To boldly go where no telescope has gone before.

[tinymhg]

Cmon Tiny! You know that if your a fan of sci-fi, then its gotta break your heart to see the decline of manned space-flights. Does it not make you sad to know that we havent been back to the moon since like 1972? (or3 or 4 or somthing lol)

It really doesn’t break my heart to see the Space Truck (Shuttle) program bite the dust. The space race was a race to the moon and at the time manned space fight was romanticized and astronauts were heroes, robotics had not advanced enough to be a viable substitute for humans. Today everything that the Space Shuttle did can be done by remotely controlled or robotically controlled ships. Right now there are men in orbit around earth aboard the international space station and there probably will be for years to come. Outside of the scientific community much of modern space exploration is met with little or no enthusiasm, and it surprises me that this topic has seen as many postings as it has. I would love to see a new space race to Mars, maybe against China, but a manned mission to Mars is going to take along time to happen, which was my point.

Whatever happened to taking steps and leaps for all mankind?

So we are going to have to do a lot of boring hard work and take a lot small little steps before we can get out into the stars, and even then with light speed or FTL we will only be scratching the surface of what’s out there.

 

[DocMoc]

We've been able to detect larger objects, but anything as small as earth is pretty much impossible right now.

We have in fact found a short list of bodies that are comparable to the mass of the Earth. This is what I mean by "Earth-like". Exhibit A: Gliese 581c.



Also, for everyone who doesn't believe space exploration is worth it. I present to you, Carl Sagan.

 

[NickKmet]

We have in fact found a short list of bodies that are comparable to the mass of the Earth. This is what I mean by "Earth-like". Exhibit A: Gliese 581c.

If you notice, it says 5.6 times the mass of the earth. That's a pretty large planet. I was referring to the fact that we can't yet or haven't been able to detect objects that are about the size of the earth. Yes, 5.6 times isn't exactly that much larger in the grand scheme of things, but we still can't get anything much less than that.

At least that's how I understand it. Actually finding planets the size of the earth or smaller is still impossible. That's what I meant from my statement.

 

[Wes]

I was referring to the fact that we can't yet or haven't been able to detect objects that are about the size of the earth. .

Somebody didn't watch the video...

 

[DocMoc]

Gotcha Nick.

 

[intoTheRain]

Sometimes it's hard to fully grasp just how f****** big our solar system alone is. But to travel to our closest star and explore that solar system is just beyond ridiculous. But i'm not saying it can't be done. I also believe in 100 years time we'll not only be able to travel to our closest solar system, but to other stars as well. We just need to figure out how to bend space and time.

i wish.

honestly EVERYONE who is interested in this thread, go out and buy, and read 1 page of Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku, I say 1 page because i know if you read 1 page you won't be able to stop until you're done, except to take breaks to text friends and tell family mind blowing facts you read along the way.

go, NOW

We've been able to detect larger objects, but anything as small as earth is pretty much impossible right now.

We have in fact found a short list of bodies that are comparable to the mass of the Earth. This is what I mean by "Earth-like". Exhibit A: Gliese 581c.



Also, for everyone who doesn't believe space exploration is worth it. I present to you, Carl Sagan.

the gliese planets are like 20 light years away.. a stones throw in the grand scheme of things. and we've found a number of planets similar to earth just at that extremely close distance

 

[intoTheRain]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story ... lanet.html

some decent info in that article + another potentially habitable world.

edit: also

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story ... light.html

 

[tinymhg]

Good links Rain. Mars by 2030.

 

[intoTheRain]

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09 ... &hpt=hp_c2

a planet with 2 suns has been discovered! so cool

 

[tinymhg]

They are calling it Tatooine, as homage to George Lucas’s 2 sun planet in Star Wars. I also hear he’s trying to figure out how to change it.

 

[De-Ting]

"It's believed that double-star systems outnumber single-star systems."

........Well that's a buzz kill...

 

[WickedLiquid]

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/15/tatooine-gives-first-direct-proof-of-2-sun-planet/?&hpt=hp_c2

a planet with 2 suns has been discovered! so cool

That's awesome! I wonder how it orbits the stars? Does it go around both of them in a circle. Or does it go through the two suns, orbiting them like an infinity symbol? Either way it's pretty cool.