooner1]

I'll be on the road back to Rochester to see what new tortuous rubbish I can find.

 

[Section22Sooner]

OK, this space travel theory knocks the trip down from 22.2 million years to 4,468 years. But I'd rather they spend research money to explore things such as Invisible Paint or Human Flight. Those seem far more possible.

http://www.livescience.com/51623-lasers-power-tiny-interstellar-spacecraft.html

 

[barkingwater2000]

You remember it that way? Let's see if you can remember some of this:
---men outnumbered women at OU about four to one
---there weren't even intramural sports for women at OU
---the gas station that was nearest the house had "colored-only" bathrooms and drinking fountains, neither of which worked.
---the only appliance in the kitchen was a mixer. Most meals had to be made from scratch. In fact, we had a wood-burning stove for cooking in 55.
--both of my grandparents's farms had outhouses. One had just got electriciity.
---we had the only television on our block, 15-inch black and white in a huge cabinet.
---the radio had a battery bigger than most car batteries and was four foot tall.
---the telephone was a party line. You actually turned the crank for short and long bursts which let people know who you wanted to talk to. It didn't matter because everyone listened to the conversation anyhow.
--the summer flu was polio, and everyone was terrified of it. Everyone had a friend that they pulled around in a little red wagon, if they had survived the immediate effects of the illness.
--I didn't walk two miles uphill both ways to school. But, a half-mile through three feet of snow was sufficient to remind us that we could get very wet and cold. There were no insulated, waterproof clothes and gloves yet. The radiators at the school smelled terrible while everyone dried their mittens and snowsuits on them.
---living on the farm was so peaceful and quiet that I had eight first cousins grow up entirely on a farm. Not one thought it was so nice that they farmed. Every one of them moved to the city, into the rat race.

The best time to live is tomorrow, unless we screw it up. Tomorrow has always been better than yesterday.

Better in some ways but a lot worse in others. I'll take the 1955 version