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Travel to Extra-solar Planets Possible? Well, Not Now But…
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So the Kepler telescope has discovered two new planets, not too much bigger than Earth, and located in the “goldilocks zone” of their stars, meaning that liquid water, and presumably life, might exist there. The nearer planet is “only” 1200 light years from us. The farthest, 2800 light years.
To put that into perspective, it takes light about 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel the 93 million miles separating us from the sun. Traveling at the speed of light, it would take a ship 1200 years to get to the nearest of these planets. That doesn’t take into account speeding up and slowing down. We could make 50,478,400 round trips to the sun in the time it would take to get to the farthest of the two planets. And these two planets are relatively close in terms of just galactic distances. So why bother even thinking about the possibility of life on these two worlds, or of some day visiting them?
Well, back in Columbus’s time nobody had conceived of steam power or the internal combustion engine either–or of being able to plot a course with a computer. On Star Trek, the Enterprise is powered by anti-matter conversion–right now the concept that would produce the most energy per unit of fuel. We don’t have anti-matter conversion yet. We don’t even know how to make enough anti-matter to give it a try. But the best “scientists” in Columbus’s time didn’t know how to produce gasoline either. Even if anti-matter engines became real they would produce only enough energy to make travel in this solar system an everyday occurrence. It would still take hundreds of years to get much of anywhere else in the galaxy. So Star Trek goes one step further. The Enterprise uses dilithium crystals powered by the anti-matter to warp space. Its engines shorten the fabric of space ahead of it and lengthen the fabric behind it. That shortens the actual distance the ship has to travel. Sounds fantastic but some parts of cutting edge physics suggest that space actually has a “fabric” that might be malleable. For example, we know that the universe is expanding. And when cosmologists say that, they don’t mean that galaxies are rushing away from each other. They mean the actual fabric of space is expanding in all directions. Still pretty far out. But so would a passenger jet be to Alexander the Great.
Each generation prefers to believe that it has discovered most of what is important about reality, and all researchers have to do is fill in some of the details. We are in that mode now. But sooner or later, a discovery or invention occurs that changes the world and the whole way scientists look at things. Einstein’s theories would be one example. The invention of gunpowder might be another. Computers and the internet a third. I would prefer to believe that there is much we still don’t know and that one of those discoveries in the future will put us on a path to the stars. Limitations are always challenges to human beings, and the accumulation of knowledge is proceeding at a much faster pace today than it was in Columbus’s time.
Tags: astronomy, deep space, exploration, futurism, propulsion system, technology, the future, travel, universe
Human Future Needs to be In Space
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Humans have always been a species not satisfied with the way things are. At least certain members of the species want to move on, move up, make a name for themselves doing things that nobody else has done. But we have reached the point where individuals can no longer conquer the greatest challenges we face. Now it takes groups–whole governments in fact.
The question is up in the air whether the United States will continue its intellectual spiritual, and financial domination of the world. We seem at this point to be a country too self-satisfied and comfortable with our two car garages, and extreme shopping trips on Black Friday. We worry more about whether our kids will have the latest power ranger than about where we are headed as a nation. In order to avoid laziness and stagnation as a people, we need new fields to conquer. Space exploration provides that field, and it is the ultimate field, offering a literally infinite series of new worlds to conquer (literally).
But it is an area that will take more ongoing systematic, carefully planned effort than anything man has ever attempted. It will take the combined resources of both government and private industry, perhaps of several nations to get very far with this undertaking. It would be foolish to devote so many resources to this effort than other areas of need–military, health care, education, welfare were seriously neglected. Yet, a reasonable part of our GNP could be devoted to space without endangering any of these programs. We did it in the 1960’s to put men on the moon and nobody starved as a result.
What has seemed to be lacking in the last 25 years or so is the will. There is a mistaken notion that putting people in space is really expensive, yet NASA is run on only one-half of one per cent of the government’s total budget. Increasing that to one penny as Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson and others are advocating would allow NASA to begin an effective manned program with goals that could be reached in a reasonable future. NASA should be out in front, doing the hard research and development in space exploration with private enterprise following up taking over projects that stand a reasonable chance of eventually producing a profit–like mining asteroids for the precious metals that are used more and more in our electronic devices or taking tourists to the moon.
Columbus had no idea of the eventual riches that would come from exploring and colonizing North and South America, and neither do we have much of an inkling of what riches will be made available for this world through the exploration of the solar system, and eventually, the stars. Just the industry and skills needed to carry out the job would put thousands of people to work in all kinds of industries. And the new items that would be invented would further enhance our lives.
Tags: asteroid mining, deep space, education, futurism, transportation, travel, universe
New Direction for Society Needed–Guest Article
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Still, I would, were I running for President, encourage the industry of a (deep) space economy. Heeding the warning of Eisenhower on the Military-Industrial Complex, and wary of Newt Gingrich’s Sci-fi colonization schema, I would revise the 1989 Rockwell Integrated Space systems flow chart for manned space travel (see below), and pursue areas of manned and unmanned research. We are prime for it. Our technology needs a new direction and new context to grow or construct new meaning, our workforce needs a new “cathedral industry” to build. We need new and appropriate benchmarks and goals. Space should become our new development of math/science/cultural growth, our new pyramids to build, our new castles that require generations to finish, our new mystery to send explorers into, our new transcontinental railroad, our new interstate system, our new race to put a man into space. We have an unexplored Louisiana Purchase before us. We are Jefferson and we need to hire Lewis and have him hire Clark and commission research.
Tags: astronomy, deep space, economic stimulation, economy, evolution, exploration, futurism, human settlement, jobs, Mars, research, rockets, solar system, Space, technology, travel, universe
Nearest Star System has Planet
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Astronomers have discovered a planet circling one of the stars in the triple star Alpha Centauri system, a group that is practically right in our back yard. Not only that, but the planet seems to be roughly earth-sized. Unfortunately, it orbits much closer than the earth to its star making a year on the surface equal to only 3.2 days. Scientists estimate the surface temperature might be as high as 2200 degrees Fahrenheit on this planet where the sun would fill about three-quarters of the sky. Not a good place to sun bathe and any pools would have to be made out of molten lava.
The discovery of this one planet makes it likely that other planets, perhaps small ones like Earth, also inhabit the Centauri system, which is made up of Alpha Centauri A. Alpha Centauri B and Proxima Centauri. While the general distance to this star system is considered to be about 4.3 light years, making it the closest star system to Earth, Proxima Centauri is slightly closer to us than its two companions. Still, it would take over 40,000 years to get there using current rocket technology.
.It took astronomers 450 days of observation to pin down the location and existence of the new planet. Alpha Centauri A and B are sunlike stars. A is slightly larger and brighter than our sun, and B is just a little smaller and about half as bright. The planet circles B. Alpha Centauri C is a red dwarf star.
The Alpha Centauri system is the home world for the blue-skinned Na’vi in the science fiction movie Avatar. Inhbitants of a planet in this system would see two suns in their skies, at least part of the time, just as Luke Skywalker did on Tatouine.
For many years astronomers thought that double or triple star systems couldn’t have planets because the gravitational perturbations wouldn’t allow it. They were wrong. This new discovery should fire up people’s imaginations, and perhaps, their desire for interstellar travel.
Tags: astronomy, deep space, esploration, futurism, human settlement, propulsion system, science fiction, the future, travel, universe
What Will Things be Like in 2312?–A Review
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Creating from scratch an entire detailed and convincing future covering human expansion into the solar system, global warming, the effects of longevity treatments, and the creation of artificial life forms would not be an easy task for a science fiction writer, but Kim Stanley Robinson pulls it off better than most could. Already accomplished for his Martian trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, along with a dozen or so other books, Robinson presents a believable view of life in the year 2312 in his latest novel entitled, strangely enough, 2312.
Three hundred years from now, Mars has been terraformed. Venus and Titan are in the process of being made surface livable for humans, and thousands of asteroids have been hollowed out to create comfortable living environments. Earth is suffering from the effects of overpopulation and global warming. New York City has become the new Venice, Italy, as rising sea levels inundate its streets. Travel between planets is as common and as quick as travel between continents by ship is today thanks to propulsion system advances which are being worked on even in the present.
Mr. Robinson introduces two main characters, who are eerily reminiscent of certain individuals introduced in his Mars trilogy, through whose eyes we are treated to his grand view of the future. Swan Er Hong, 137 years old, (remember the longevity treatments), and Fitz Wahram who was born on Titan. They embark on a quest to find out who has destroyed Terminator, a city on Mercury and Swan’s home. Their travels take them all over the solar system and back to Earth several times, and, of course, they manage to eventually fall in love along the way, during which we are treated to extended musings on what love really is, and whether a marriage could really be sustained for hundreds of years.
The strengths of this novel are not so much in the plot as in the strong and lengthy character development, and the hopeful and detailed view of the future, along with the main characters’ inner struggles to answer age-old questions about the nature of humanity, the role of self-awareness, and what purpose can be generated within an individual existence that might last for a thousand years.
If you are looking for space opera with plenty of action centering around evil aliens, this book is not for you. None of Robinson’s books are. But if you’re interested in intellectual stimulation, and reasonably extrapolated and detailed looks at the future, then definitely read 2312.
Tags: 2312, exploration, human settlement, Kim Stanley Robinson, science fiction, the future, travel
Most Popular Museum
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The most popular museum in the world is not The Louvre in Paris. It’s the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. with 9 million visitors a year. What does that tell you about people’s imaginations?
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