I wouldn't worry too much about that...
The article in which I read that news also went on to quote the NASA guy as saying that this is nothing new... The Earth's axis wobbles quite a bit on its own, and our days have been shortened and lengthened before (in fact, there have been some instances where they added a "leap second" to the end of a year to make up for the tiny fractional differences)
So yeah, it might have had some "frightening" results, but when you step back and look at things, you'll see that this has happened before, and in some cases to a more severe degree...
So I don't think it's anything to get worked up about...
Teh Governator wrote:
Elation wrote: Wait, if we owe you money, then how come you are in debt...? And, a note on that last one - about hurricanes. You may be saying, "hurricane season's over there I thought?". Well, for the East Coast it is but, here in Florida (where I live) there's still thousands of houses destroyed or without roofs and amongst other things - why didn't the world donate money to OUR natural disasters? Because you're bigger! | |
Teh Governator wrote:
And, a note on that last one - about hurricanes. You may be saying, "hurricane season's over there I thought?". Well, for the East Coast it is but, here in Florida (where I live) there's still thousands of houses destroyed or without roofs and amongst other things - why didn't the world donate money to OUR natural disasters? I live in the US too, but Governator, you have to realize, the US is much, much bigger. We don't need donations. Not anywhere near as much as, for example, Sri Lanka. | |
yup it landed on it as well... unmanned missions are easier to do.
Life on other planets isn't so far away :) | |
Jon Snow wrote:
actually it's highly unlikely that we'll die from nukes... We'll probably die from polution, and killing eachother over gas once world supplies run low on it :P Yeah, I agree; I was just throwing up a couple of random examples. Actually have you ever looked into anti-matter propulsion? No, I hadn't. Interesting, thanks. Space travel isn't that far away, they've got other propulsion methods that would be extremely efficient and fast assuming we can learn how to make them... That's the killer, of course: "assuming we can learn how to make them". =) I expect we will be able to efficiently utilise things like antimatter for fuel someday. Of course in theory an anti-matter bomb would probably be created eventually if we ever learned how to make anti-matter in large quantities... Well, it's like nuclear technology; there's a lot of good (nuclear power, medicine) and a lot of bad (nuclear bombs) that it could be used for. but still, space travel is within our lifetime. Not to saturns moon Titan, but to mars at least. Oh, I definitely think manned space travel within the solar system will happen in our lifetimes. (Heck, it's already happened.) I was referring more to leaving our solar system and exploring the worlds around other suns. As cool as that would be, it's probably a way off. | |
There's one problem with Anti-matter fuel.
Everyone knows that two atomic particle pairs of anti-matter and matter pairs cause a sudden outburst of energy; and quite a lot of it. They cancel themselves out into heat. However, this can only happen if they are *direct* pairs of matter/anti-matter: Eg. Election <-> Positron (However, some pairs can exist together for a short amount of time, but there's not long before they are annihilated into photons) But here's the problem with anti-matter fuel: What do you keep it in? | |
Speaking of that very incident.. check out Maddox's news on his site http://www.maddox.xmission.com/
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Artekia wrote:
Speaking of that very incident.. check out Maddox's news on his site http://www.maddox.xmission.com/ Woah, a new update found so fast? You keen-eyed Maddox refresher, you. | |
well from what I read a long time ago, they were talking about some kind of sphere that would use some kind of magnetic field or what not to kill it contained within a certain area... but this was like 5 years ago or more... back when I still talked to my space loving uncle. Perhaps someone knows more?
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Elation wrote:
There's one problem with Anti-matter fuel. What about Dark Matter? =P | |
Xzar wrote:
Don't forget the teleporters, That go faster then the speed of light. Yea ok human teleportation would not be cool this way being destroyed and all...but for food and stuff :P Controlling a gravity field wouldn't be so bad either, that could give some heavy propulsion. Hmm, that could probably be a real scenario if someone manages to explain the source of gravity. It's unlikely that it would happen however, since it would mean thrashing lots and lots of physics research... Too much pride and money in the science world to do that. /Gaz | |
Photon propulsion is great too.
We have 'sails' that can be propelled by photons now- and they've already sent one such 'rocket' into space. What you do: Blast it off, and get rid of all excess bagage on the way. Then make sure it passes REALLY close to the sun, getting a blast of BILLIONS AND ZILLIONS of photons. Then watch it blast off VERY FAST (and I mean fast) on virtually no fuel at all; at least, not much from Earth. Send them off from the Moon, me says. | |
Elation wrote:
But here's the problem with anti-matter fuel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penning_trap I think that only works for individual particles, but if you could extend the idea to work with larger amounts it'd work. And you don't need huge amounts; according to this informative page, a few grams would be enough to transport a small ship to the moon. We're not about to do it within the next few years, but I think it will become a possibility eventually. | |
Xzar wrote:
Don't forget the teleporters, That go faster then the speed of light. Yea ok human teleportation would not be cool this way being destroyed and all...but for food and stuff :P Care to explain how it travels faster than light, when that's what the person is altered to when teleported? Unless you think Star Trek's teleporters make worm holes, they aren't moving faster than light. By checking the results of atmoic clocks, which are accurate up to hundred thousandths, if not millionths of a second, which have been found to be off after Space shuttle launches, time apparently halts at the speed of light. | |
~Sav