100-Year Starship Project Forges Ahead With First Round of Funding - Polidicks

[QUOTE=OvB;36058627] [img]http://i.imgur.com/0RF63.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Are those turrets on the wings?

[QUOTE=StackOfPoo;36058318]The difference between, say, year 1900 and today is that in 1900 we didn't know what would and what would not be possible, whereas today we know enough to form an educated guess about future possibilities. So we can pretty comfortably say that we won't be inventing FTL travel, antigravity, reactionless drives or instant communications, ever. Just the fact that any data from an alpha centauri probe would INEVITABLY take over 4 years to arrive is a quite significant deterrent. Even at a fraction of the distance we would already have essentially ZERO controllability of the probe, necessitating capabilities for completely autonomous action. The faster you want to get there, the more deceleration propellant you need, making the craft heavier and thus needing even more propellant etc. All this on top of the gigantic communications device, ginormous telescopes(and other scientific payload). And to correct the trajectory of this humongous pile of stuff, you need another relatively giant amount of fuel. And then try to make all of it reliable enough to be even considered worth it. In fact, even if succesful, the scientific gains from such a probe would likely be negligible. First of all, there's no point for humanity to support a project that couldn't bring back the knowledge to Earth. Secondly, I wasn't even talking about a manned craft. That would bring a whole new slew of extreme problems.[/QUOTE] Read the damn article. If a DARPA group and an astronaut think todays technological arc is good enough, then please, let me see what YOU got. [editline]22nd May 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=StackOfPoo;36058690]I'm not saying we won't learn anything. We'll definitely learn a lot. What I am saying is that we won't learn enough to make interstellar travel an attainable goal.[/QUOTE] But apparently people qualified in this shit do.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;36062037]Read the damn article. If a DARPA group and an astronaut think todays technological arc is good enough, then please, let me see what YOU got.[/QUOTE] I suggest you re-read his post. He never said it's impossible, he pointed out that in order to be even vaguely plausible it would not be FTL and it would not be manned, and in any case more or less pointless from a practical standpoint thanks to those two issues. What I don't understand about this 'initiative' is why they're so dead-set on leaving the solar system. Just exploring our own solar system is challenge enough, but with actual benefits involved and no dealing with either impossible FTL or travel times measured in decades to centuries.

it's alright everyone, we might not have space but we still have each other <3

[QUOTE=StackOfPoo;36058552]As I tried to explain in my most recent post, you can't really compare the lack of knowledge of the future 100 years ago to the current situation. Aside from a few fundamental explanations(why is there gravity, nature of dark matter/energy etc.), we pretty much know how the universe works. 100 years ago nobody could say how strong the strongest possible material is. Modern chemistry and material science could probably give a good estimate, thus restricting future innovations. We know of the universal speedlimit, 100 years ago FTL travel was still on the table. [/QUOTE] We also have principles that could still allow Apparent FTL Travel.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36057964]When I was little, I use to tell people I'll live forever because right now the life expectancy is 75 and by time I hit 75, it'll be 100, and by time I'm 100, it'll be 120, and by time I'm 120.... :v:[/QUOTE] This is what is happening now. You were right. And no, you won't be an old man getting older and older.

[QUOTE=thatguyfosho;36062567]it's alright everyone, we might not have space but we still have each other <3[/QUOTE] hold me

hopefully by the time I graduate from college and start looking for a job there'll be an opening for an applied physicist

As much as I'd like us having starships, do we know any method of FTL propulsion that even has a chance of working? Space travel isn't fun when your corpse arrives to a new planet.

Reading things like this makes me sad that I won't ever get to see it happen for myself. I wish i lived in the future... but I'll probably say this even if i did. That said I would like to cyrogenicaly freeze myself to the future.

[QUOTE=FreakyMe;36058343]A little over a hundred years ago planes were called a 'novel idea that would ultimately have no real-world application' due to their inefficiency. Computers and the television simply didn't exist, and recorded media was a new trend. Diseases were killing off a lot of us. Look at the progress we made in 100 years, and I don't think it is a stretch of the imagination to say the advancements that will be made in the next 100 years is unfathomable to us.[/QUOTE] Yeah back in the days around World War 1 a lot of military generals laughed their ass off at the idea of an air force, that planes were barely useful and would only ever be useful for finding enemy positions. Today they transport millions of people around the world, and in war they absolutely hammer ground forces, and let's not forget Enola Gay. [editline]23rd May 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=dragon926;36064048]Reading things like this makes me sad that I won't ever get to see it happen for myself. I wish i lived in the future... but I'll probably say this even if i did. That said I would like to cyrogenicaly freeze myself to the future.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.manhattanbeachproject.com/[/url] Their might be a ton of shit ads on the site but the people behind the4 project are pretty big in their fields, and their job is to make sure everyone lives longer and longer until biological immortality is a possibility, so don't be so sure that you won't survive long enough, fuck if you're in your teens or there about just now there's a good chance you'll make it. Just don't get killed and you're jammin buddy.

It is going to be interesting to see what happens over the coming years with technology. The possibility's will be endless, also be interesting to see how governments react to all of this as well over the coming years.

[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;36064422]Yeah back in the days around World War 1 a lot of military generals laughed their ass off at the idea of an air force, that planes were barely useful and would only ever be useful for finding enemy positions.[/QUOTE] The difference is nobody was saying powered flight is impossible. What we have today that makes it different from a hundred years ago is that we're starting to understand the physical limits of the universe, and from knowing those limits we can say pretty definitively what is or is not physically possible. Even if some new theory comes along that overturns relativity, it'll have to explain why all the old tests for relativity indicated that it is correct, which means it is more likely than not that this new theory will make FTL even more impossible. Basically, it's not really a comparable situation.