

Project Longshot: 100 Year probe mission to Alpha Centauri - sown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Longshot

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rtf
My favorite Wikipedia article(and also a space-related article) is "Ultimate
fate of the universe":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe>

It's the dramatic title that does it for me.

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vaksel
sounds like a waste of money...look how far we went with the automobile in 100
years...is innovation that dead? Will we not have any improvements to our
space program in the next 100 years? I sure hope we do, because in the next
100 years the population problem will be huge

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streety
How far has the automobile industry advanced in the last 100 years? Four
wheels, petrol engine. Personally I'm still waiting for my flying car.

Of course that could be slightly harsh. The land speed record has been broken
again and again in that time period. That brings up an interesting point. Only
one of those attempts set out to break the speed of sound, all the rest set
out to beat the last guy.

We need targets to aim for and any project which aims to pass the incumbent
leader in 10 years will be a lot more politically valuable than a project
which will reach Alpha Centauri in 50 years. Even if they are the same
project.

Having said that this discussion is entirely academic. The proposal was made
in 1988 and not followed up. Today, we're just aiming for the Moon.

p.s. Good luck solving whatever population problem there may be via space. I
wouldn't like to try shipping a billion people 100 miles. Moving them to
another world would need more than improvements to the space program. It would
need the space program to be made irrelevant.

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vaksel
Well a few things:

a) We now have dozens of different forms of propulsion(gas, ethanol, biofuel,
CNG, electricity, hydrogen etc) b) We now have FWD, AWD, RWD c) We now have
cars that have 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 cylinders d) We now have cars that
come naturally aspirated, turboed, supercharged, twin turboed, twin
supercharged ,quad turboed. e) We now have cars that can take a hit at 100
mph, and you'll survive f) We now have cars that can do a 0 to 100 in just a
couple of seconds. g) We have cars that will adjust the suspension based on a
hairline crack in the road. h) We now have cars, that can go up a 89 degree
slope, in the snow(Audi/Subaru AWD systems) i) And of course our cars now come
better equipped than CEO offices from when they first came out.

But yes space program needs to make space a commodity. Where you can walk to
your roof, get in your personal space ship and go pickup your buddy on Sirius
3 to go that hot new restaurant on Mars.

And it could probably be done, just 100 years ago cars were a thing for the
richest of the rich. Now everyone has one.

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sown
I dunno.

Cars still travel more or less the same speed for the purpose of personal
transport, etc. Getting to Alpha Centauri is going to take a fundamental
change in space travel technology.

Also, a) we had diesel/electric/gas motors a century ago, b) would you believe
that we had FWD/AWD a century ago? We did! c) we've always had engines with
insane number of cylinders d) i'll admit turbos are newer -- 1930's planes
first used them e) i still don't want to be in them and they're not foolproof
as we as having different engineering goals than a normal car. g) no comment.
:) h) so could the original jeep (GP) i) have you seen the inside of a chevy
recently?

Our current space travel tech needs a couple of orders of magnitude in
improvement before we can just travel to distant stars at will. Your examples
are incremental improvements to practical problems. In the mean time, I say we
send a probe! :)

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Anon84
It would probably return as V'ger and try to destroy the Earth when it
realized that nobody was able to recognize its primitive protocols.

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altano
Or L'shot in this case

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iamah
100 years, man I feel so vain

