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100 years to plan mission to alpha centauri

Started by Siz, June 15, 2012, 07:59:28 PM

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Siz

June 15, 2012, 07:59:28 PM Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 10:24:27 PM by Scissorlegs
Now we're talking...
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-setting-sail-for-the-stars-with-100-year-project-372414/
But I hope there's a civilisation to greet the capsule on its return...

When one sleeps on the floor one need not worry about falling out of bed - Anton LaVey

The universe is a cold, uncaring void. The key to happiness isn't a search for meaning, it's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually you'll be dead!

OldGit

#1
June 15, 2012, 08:13:11 PM
Not to mention a civilisation to greet it when it gets there.  ;D

Siz

#2
June 15, 2012, 10:21:23 PM
Quote from: OldGit on June 15, 2012, 08:13:11 PM
Not to mention a civilisation to greet it when it gets there.  ;D

Well, the idea is to dedicate the mission to colonisation in the first instance without first sending a fact-finding mission. Long way to go to find there's no room at the inn... ;D

When one sleeps on the floor one need not worry about falling out of bed - Anton LaVey

The universe is a cold, uncaring void. The key to happiness isn't a search for meaning, it's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually you'll be dead!

markmcdaniel

#3
June 17, 2012, 10:04:48 AM
  This is an interesting idea. I am having a problem with the article. The article says that Robert l. Forward proposed the laser assisted light sail in 1984. This seems to be referring to his novel The Flight of the Dragonfly. However, the same system is used in Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye and while it was not laser assisted Arthur C. Clarke's short story Sunjammer used a light sail to send a space ship interstellar. So unless Forward submitted a formal proposal for a mission of this type credit for the idea would seem to lie elsewhere.
It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science - Charles Darwin

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the object of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a god, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. - Albert Einstein

Religion is a by product of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity. - Arther C. Clarke

Faith means not wanting to know what is true. - Friedrich Nietzsche
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