Gemmill 34475 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 This thread has shed new light on the extent of Renton's nerdistry. His capacity for geekiness is quite literally stratospheric. Theres a difference between being educated, a nerd, and an ignoramus. I'm the former and you're the latter btw. You're a fucking trekkie more like, dicksplash! I take an interest in the possibility of extra-terrestial life, and enjoyed watching some Star Trek episodes Text-book definition of a nerd ffs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 ***Warning Gemmial won't like this*** its worth investigating but how long would it take to get people there using current technology. hundreds of years? Many thousands (100,000+) with current technology, it's all about ability to accelerate/decelerate in the end, mixed with issues being able to exist at your maximum speed. Still very cool though, even if we're not likely to go there any time soon (although I believe we'll have spacecraft looking at them within a decade that can better detect stuff like atmosphere etc.). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 34475 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 ***Warning Gemmial won't like this*** Here we go again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 ***Warning Gemmial won't like this*** Here we go again. So you liked it then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 34475 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Yeah. Fucking scintillating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Yeah. Fucking scintillating. So my warning was full justified then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Yeah. Fucking scintillating. So my warning was full justified then. Aye. Superfluous though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 8989 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 ***Warning Gemmial won't like this*** its worth investigating but how long would it take to get people there using current technology. hundreds of years? Many thousands (100,000+) with current technology, it's all about ability to accelerate/decelerate in the end, mixed with issues being able to exist at your maximum speed. Still very cool though, even if we're not likely to go there any time soon (although I believe we'll have spacecraft looking at them within a decade that can better detect stuff like atmosphere etc.). I was under the impression it was billions of years, not hundreds of thousands. I'd be interested as to the process of searching the sky, do we identify specific areas of the sky and simply go through them with a fine tooth comb, or are there.. signposts to look for? a one star system that's a certain distance from the centre of a spiral galaxy? I ask this because it could be that this planet is billions of years away, but there may be another in the opposite direction which is a lot closer* *relatively Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Yeah. Fucking scintillating. So my warning was full justified then. Aye. Superfluous though. Not IMO or indeed experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Yeah. Fucking scintillating. So my warning was full justified then. Aye. Superfluous though. Not IMO or indeed experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 ***Warning Gemmial won't like this*** I was under the impression it was billions of years, not hundreds of thousands. Depends on what I said, but billions of years? Nah, we could get there much faster than that, unless you were traveling at skoda-esq speeds. I'd be interested as to the process of searching the sky, do we identify specific areas of the sky and simply go through them with a fine tooth comb, or are there.. signposts to look for? a one star system that's a certain distance from the centre of a spiral galaxy? I ask this because it could be that this planet is billions of years away, but there may be another in the opposite direction which is a lot closer* *relatively It is pretty close relatively, 20ish light years (our galaxy is about 150,000 light years in "diameter"). No idea about their search protocol though, I guess they just move through closest cataloged stars. I think the closest star to Earth being about 4-5 light years away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 8989 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 (edited) so if something was..say... 10 light years away it'd be closer, relatively. which is what I was saying and I think you know that but were just trying to seem smarter. Edited April 25, 2007 by The Fish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 It would be closer actually actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 so if something was..say... 10 light years away it'd be closer, relatively. Well if that's what you meant then yes something 10 light years away would be closer (obviously), the current star this planet is around is still defined as "near Earth" though. I'd be fairly sure they been working their way out though, looking at all the actual closest ones, not just looking in one direction and ignoring the rest, but it is possible I suppose. But "close" still being relative given the distance to the VERY closest stars of any sort. which is what I was saying and I think you know that but were just trying to seem smarter. heh it's like that is it? Ok I know where I stand then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 17784 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 ***Warning Gemmial won't like this*** I was under the impression it was billions of years, not hundreds of thousands. Depends on what I said, but billions of years? Nah, we could get there much faster than that, unless you were traveling at skoda-esq speeds. I'd be interested as to the process of searching the sky, do we identify specific areas of the sky and simply go through them with a fine tooth comb, or are there.. signposts to look for? a one star system that's a certain distance from the centre of a spiral galaxy? I ask this because it could be that this planet is billions of years away, but there may be another in the opposite direction which is a lot closer* *relatively It is pretty close relatively, 20ish light years (our galaxy is about 150,000 light years in "diameter"). No idea about their search protocol though, I guess they just move through closest cataloged stars. I think the closest star to Earth being about 4-5 light years away. It would take 4.8 billion years to get there travelling at the speed of the fastest manned space craft (Apollo 10, about 25000 mph), according to the Times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Fop will refute that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 17784 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Fop will refute that. Actually it doesn't sound right to me either but I can't be arsed to work it out. I suspect Fish got the notion from a similar headline though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Fop will refute that. Actually it doesn't sound right to me either but I can't be arsed to work it out. I suspect Fish got the notion from a similar headline though. Iirc travelling huge distances / achieving greater speeds is achieved by using the gravities of planetary bodies as a 'slingshot'. I'm pretty sure that's how Voyager, Voyager II etc. travelled as far and as fast as they did. The Planets was a quality doc series come to think of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 17784 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 (edited) I calculate it at about 3.3 million years btw. Still longer than hominids have been in existence like, hope the spaceship has some good films on it. Edit: recalculated it at 500,000 yearsish More nerdy than Fop, I know, but reckon the Times are out by an order of 10000x. Edited April 25, 2007 by Renton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 17784 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Fop will refute that. Actually it doesn't sound right to me either but I can't be arsed to work it out. I suspect Fish got the notion from a similar headline though. Iirc travelling huge distances / achieving greater speeds is achieved by using the gravities of planetary bodies as a 'slingshot'. I'm pretty sure that's how Voyager, Voyager II etc. travelled as far and as fast as they did. The Planets was a quality doc series come to think of it. Aye, that right, but I don't think it makes magnitudes of difference. There's this thing you can do where you represent the sun as an orange, the earth as a pea, place them 6 feet apart and ask where the next nearest star is. The answer is Johannesburg (?) or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meenzer 14055 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Fop will refute that. Actually it doesn't sound right to me either but I can't be arsed to work it out. I suspect Fish got the notion from a similar headline though. Iirc travelling huge distances / achieving greater speeds is achieved by using the gravities of planetary bodies as a 'slingshot'. I'm pretty sure that's how Voyager, Voyager II etc. travelled as far and as fast as they did. The Planets was a quality doc series come to think of it. Aye, that right, but I don't think it makes magnitudes of difference. There's this thing you can do where you represent the sun as an orange, the earth as a pea, place them 6 feet apart and ask where the next nearest star is. The answer is Johannesburg (?) or something. If this were the 80s and I were a crap stand-up comedian, I'd make a joke about putting them on a plate and calling it "nouvelle cuisine". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kelly 1117 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Fop will refute that. Actually it doesn't sound right to me either but I can't be arsed to work it out. I suspect Fish got the notion from a similar headline though. Iirc travelling huge distances / achieving greater speeds is achieved by using the gravities of planetary bodies as a 'slingshot'. I'm pretty sure that's how Voyager, Voyager II etc. travelled as far and as fast as they did. The Planets was a quality doc series come to think of it. I thought it was some alien that took Voyager to the delta quadrant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 It would take 4.8 billion years to get there travelling at the speed of the fastest manned space craft (Apollo 10, about 25000 mph), according to the Times. Aye that's probably right given that sustained top speed for that distance, but that goes back to what I said, it's about acceleration/deceleration both how much you can accelerate/decelerate (in the context of how much you can generate and sustain.... and indeed survive if manned). There's a LOT more room for acceleration and deceleration (and therefore top speed and total overall speed) in 20 light years than there is for in 384400 km and 25000 mph would be pretty slow in that context, the only issue limiting your top speed at a certain rate of acceleration/deceleration being all sorts of shielding issues the closer you got to the speed of light. Plus remember that anything we built to go there would be built in orbit, not launched from the Earth and to it in one go like the Moon missions (like any manned mission to say Mars would likely be), which makes a huge difference to the "speeds" possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fop 1 Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 (edited) Fop will refute that. No I think it's probably right, but based on a flawed premise (unless they have calculated it in the sense that particular craft could accelerate/decelerate over that distance (given enough fuel etc.), if so then dunno tbh. Fop will refute that. Actually it doesn't sound right to me either but I can't be arsed to work it out. I suspect Fish got the notion from a similar headline though. Iirc travelling huge distances / achieving greater speeds is achieved by using the gravities of planetary bodies as a 'slingshot'. I'm pretty sure that's how Voyager, Voyager II etc. travelled as far and as fast as they did. The Planets was a quality doc series come to think of it. Think of that more like firing a bullet. Where as say a rocket has fuel in flight. Although without real friction or gravity it's a bit different. Edited April 25, 2007 by Fop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest alex Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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