Topic: Xena and Gabrielle

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The astronomers who claim to have discovered the 10th planet in the Earth's solar system have made another intriguing announcement: it has a moon.

[prometheus]

Interesting stuff!    These Kuiper belt objects could help answer some questions about planetary formation if we get a probe out their to do a more detailed analysis...

[Stormbringer]

They could also enable my idea about building a terra sized planet from scratch in the present life zone of Sol or in theprojected  life zone after Sol begins to swell.

[Nemesis]

1/ Build fusion starship in Earth orbit
2/ Fly to Ceres and top up the on board water tanks
3/ Fly to vicinity of Xena and Gabrielle
4/ Embed starship in proto comet
5/ Use comet as combined fuel tank and radiation shielding while flying to next star system.
6/ Name new home world Nemesis.

[Stormbringer]

interestingly in warp theory like either Alcubierre, Krasnikov or the modified alcubierre do not require shileds because it is isolated from normal space time. nothing can reach it from the outside. radiation, particles, grit, asteroids and so on are forced to space outside and around the warp bubble.

[prometheus]

I think you guys are getting a little bit ahead of yourselves.  Warp theory is mystical pseudo science, and we haven't even managed to terraform Glasgow yet, let alone lumps of ice and rock in far flung orbits...

[Nemesis]

interestingly in warp theory like either Alcubierre, Krasnikov or the modified alcubierre do not require shileds because it is isolated from normal space time. nothing can reach it from the outside. radiation, particles, grit, asteroids and so on are forced to space outside and around the warp bubble.

I can just see it now:

The date January 19^th 2038 AD the time 03:14:07 AM GMT.  An aging Captain Stormbringer aboard the NX-03 Starship One.

Captain Stormbringer:  Helm activate the Alcubierre drive course Alpha Centauri.

Ship shakes and then stablizes.  Stormbringer examines the sensor readings, sees the bubble of spacetime around his ship expanding faster than light and new matter and energy coalescing out of the newly forming space. He sits back and says.

Captain Stormbringer:  So thats how it happens. 

Captain Stormbringer:  Let there be light.

[Stormbringer]

Too funny! 

[Nemesis]

I think you guys are getting a little bit ahead of yourselves.  Warp theory is mystical pseudo science, and we haven't even managed to terraform Glasgow yet, let alone lumps of ice and rock in far flung orbits...

I'm a science fiction fan, what more can I say. 

If someone had not once dreamt of how much easier it would be to hunt with the aid of a wolf rather than in competition with it we wouldn't have dogs.

Goddard dreamt of a lunar probe - in the 1930s.  He was told it was a dream a fantasy, could never be done.  We have watched his dream become reality and grow.

Everything starts with a dream.  Some of us dream of the planets and the stars.  Perhaps one day our dreams will be the foundations for others as Goddards dream is our foundation.

[prometheus]

I think you guys are getting a little bit ahead of yourselves.  Warp theory is mystical pseudo science, and we haven't even managed to terraform Glasgow yet, let alone lumps of ice and rock in far flung orbits...

I'm a science fiction fan, what more can I say. 

If someone had not once dreamt of how much easier it would be to hunt with the aid of a wolf rather than in competition with it we wouldn't have dogs.

Goddard dreamt of a lunar probe - in the 1930s.  He was told it was a dream a fantasy, could never be done.  We have watched his dream become reality and grow.

Everything starts with a dream.  Some of us dream of the planets and the stars.  Perhaps one day our dreams will be the foundations for others as Goddards dream is our foundation.

I know I always rattle on about this, but it's got to be better for the rank and file of humanity, the tax payers who are actually footing the bill for scientific research, if we avoid mysticism and stick to real science that can actaully benefit mankind...  For all the technical difficulties in reaching the moon, it wasn't a case of breaching physical laws or taking hypothetical constructs to their outer limits and treating them as physical reality...   

As it stands at the moment, we can build rockets that can carry you to the orbit of Jupiter and then we rely on the gravitational slingshot effect to get any further, the probe being pitched in a new direction at greater speed, so having the power to push asteroids around is not happening in our lifetime, I'd be amazed if we could even deflect one headed for the Earth right now, but I can accept that we might build more powerful engines in the future, but breaching lightspeed is not happening for manned spacecraft ever under any circumstances whatsoever...

Even a manned mission to Mars is something that is not going to happen until I'm an old, old man, if I live to see it at all, but I can see that as a worthy dream to strive for...  Anyone with a keen scientific mind who is spending their time thinking about breaching lightspeed or traversing wormholes is doing themselves and mankind a disservice...  They could apply their mental processing power to real science and real progress...

[Tus-XC]

its what.. 15 years till were supposed to have had a manned mission to mars (if all goes well)?  well then i'll be 35 .  so how old are you that 15 years will make you an 'old old man' .  that is unless you mean regular manned missions....

o and as to breaking the speed of light... the sound barrier was believed to be unbreakable, we have planes that go mach 3+ (not counting the shuttle).  Hell it was thought impossible to get somthing into orbit, thats happened.  during those times periods that was fact, today the speed of light is our fact, down the road, eh, i wouldn't doubt if we found a way around it or to break it.  this of course presumes that with time our understanding of the universe grows....

[prometheus]

its what.. 15 years till were supposed to have had a manned mission to mars (if all goes well)?  well then i'll be 35 .  so how old are you that 15 years will make you an 'old old man' .  that is unless you mean regular manned missions....

It's slated by NASA to be thirteen years (2018 and probably then some) till we have another manned mission to the moon which is thought to be the proving ground for the technology needed to look at a Martian Mission, and then perhaps another 15 to get to Mars if there are no more stupid wars or disasters that divert the funding....  My prediction is that I'm going to be in my 60's or 70's (I'm thirty now) before a man is landed on Mars...

o and as to breaking the speed of light... the sound barrier was believed to be unbreakable, we have planes that go mach 3+ (not counting the shuttle).  Hell it was thought impossible to get somthing into orbit, thats happened.  during those times periods that was fact, today the speed of light is our fact, down the road, eh, i wouldn't doubt if we found a way around it or to break it.  this of course presumes that with time our understanding of the universe grows....

No offense, but this theoretical construct could simply not be more wrong.  The sound barrier was never thought to be a Universal Speed Limit, just a barrier in our atmosphere, and they weren't exactly wrong, there is generated a massive compression wave that propogates in the time domain when an object breaks the sound barrier.  Engineers used to think this might break a plane up or make it go out of control...  Physicsts understood that there were cosmic rays that travelled vastly faster than Sound long before 1947 and that nothing could out trace light, so to compare the sound barrier to the light barrier is totally inappropriate from an engineering standpoint...

Light Speed, on the other hand, is literally a stone wall limitation in the sky, and anyone who thinks it can be breached demonstrates a fundamental understanding of physical laws.  The maths for reaching lightspeed are precisely the same as the maths for reaching absolutely zero, a never ending logarithmic curve culminating in massive amounts of energy leading to infinitecimal amounts of change...

[Tus-XC]

i never said that those were the fastest speeds at the time, i said that at that time it was thought impossible to break them, as in we did not have the technology or the understanding to break them.  the very same concept   goes for ftl travel

[prometheus]

i never said that those were the fastest speeds at the time, i said that at that time it was thought impossible to break them, as in we did not have the technology or the understanding to break them.  the very same concept   goes for ftl travel

It was never thought that the sound barrier was unbreakable, merely that it caused engineering problems if it was broken within the lower altitudes of Earths atmosphere...   And they were right.  Why do you think the Space Shuttle throttles back to 72% rated engine performance to break the Sound Barrier and then gets a Throttle Up Go afterwards?  The Sound Barrier destroyed the Challenger Shuttle...  Even Aircraft that break Mach 1 do so at High Altitude where Aerodynamic Pressure is far less than it is down here... 

Unfortunately, Spacetime pressure, or more correctly the Spacetime Metric holds fast throughout Spacetime, hence no breach of the light barrier...  If you don't want to take my word for it, do a google search under special relativity...