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Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)



 
 
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  #11  
Old February 20th 17, 09:07 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris.B[_3_]
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Monday, 20 February 2017 06:50:04 UTC+1, Chris L Peterson wrote:

I do not doubt that millions
upon millions of other developed civilizations exist in this universe...


Maybe. But it's possible that most or all are like us, unlikely to
survive as a technological species long enough to venture far from
their birthplace before going extinct.


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  #12  
Old February 20th 17, 02:14 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 10:50:04 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 20:00:02 -0800, BogeyOne
wrote:

My thinking is that science is not capable of everything and visiting
even the nearest stars is a good example.


It is well within our scientific capacity, and the engineering
problems could be solved in short order, to make practical robotic
trips to a few nearby stars with mission times under a century (which
is still problematic given our political and social immaturity).

I do not doubt that millions
upon millions of other developed civilizations exist in this universe...


Maybe. But it's possible that most or all are like us, unlikely to
survive as a technological species long enough to venture far from
their birthplace before going extinct.


Nihilistic nonsense. AGW will certainly not be the cause of such
extinction, so why are you so adamant about it?
  #13  
Old February 20th 17, 03:38 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Mon, 20 Feb 2017 05:14:02 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 10:50:04 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:


I do not doubt that millions
upon millions of other developed civilizations exist in this universe...


Maybe. But it's possible that most or all are like us, unlikely to
survive as a technological species long enough to venture far from
their birthplace before going extinct.


Nihilistic nonsense. AGW will certainly not be the cause of such
extinction, so why are you so adamant about it?


You don't actually know what nihilism is, do you? And where does AGW
enter in? Some obsession of yours? I didn't mention it, and I'm not
talking about it.
  #14  
Old February 21st 17, 12:38 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Monday, February 20, 2017 at 7:38:41 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Mon, 20 Feb 2017 05:14:02 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 10:50:04 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

I do not doubt that millions
upon millions of other developed civilizations exist in this universe...

Maybe. But it's possible that most or all are like us, unlikely to
survive as a technological species long enough to venture far from
their birthplace before going extinct.


Nihilistic nonsense. AGW will certainly not be the cause of such
extinction, so why are you so adamant about it?


You don't actually know what nihilism is, do you?


If you believe that the race cannot survive in the long run, then you have
no basis for morals or values.

And where does AGW enter in? Some obsession of yours? I didn't mention it,
and I'm not talking about it.


You have vigorously supported it in other threads. Are you implying that
you have a compartmentalized mind? In those other threads, I have expressed
doubt about it, so I'm certainly not the one "obsessed" by it. I'm just
wondering how someone who will viciously attack others for not believing
in AGW can justify believing that the race will die anyway. It seems
that someone who holds both of those views is very conflicted.
  #15  
Old February 21st 17, 03:39 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Tue, 21 Feb 2017 03:38:35 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

Nihilistic nonsense. AGW will certainly not be the cause of such
extinction, so why are you so adamant about it?


You don't actually know what nihilism is, do you?


If you believe that the race cannot survive in the long run, then you have
no basis for morals or values.


If you believe that, you are a genuinely scary person. I hope they
don't let you be around other people unsupervised.

And where does AGW enter in? Some obsession of yours? I didn't mention it,
and I'm not talking about it.


You have vigorously supported it in other threads.


I have "supported" AGW? Not sure what that means. But it's irrelevant,
since I'm not discussing it here. This is apparently the product of
some obsession of yours.

  #16  
Old February 21st 17, 11:35 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 9:00:14 PM UTC-7, BogeyOne wrote:

My thinking is that science is not capable of everything and visiting
even the nearest stars is a good example. I do not doubt that millions
upon millions of other developed civilizations exist in this universe,
but they could not escape being bound by the same laws of physics and
the restraints of time that we are. So it is best to accept that all
must just sit around and ponder the "if we only could" scenario.


Of course, I could be wrong.


Well, I don't know either.

I do think that it's unlikely science will discover a way to travel faster than
light, but I don't know for sure.

As for ways to travel at close to the speed of light, so that we could travel to
the nearest stars in 400 to 4,000 years, _that_ is an engineering problem. It's
not something I have any reason to think science is not able to do. But, on the
other hand, what science may not be able to achieve is to make doing that easy
enough that it would seem to humanity to be _worth_ doing.

So the obstacle there is not what science can do, but how much effort and wealth
we are willing to dedicate to that goal.

John Savard
  #17  
Old February 22nd 17, 11:28 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Martin Brown
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On 21/02/2017 22:35, Quadibloc wrote:
On Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 9:00:14 PM UTC-7, BogeyOne wrote:

My thinking is that science is not capable of everything and visiting
even the nearest stars is a good example. I do not doubt that millions
upon millions of other developed civilizations exist in this universe,
but they could not escape being bound by the same laws of physics and
the restraints of time that we are. So it is best to accept that all
must just sit around and ponder the "if we only could" scenario.


Of course, I could be wrong.


Well, I don't know either.

I do think that it's unlikely science will discover a way to travel faster than
light, but I don't know for sure.

As for ways to travel at close to the speed of light, so that we could travel to
the nearest stars in 400 to 4,000 years, _that_ is an engineering problem. It's
not something I have any reason to think science is not able to do. But, on the
other hand, what science may not be able to achieve is to make doing that easy
enough that it would seem to humanity to be _worth_ doing.


Juno at 165k mph is about the fastest space probe we have ever sent.
Compared to the speed of light which is 186000 miles a *second* we are
about 4 orders of magnitude short of the mark for relativistic travel.

Until we can do it in under a 1000 years or so elapsed it is probably
faster to sit on our hands and wait for the technology to improve.

So the obstacle there is not what science can do, but how much effort and wealth
we are willing to dedicate to that goal.


There are some pretty severe engineering challenges too. Even at Earth
orbital speeds tiny dust grains are a big threat but as you go faster
they become much much worse. At truly relativistic speeds blue shifted
background microwave radiation and shockwaves from adiabatically
compressing the incredibly thin interstellar medium become problematic
too when you are ploughing through so much of it in a second.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
  #18  
Old February 22nd 17, 12:27 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gary Harnagel
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 7:39:54 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Tue, 21 Feb 2017 03:38:35 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

Nihilistic nonsense. AGW will certainly not be the cause of such
extinction, so why are you so adamant about it?

You don't actually know what nihilism is, do you?


If you believe that the race cannot survive in the long run, then you have
no basis for morals or values.


If you believe that, you are a genuinely scary person. I hope they
don't let you be around other people unsupervised.


I feel the same way about YOU because you have one less restraint on your
behavior than I do.

And where does AGW enter in? Some obsession of yours? I didn't mention it,
and I'm not talking about it.


You have vigorously supported it in other threads.


I have "supported" AGW? Not sure what that means.


Oh, come on, Peterson! You know EXACTLY what I'm referring to. Google
keeps a record. Your one-less-restraint is raising its ugly head.

wsne said:
"There are many things that are FAR more important to most people than
climate change and justifiably so."

And YOU said:
"Nothing I can think of is more important, as the continuation of our
civilization largely depends upon our dealing with it."

But it's irrelevant, since I'm not discussing it here.


So you DO have a compartmentalized mind. That's also very scary.

This is apparently the product of some obsession of yours.


Perhaps. It may be due to the deep scarring you perpetrated on me with
your ad hominem attacks when I differed with your opinions about AGW. But
THAT is irrelevant. It is irrational for you to do that when you also
believe that mankind is doomed to extinction anyway. Do you get pleasure
out of inflicting mental pain on others?
  #19  
Old February 22nd 17, 03:21 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Wed, 22 Feb 2017 03:27:37 -0800 (PST), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

If you believe that, you are a genuinely scary person. I hope they
don't let you be around other people unsupervised.


I feel the same way about YOU because you have one less restraint on your
behavior than I do.


I have excellent restraint on my behavior- restraints that are
grounded in objective reason. You, on the other hand, are perhaps like
Abraham- willing to commit any crime if a voice in your head requires
it. That is scary.

I have "supported" AGW? Not sure what that means.


Oh, come on, Peterson! You know EXACTLY what I'm referring to. Google
keeps a record. Your one-less-restraint is raising its ugly head.


I can guess. But your comment isn't coherent enough to be certain what
you mean.

In any case, your ranting on about AGW when it has nothing to do with
my comments above simply reveals obsessive fixation on me or my ideas,
and makes you look pretty foolish here.
  #20  
Old February 22nd 17, 07:41 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
StarDust
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Default Planet near Proxima Centauri (Travel time)

On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 1:48:33 AM UTC-8, RichA wrote:
Earth-like? I'd believe it when they get there. Here's the travel time:

-Current rocket technology (if a large enough one could be built): 120,000mph.
25,000 years to get there.

-Project Orion 10,000 ton class ship: 80% speed of light peak speed.
14 years.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2016...d-orig-nws.cnn


We can't even get humans to Mars, never mined to another solar system.
We found out, there is no other life in our solar system, not even a lousy bacteria, so now it's a new flight of imagination , maybe some thing exist in another solar system.

 




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