NASA: All hope is gone, were f*cked

[rebgirl420]

Rocket Scientists Say We'll Never Reach the Stars

Many believe that humanity's destiny lies with the stars. Sadly for us, rocket propulsion experts now say we may never even get out of the Solar System.

At a recent conference, rocket scientists from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and academia doused humanity's interstellar dreams in cold reality. The scientists, presenting at the Joint Propulsion Conference in Hartford, Connecticut, analyzed many of the designs for advanced propulsion that others have proposed for interstellar travel. The calculations show that, even using the most theoretical of technologies, reaching the nearest star in a human lifetime is nearly impossible.

"In those cases, you are talking about a scale of engineering that you can't even imagine," Paulo Lozano, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a conference attendee, said in a recent interview.

The major problem is that propulsion -- shooting mass backwards to go forwards -- requires large amounts of both time and fuel. For instance, using the best rocket engines Earth currently has to offer, it would take 50,000 years to travel the 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri, our solar system's nearest neighbor. Even the most theoretically efficient type of propulsion, an imaginary engine powered by antimatter, would still require decades to reach Alpha Centauri, according to Robert Frisbee, group leader in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group within NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

And then there's the issue of fuel. It would take at least the current energy output of the entire world to send a probe to the nearest star, according to Brice N. Cassenti, an associate professor with the Department of Engineering and Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That's a generous figure: More likely, Cassenti says, it would be as much as 100 times that.

"We just can't extract the resources from the Earth," Cassenti said during his presentation. "They just don't exist. We would need to mine the outer planets."

Rocket Scientists Say We'll Never Reach the Stars (http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/space_limits)

Well guys, were fucked haha. Damn you science, your witchcraft fails again!

[apocolips31]

Who knows what we might discover or learn that could make that possible. I think it is too early to throw in the towel. We already have cryogenics that could be used to freeze someone for very long periods of time.

[rebgirl420]

Yeah it's not the freezing thats hard, it's the un-freezing that doesn't go so well haha.

But your correct, throwing in the towel would be a horrible thing. There is still soooo much out there that we don't know. I have faith in American technology and our people to figure this out.

[Esoteric416]

American technology?

No offense intended Rebgirl, but thats too narrow-minded. This whole thing should be a global concept because it's a global problem. If we as a species just hang out on earth for too long we'll all eventually die from who knows what kind of astonomical event.
Since we are talking about the future of the species it is the resources of the entire species that should be utilized.
I realize that the idea of a truly international research team for interstelar travel probably isnt feisable right now but hopefully in the not too distant future we can pull our collective head out of our collective ass and get together on the important issues.
Like this one. :D

[grow1964]

We are still in our infancy as a species and as far as technology is concerned. If we dont destroy ourselves first then we may have a chance for us to develope the technologies needed. Thats a big IF though.. There may be some big advances wih the new antimatter generator they are firing up this month or next i think over in Europe. It will probably require another 5-10,000 years for us to develope the technologies needed to leave the solar system

[stinkyattic]

Option A: Use up the resources of our home planet or poison it through nuclear war or pollution, leave smoking remains, go look for new habitat that may or may not exist, choose from those who are left who gets to go.

Option B: Put same effort into improving conditions on the planet we already conveniently inhabit.

An analogy:

A person buys a house. The roof is leaky. He ignores it, and it becomes a hole. The hole gets bigger, and in a few years the house is damaged beyond repair due to freeze/thaw cycles, mold, animal chewing, and loss of structural integrity of all plaster surfaces. Now he has to buy a new house, and can't really sell the current one for much more than a tear-down, when a simple new roof would have allowed him to live happily in the house he already owns.

Let's work on our own house first, and see what neat stuff our Solar System neighborhood has to offer!

[Psycho4Bud]

Let's work on our own house first, and see what neat stuff our Solar System neighborhood has to offer!

Hell yeah! I don't think that I'd be that anxious to go trippin' through space anyways....never know what ya might return to.

Have a good one!:jointsmile:

[higher4hockey]

the stars? shit i'll be happy with reaching old age.

[killerweed420]

Yeah I'd like to see a global effort. NASA's only job now is to put spy sats in the sky. If we're not going to us NASA for what it was intended for lets scrap it.

[stinkyattic]

Hell yeah! I don't think that I'd be that anxious to go trippin' through space anyways....never know what ya might return to.Yeah dude. I don't want to come home to Mark Wahlberg either. All set. :D

[Dream of the iris]

He's right. If we work on the problems we have now we can do it....though I must say it is a very slim chance given the fact that there's just too much diversity to come to a consensus. If you guys ever get a chance check out Plan B 3.0. You can google it and get a free copy (legally). In any case our only chance of reaching the stars is by moving to a new planet....Mar's could be a good choice. Adding certain elements from Earth into what is already on Mar's could re-establish itself so that it could once again sustain life. But that's not happening any time soon so thats a big problem. But in any case whoever thinks there was ever a chance of reaching distant stars by simply moving really fast is terribly mistaken. Space is just too big to move around on a rocket. We need to really think outside of the box and figure out a way to bend space and time. Once we do that the sky's the limit.

[rebgirl420]

American technology?

No offense intended Rebgirl, but thats too narrow-minded. This whole thing should be a global concept because it's a global problem. If we as a species just hang out on earth for too long we'll all eventually die from who knows what kind of astonomical event.
Since we are talking about the future of the species it is the resources of the entire species that should be utilized.
I realize that the idea of a truly international research team for interstelar travel probably isnt feisable right now but hopefully in the not too distant future we can pull our collective head out of our collective ass and get together on the important issues.
Like this one. :D

It's not narrow minded, I know other countries all work together, like on the space station, and it all turns out just dandy. Everything in your post was complete common sense. I just feel like America has the resources and cash to really continue on being the best when it comes to these sort of things. But mind you I realize that Japan is just as fantastic, they built a whole new lab for the space station and it's really nifty. You can't do such a HUGE project alone :)

[theforthdrive]

Is this really news? I thought they decided along time ago that conventional rocket power would never work and that only worm holes or something along those lines would work! Proxima Centauri at 4.21 Light Years meaning that even if we traveled at the speed of light its an 8.5 year round trip!

but I completely agree with the "lets work on our home first" mantra. What a stupid American consumerism way to look at life.... no big deal if we F this planet up, we can buy another cheap version from the Chinese right?

[purplehaze11]

We need to really think outside of the box and figure out a way to bend space and time. Once we do that the sky's the limit.

Indiadaily.com - UFO Propulsion System - Bending time and space (http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/1944.asp)

The above article gives information about the theory of bending space and time; that's some crazy theoretical shit. Moving from point A to point B isn't the fastest way to move, moving point A and point B themselves so that their distance is 0 is.

[Testament]

they are just narrow minded, imo.


the world was flat a few hundred years ago as well.

[MadSativa]

I belive all of this is not so far away. in fact I belive that many things in discussion have been in reality for a very , very , very long time now.

[Coelho]

Is this really news? I thought they decided along time ago that conventional rocket power would never work and that only worm holes or something along those lines would work! Proxima Centauri at 4.21 Light Years meaning that even if we traveled at the speed of light its an 8.5 year round trip!

My thoughts exactly... the magnitude of the astronomic measures is SO huge that our minds just cant process them meaningfully at all... Proxima Centauri, the NEAREST star (besides the sun) is at only 25,000,000,000,000 miles from here...
For making a comparation... if the Earth were a marble with 1/2 inch of diameter, this Proxima Centauri would be some 25,000 miles from it... (which coincidently is the distance one must travel to make an entire circle around the world). And the fastest rocket we have would be moving at about 4 inches per hour... which is far less than a snails speed... so imagine a snail trying to travel around the world... it is the equivalent of we humans trying to reach, using rockets, Proxima Centauri...

[ldg420]

i honestly believe that no matter what we do on earth to "fix" the problems eventually the population will grow beyond control, due to advances in medicine, and we as a species will be forced to search for other planets/moons to inhabit. but before all of that happpens i think that the private sector will already be "harvesting" materials from extraterrestrial sources......my guess is that by 2050 we will have humans living and prospering in other worlds....but then again i expected flying cars by now:stoned:

[Coelho]

i honestly believe that no matter what we do on earth to "fix" the problems eventually the population will grow beyond control, due to advances in medicine, and we as a species will be forced to search for other planets/moons to inhabit.

Well... i agree that population will grow beyond control, but i think before mankind search other planets to inhabit, parts of it (nations, races, religions, whatever) will fight among themselves to be the sole inhabitants of this earth, instead cooperate ones with the others... why to go until the moon or even further if one can go to the neighbour country/continent and take it from someone else (weaker)?

[Divedeep129]

Read the book Ishmael... all of you... it'll give you kind of a better way to voice what it is it sounds like you're trying to say. Anyway, it's a good read. :)

[psychocat]

All scientific advances made in the last 100 years have been the result of the work of people from allover the world.
Unless mankind goes completely schizo and destroys itself (I believe that is going to happen) then we will continue to advance technologicaly , the possibilities are only limited by our current knowledge.

500 years ago nobody in the so called civilised world knew of America.

[dragonrider]

The article said that reaching another STAR within a human LIFETIME is virtually impossible. That is not really big news. The distances involved are so enormous!

However, that does not mean that we do not have a future in space. We do not need to reach another star within one human lifetime in order to have a future in space. It's essential for good science fiction, but not for a future in space.

I believe our future is in space. I think that within my own lifetime there will be people living on bases on the moon and possibly Mars and some asteroids. Eventually we will learn to use resources in space, and those outposts will become self-sustaining colonies. Once we learn to live in space in a self-sustaining way, our future in space is secured. There so much ROOM and so many RESOURCES in our own solar system that we may never need to leave it in order to survive into the far far distant future. The earth can only support so many peoiple, and we may have already passed that number, but our solar system could support hundreds of times as many people if necessary.

The solar system is vast, and astronomers are finding more and more very large planet-like objects far out beyond the orbit of pluto --- they are distant members of our solar system, not planets around other stars. But this cloud of objects may extend halfway to the nearest stars for all we know. It may be that we eventually reach distant stars not by flying there in one super-fast rocket all in one shot, but by successive colonization of ever more distant objects out into the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud over hundreds or thousands of generations.

Or we may develop super-advanced propulsion systems based on technologies that aren't even theortical yet. We went from sailing ships to nuclear submarines in less than 100 years.

It's fine for scientists to say we don't know how to do something now, or even theoritically how we would accomplish it in the future, but it would be stupid to say we will never know how to do something.

As for the take-care-of-earth versus the go-to-the-stars debate --- it is a false choice. I feel we absolutely must take care of our earth. We have a moral responsibility to ourselves, future generations and the other species that share our planet to preserve this world. But we also have the same moral responsibility to ourselves, future generations and the other species of earth to press forward into the void. We can't leave all our eggs in one basket. We need to take care of the basket, but also find other baskets and hide a few eggs in other places too. The danger to earth is not just that we humans might destroy it (which is about a 50-50 shot), but that a comet or asteroid or other cosmic calamity will destroy it. And we know for certain that eventually the sun will become so hot that it will vaporize this world, so at some point we will have to be a long way away if we want to survive.

[silkyblue]

Good info but all hope isnt gone

we 'arent equipt' to find centauri or the 'galaxy alley walls'
the fuel alone they would need for 50,000 years would spew burst of more poison to fall on us

the big bang

gravity the secret is in gravity


some things we will never know
NASA needs to accept that



spend the space research money to rid Americas poverty problems

and legalise medicinal herbs

[Coelho]

Eventually we will learn to use resources in space, and those outposts will become self-sustaining colonies. Once we learn to live in space in a self-sustaining way, our future in space is secured.

Yes... but first we need to learn how to live in this Earth in a self-sustaining way. If until now we werent able to do this here, with all the needed resources so much more easily obtainable, how can we hope to live this way in the space, where the things will be FAR harder?

[MadSativa]

500 years ago nobody in the so called civilised world knew of America.

Are you sure about that. Seems to me 2,000 years ago people were more advanced than 500 years ago. and the fact ramains that cocain was found in Egyptian tombs. I wouldnt be supprised if sooner or later we find a 1,000,000 year old airplane. And at some point someone has to question how we came from monkeys when monkeys are still around. Personlay I think the Monkeys and other apes are pissed at us cause we said we were distant cousines.

"god-dam dirty apes"

[dragonrider]

Yes... but first we need to learn how to live in this Earth in a self-sustaining way. If until now we werent able to do this here, with all the needed resources so much more easily obtainable, how can we hope to live this way in the space, where the things will be FAR harder?

The earth is a closed system --- all of our pollution remains on the earth and poisions the ecosystems we need to survive. There are only a limited amount of resources and we further destroy the environment to extract them.

It is different in space. Space is not a closed system. Pollution does not need to pile up to poisonous concentrations. Solar energy falls on onbjects in orbit 24 hours a day, not just during daylight hours. Some asteroids are composed on nearly pure metal --- no mining, just saw off a chunk. The ecosystems we bring along can be very simple and artificial.

I'm sure it will be very diffcult to learn to live in space, but the advantage of being outside a closed system will be huge once we learn how to do so. I'm confident that if we do not kill ourselves off in the next 100 years, we will live in space.