Kepler Probe Begins To Find Exoplanets In Habitable Zone (And other cool cosmology stuff)

[bornagainathiest]

http://arstechnica.c...wded-system.ars

 

 

legitimate 9 planet solar system found.

 

 

: ponders changing title of thread to cool cosmology stuff :

 

Good work Stryper!

 

The more science can demonstrate that our solar system is just ordinary and average (not special and favored), the more that knocks the props from under the Theist's arguments.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

Ok you guys!

 

While I agree that it's impossible to predict what will be discovered tomorrow (a working FTL drive or even a working fusion system), I can't help but think that any discussion about the human race spreading out to the stars has to be framed in terms of what we currently know, not what might be.

(Please note that I'm not trying to be combative here. Everyone is entitled their own p.o.v. I'm just trying to dealing with the known, ok?)

 

Therefore, what do we know?

 

1.

In the terms of human scales and human lifetimes the stars are ridiculously distant.

 

2.

Solutions to travelling to them tend to fall (generally) into two STL categories. Fast and quick vs. slow and long.

 

3. (Fast & Quick)

Assuming velocities of 75% of c or higher, the first option requires a tremendous expenditure of energy, a drive system that can safely deliver such power over an extended period, a fuel source that can be safely stored for long periods and deliver said amounts of energy and also a method of shielding to protect the delicate cargo from the induced storm of ionizing radiation that the ship will plow thru. All of these things are a BIG ask!

 

4. (Slow & Long)

Assuming velocities of no higher than 25% of c, the second option is much easier to satisfy. Less energy is expended reaching the coasting speed and so much less is asked of the drive system, the fuel source and the shielding. Consequently, the necessary level of technology is much reduced and much closer to what we can envisage today. Less of an ask.

 

5.

No free lunches here!

Option #4 carries with it a sting in the tail. While the engineering is easier, slow and long is much harder on the human crew and anything organic that's along for the ride. The two proposed solutions that I'm aware of are the Generation starship or the Hibernation starship.

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.

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Any thoughts?

My logic stinks or my logic's sound?

Perhaps there's a third of fourth option?

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[Thought2Much]

REBOOT, I'm not talking about using fossil fuels, or even chemical propellants. Even with drive systems based on antimatter, which has as close to 100% matter to energy conversion as you're going to get in this universe, the amount of fuel required to push a given mass to anywhere near the speed of light is huge (as in, tons antimatter to move just one ton of actual cargo to near light speed; and then you have to slow it down on the other end of the trip). The situation is even worse when you start talking about more realistic forms of propulsion, such as nuclear fusion. Using a laser-powered light sail might keep you from needing to carry your fuel for your acceleration, but there's all kinds of technical hurdles with that approach.

 

Your logic is sound, BAA. One other problem with the fourth option is that the engineering isn't necessarily easier than building a faster ship. When you build a slow ship for an interstellar journey, you have to consider that if your trip lasts for centuries, your entire craft and all of its systems will have to function for longer than the human race has been using electricity. Every system will need to have multiple redundancies, and every piece of every system will need to be able to be repaired or replaced by the crew (whether the crew is robot or human). Even if you're just carrying all of the raw materials to build replacement parts and use strict recycling of these raw materials, the amount of extra mass you have to carry to do this is considerable. Then there's the issue of how you keep that completely enclosed set of systems functioning for centuries. It's all an engineering nightmare.

[REBOOT]

REBOOT, I'm not talking about using fossil fuels, or even chemical propellants. Even with drive systems based on antimatter, which has as close to 100% matter to energy conversion as you're going to get in this universe, the amount of fuel required to push a given mass to anywhere near the speed of light is huge

 

Minimal amounts of fuel (relative to fossil fuels) would be required for a fusion propulsion engine. A scramjet would be scooping up the hydrogen between stars and using it for acceleration and deceleration.

 

We can speculate forever as our experience in manned interplanetary travel is very limited (last moon landing in the 1970's)... not to mention that space engine technology research and development has been put on the back burner for the last 35 years.

 

We're at the Wright Brothers stage of space travel, speculating about future engines is futile until we get our feet wet with the Sopwith Camels we have lol

[Thought2Much]

I'll have to find some sources, but I don't think there's enough interstellar hydrogen in our part of the galaxy to sustain a ship powered by a ramscoop. There's also the fact that to even get enough fuel into a ramscoop to sustain a fusion reaction, you'd have to be going really fast anyway (which means you'd have to use some other source of fuel to get to that speed to begin with). And, I've also read that the magnetic field used to collect the hydrogen would actually cause resistance, slowing the ship down instead of speeding it up (this may actually be useful; if you're heading into a system with enough hydrogen, you could use a nuclear ramjet to slow yourself down a bit, which means you'd have to carry less fuel with you on the trip out).

 

Did you not read the article I supplied about the energy requirements necessary for near-light speed travel? Fission, fusion, antimatter — regardless of what method you use, you are still talking about absolutely enormous amounts of fuel.

 

We may be in the infancy of space travel, but that doesn't mean we're completely ignorant of the hurdles involved in achieving it.

[REBOOT]

Did you not read the article I supplied about the energy requirements necessary for near-light speed travel? Fission, fusion, antimatter — regardless of what method you use, you are still talking about absolutely enormous amounts of fuel.

 

According to Einstein: as you approach the speed of light your mass increases to infinity. Infinite mass leads to a black hole/worm hole = infinite energy. So it would take an infinite amount of energy to reach light speed (and then you would sink into a black hole LOL).

 

Some experiments on gravity seem to indicate we could eventually negate mass accrual thus eventually bypass the limitations.

 

example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2157975.stm

 

Electromagnetic propulsion seems promising

 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/electromagnetic-propulsion.htm

[bornagainathiest]

Did you not read the article I supplied about the energy requirements necessary for near-light speed travel? Fission, fusion, antimatter — regardless of what method you use, you are still talking about absolutely enormous amounts of fuel.

 

According to Einstein: as you approach the speed of light your mass increases to infinity. Infinite mass leads to a black hole/worm hole = infinite energy. So it would take an infinite amount of energy to reach light speed (and then you would sink into a black hole LOL).

 

Some experiments on gravity seem to indicate we could eventually negate mass accrual thus eventually bypass the limitations.

 

example:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2157975.stm

 

Electromagnetic propulsion seems promising

 

http://science.howst...-propulsion.htm

 

Hey REBOOT!

 

That BBC article looks interesting, but how about this angle for negating mass accrual?

 

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Higgs_boson Scientists think that it's this sucker that gives mass to quarks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark

Quarks are the building blocks for all the 'massive' stuff in the universe, like the nuclei of atoms. So, if we can nail down just what the Higgs boson is and how it works, we might be a step closer to making machines that can actively affect it. These wouldn't be an anti-gravity devices, because we wouldn't be manipulating the gravitational field in any way. Instead, we'd be altering the way the Higgs boson interacts with atoms in a certain area.

 

Now, I'll admit that this is the wildest of speculation on my part.

If we find a way of changing an atom's mass, maybe it'll just self-destruct in a blaze of energy. But, supposing that in the future we can control the Higgs as effectively and efficiently as we can now manipulate photons or electrical fields. Then it might be possible to artificially 'reduce' the mass of a starship, even as Relativistic effects are raising it higher and higher. This might solve the increase-to-infinite-mass problem of high speed sub-light travel. Ok, there's still the need for shielding against the induced radiation, but if it's mass is being 'reduced' too, then so much the better.

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That electromagnetic option carries a sting in the tail though.

Did you notice this?

 

"Electromagnetic propulsion could takes us to the heliopause at a speed unachievable by conventional spacecraft."

 

Only to the Heliopause.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliosphere (Scroll down about halfway to see about the Heliopause) After that you're in interstellar space, where the Interstellar Medium (or ISM) rules. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_medium

Now, I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that 'surfing' our Sun's magnetic field (within the Heliopause) is a totally different ballgame to riding the turbulent ISM. Maybe it's like comparing the relatively calm waters of a small lake to the open reaches of a stormy ocean. But that's just a guess.

 

If you go here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit ...and look at the Examples given lower down, you'll see another problem with using a drive system that works (mostly or totally) within the Heliopause. An Astronomical Unit (AU) is approximately the Sun-Earth distance. About 93,000,000 miles. So, we can see that our Sun's Heliosheath (just inside the Heliopause) is quoted as being 100 AU.

 

Voyager 1 is 119.4 AU from the Sun, as of January this year.

If we cut ourselves a little slack and surmise that this electromagnetic drive will work out as far the Bow Shock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_shock , that gets us up to (a highly speculative) 230 AU.

 

Going back to the Astronomical Unit page, we can see that the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is estimated to be ~268,000 AU from the Sun. So, assuming the very best possible case REBOOT, the electromag drive can deliver boost for less than one thousandth of the voyage.

 

Ok, if that's all you want... fine.

Maybe, if the resulting velocity is great enough, a high-speed coasting phase is acceptable. Perhaps 10 or 20% of c? Then we're back with the Hibernation or Generation starship options again. Oh and before you set out, you'll also need to establish that Proxima Centauri has a magnetic field similar to the Sun's. Otherwise, you won't be able to use the electromag drive to push back against it and decelerate to a speed where you can enter orbit around any planets that star might have. You'll just go sailing past and be unable to stop!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri Perhaps it'd be better to ignore this pipsqueak and go on to these guys... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri ? We now know that double star systems do host planets and as a bonus, because Alpha Centauri A and B are not too different from the Sun, their magnetic fields might well be similar.

 

There's always the option of using Proxima's gravity to slow the starship down. A reverse application of the graviational slingshots used by NASA for it's deep space probes.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[stryper]

actually NASA has already used the gravity of a planet to slow a craft down. That's how they got a satellite in orbit around mercury.

 

So it is not unheard of.

 

And with the current state of technology, there is little we can do to defeat relativity. There are hints and hypothesis and experiments but until NASA or some private organization get the money, or we switch to a resource based economy, it will not be done.

 

I also think that there may be new interest in exploring the oceans. I would support this. Much of what can be learned there could be applied to space. Think Biosphere underwater. The problems with pressure would be similar. The issues with hazards would be similar. The Isolation would be similar. But it would be in a situation where there is a higher possibility of survival should something get f-ed up.

 

Plus you are doing research in a hostile environment. So it would be a great training ground. Plus we'll learn more about this planet in the process.

[Thought2Much]

actually NASA has already used the gravity of a planet to slow a craft down. That's how they got a satellite in orbit around mercury.

 

This approach works for spacecraft launched within our own solar system that are traveling relatively slowly, but it wouldn't work for a ship traveling at a speed of even 1% the speed of light, because that speed far exceeds the change in velocity you can get from such a maneuver. It would change the ship's direction a bit while slowing it down marginally, but it would then continue out of that star system almost as if nothing happened.

[bornagainathiest]

actually NASA has already used the gravity of a planet to slow a craft down. That's how they got a satellite in orbit around mercury.

 

This approach works for spacecraft launched within our own solar system that are traveling relatively slowly, but it wouldn't work for a ship traveling at a speed of even 1% the speed of light, because that speed far exceeds the change in velocity you can get from such a maneuver. It would change the ship's direction a bit while slowing it down marginally, but it would then continue out of that star system almost as if nothing happened.

 

Ooops! My bad.

 

BAA.

[stryper]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303459004577364110378178038.html

 

Sudden EVEonline seems alot closer.

[BrotherJosh]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390638,00.asp

 

Possible energy source for future space craft...

[stryper]

A good justification for funding NASA more.

 

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/253684/thank_you_space_how_nasa_tech_makes_life_better_on_earth.html

 

The US economy get at least $2 back for every dollar spent in NASA funding. Hmmmm 200% profit margin....yes please.

[Leith]

Did anyone follow the launch of the Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX? The first private spacecraft to dock with the ISS.

I'm pretty excited about this. I hope that private spaceflight will speed up innovation.

 

I hope I'm still around when space tourism becomes affordable!

[Legion]

'Feels a bit like a sci-fi filmset': ISS astronaut reacts to entering the Dragon spacecraft for the first time

 

As the ISS crew floated into the Dragon on Saturday - a day after its heralded arrival as the world's first commercial supply ship - one astronaut took to his blog to describe the historic milestone.

 

André Kuipers, a Dutch physician and astronaut with the European Space Agency who docked the capsule, said it reminded him of a science-fiction movie set.

 

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz1wJISv1ch

[Legion]

 

Among the smallest planets detected by Kepler, 950 lightyears away, compared with Earth and Venus.

[stryper]

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-moon-ice-20120621,0,4235750.story

 

Confirmed Ice on the moon's surface.

[stryper]

 

from xkcd

[FeelHappy]

Very cool

[Thought2Much]

I love XKCD, and that is an awesome graphic.

[stryper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/odd-alien-planets-close-planetrise_n_1618269.html

 

Two more to add to the list. Both pass so close to each other you can see planet rise every 97 days.

[bornagainathiest]

http://www.huffingto..._n_1618269.html

 

Two more to add to the list. Both pass so close to each other you can see planet rise every 97 days.

 

Dammit Stryper!

 

You beat me to the punch!

 

I was going to post this link... http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-182

 

No hard feeling tho'... it's all good!

 

BAA.

[bornagainathiest]

And this...

 

http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/Bolshoi/

 

...is just b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l to watch. The science is the frosting on the cake!

 

Enjoy!

 

BAA.

[Thought2Much]

And this...

 

http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/Bolshoi/

 

...is just b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l to watch. The science is the frosting on the cake!

 

Enjoy!

 

BAA.

 

Pretty...

[stryper]

 

truth...but....ow!