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davieG

Technology, Science and the Environment.

By davieG, in General Chat

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

Why not?

 

7 minutes ago, Nalis said:

Distance aside, heat would prevent getting close to one.

The heat isn't actually that big an issue if you're just going for a flyby...but yes, the sheer distance involved is what defeats us for now. We need engines with much better thrust efficiency (and I mean much better) before considering it.

 

It would be nice if we sent more probes to other places in the Solar System, though. Titan, Enceladus and Europa in particular demand a much closer look.

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

Why not?

 

Distance, as Mac said.

 

Even the nearest star is 4 light years away (about 23 trillion miles - New Horizons has travelled 4 billion in 13 years), and we can only reach a tiny fraction of light speed. Even if we could reach the kind of speeds to make it viable, that then introduces new problems, which are currently unsolvable. Even at the relatively pedestrian speed of the New Horizons craft, colliding with something as small as a grain of rice would be catastrophic. At the kind of speeds necessary for interstellar exploration, the same would be true of space dust, of which there is a surprisingly large amount.

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

I really meant simply putting an object into another solar system. I don't expect it to happen in my lifetime but it would interest me a lot more than some of the suggestions we get like moon bases and putting men on Mars. 

 

 

There is nothing remotely simple about it.

 

In fact, at the moment, it is impossible.

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Strokes

Strokes

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Buce said:

 

Distance, as Mac said.

 

Even the nearest star is 4 light years away (about 23 trillion miles - New Horizons has travelled 4 billion in 13 years), and we can only reach a tiny fraction of light speed. Even if we could reach the kind of speeds to make it viable, that then introduces new problems, which are currently unsolvable. Even at the relatively pedestrian speed of the New Horizons craft, colliding with something as small as a grain of rice would be catastrophic. At the kind of speeds necessary for interstellar exploration, the same would be true of space dust, of which there is a surprisingly large amount.

Huh, Hans solo never worried about space dust.

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LiberalFox

LiberalFox

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Buce said:

 

Distance, as Mac said.

 

Even the nearest star is 4 light years away (about 23 trillion miles - New Horizons has travelled 4 billion in 13 years), and we can only reach a tiny fraction of light speed. Even if we could reach the kind of speeds to make it viable, that then introduces new problems, which are currently unsolvable. Even at the relatively pedestrian speed of the New Horizons craft, colliding with something as small as a grain of rice would be catastrophic. At the kind of speeds necessary for interstellar exploration, the same would be true of space dust, of which there is a surprisingly large amount.

This is why we should be attempting to do it. What is the point of doing something that can be achieved with current technology?

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stripeyfox

stripeyfox

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, LiberalFox said:

This is why we should be attempting to do it. What is the point of doing something that can be achieved with current technology?

The distance even to a "local" star is collosal. The farthest man made objects from earth are the Voyager probes launched in the mid 70's which have been traveling away from the earth for over 40 years and in cosmic terms have barely even left our backyard. 

 

 

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Buce

Buce

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

This is why we should be attempting to do it. What is the point of doing something that can be achieved with current technology?

 

The reason we don’t have the technology is that we don’t even know theoretically how to do it. 

 

It isn’t Star Trek. 

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, yorkie1999 said:

Billions spent and what have we got. A f**kin snowman.

skynews-ultima-thule-nasa-snowman_4535906.jpg.cc2eae1ea64575aa2cf0a6b5f85f7079.jpg

Wait til we get the higher quality pics.

 

Though we're going to be waiting a while as the data rate is about 1kb/s.

 

3 hours ago, stripeyfox said:

The distance even to a "local" star is collosal. The farthest man made objects from earth are the Voyager probes launched in the mid 70's which have been traveling away from the earth for over 40 years and in cosmic terms have barely even left our backyard. 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Buce said:

 

The reason we don’t have the technology is that we don’t even know theoretically how to do it. 

 

It isn’t Star Trek. 

Well, in the interests of being pedantic, we do theoretically know how to do something like that, but it just wouldn't serve any useful purpose given that any probe launched now would still take about 30000-50000 years just to reach the Alpha Centauri system.

 

Like I said, better objectives would be exploring some of the moons we have in our own Solar System first, and perhaps looking at alternative, more elegant methods of propulsion than what is essentially just giant fireworks.

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leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, The Bear said:

Maybe in a few 100-1000 years when we have new physics and the technology that comes from that. 

 

That's if we haven't cooked ourselves into oblivion by then. 

Got to be looking at vehicles that do at least an appreciable fraction of c, tbh.

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Izzy

Izzy

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe

 

This is getting pretty close. :D

 

The only problem is it tends to get rather...uncomfortable that close to a gargantuan fusion reactor.

It's cos you need the old flux capacitor to generate 1.21gW first mate :thumbup:

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stripeyfox

stripeyfox

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

One quacowatt (gW), or 1*10^-23 watts, apparently (not sure if that's actually real or not).

 

But I think Izzy meant one gigawatt, or GW.

Sounds like my electricty bill with my missus and kids leaving every light in the house on ALL THE TIME!

 

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