Planet Gliese 581 g - Could it support life?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Everybody knows the rest of the galaxy has been using satellite radio for centuries, they haven't touched the AM or FM dial since B.C.

Is this really the basis for your belief? Or is yours a religious one?


Since you asked...

I believe that rebel from Nazareth was telling the truth.

My faith is indeed in that shining stranger.
 
I was echoing Jive Turkey:

You know where it's going to go though (ie nowhere)

And besides, I think you'd know by now iron horse either doesn't give a straight answer or avoids answering altogether.
 
"In 15 years of exoplanet hunting, with over hundreds of planets detected by our team, we have yet to publish a single false claim, retraction, or erratum," Vogt told AOL News.

In any event, if not this one, there will be one eventually.

Hopefully with a name that actually rolls off the tongue.
 
Are we getting ready to travel there?

FoxNews.com - Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship?

Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship?

A NASA official may have made a 35-million-mile slip of the tongue.

The director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California casually let slip mention of the 100-Year Starship recently, a new program funded by the super-secret government agency, DARPA. In a talk at San Francisco's Long Conversation conference, Simon “Pete” Worden said DARPA has $1M to spend, plus another $100,000 from NASA itself, for the program, which will initially develop a new kind of propulsion engine that will take us to Mars or beyond.

There's only one problem: The astronauts won't come back.

The 100-year ship would leave Earth with the intention of colonizing a planet, but it would likely be a one-way trip because of the time it takes to travel 35 million miles. That’s a daunting prospect, partly because of the ethical dilemma, and partly because it may be the only recourse.

"What psychological challenges should we anticipate in those who volunteer in good faith and with great courage, yet find themselves confronting misgivings or loneliness or feelings of rage or beset with mental illness?" asked Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team.

There's one other bizarre aspect to the plan: Humans would have to be “adapted” to the alien world, Worden said, instead of figuring out a way to make the planet more hospitable to them.

“The human space program
is now really aimed at settling other worlds,” Worden said during his talk. “Twenty years ago you whispered that in dark bars and got fired.” (Worden actually was fired, he confessed during the talk, under the Bush administration.)

Since that revelation, hundreds of news reports about the program have theorized that the substantial budget indicates the Hundred Year Starship is a dramatic shift for the stalled space program, not just a research project; others suggest it is a serious attempt to find a way to Mars. And NASA? The space agency seems to be dodging all questions.

FoxNews.com first contacted NASA’s Ames Research Center last week and scheduled a call with Worden for Monday. The call was postponed to Wednesday. Late Wednesday the space agency postponed again, before finally canceling the interview, citing Worden’s busy schedule.

After a week and a half, DARPA issued a press release announcing the program -- but conveying no more information than in Worden's initial speech.

But what is the Hundred Year Starship? Some experts argue that any program that suggests putting humans into space for their entire life, or for multiple generations, is doomed from the start, since many people react negatively to the idea of leaving the planet and never returning. Others are more supportive, saying it is the only way to settle a space colony.

New exploration
Speculation about colonization takes many forms, and some of the freshest ideas sound a bit peculiar. Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies, who wrote in the Journal of Cosmology recently, suggest sending four astronauts on a one-way mission who “establish their presence” and do not come back. The suggestion is to send supplies to them occasionally, but the risks are similar to what Columbus undertook to explore the new world. (That analogy is a bit suspect, however: Columbus was most famous for actually returning.)

Les Johnson, a well-respected science author, spoke to FoxNews.com and agreed with the plan: a one-way, hundred-year mission may be the only way to get to Mars or other planets.

The main issue has to do with a basic physics conundrum. In order to travel the great distance to Mars (about 35 million miles), a starship would need a tremendous amount of fuel. Yet fuel adds more weight -- in fact, every pound you add to a ship requires 4 pounds of fuel. The more fuel you add, the more you need simply to move the ship's bulk, making it impossible to go one-way to Mars, much less roundtrip.

Johnson said the only solution is a longer mission using some form of propulsion that has not even been invented yet, or is still untested. One is a massive solar sail, which captures energy from the sun. Another is a fusion reactor that generates power without any on-board fuel.

Dr. Chris DePree, who heads the Bradley Observatory, also helped fill in some gaps on a 100-year mission to another planet. “It seems like the only realistic way forward, if we really want to colonize the solar system, is to have one-way trips,” DePree told FoxNews.com. “It might be that technology improves, and the grandchildren of those first Martian colonists return to Earth.”

He also explained what “adapting humans” means: The suggestion sounds absurd, but science may actually have more luck developing new breathing apparatuses or using chemical injections to make humans able to live on a foreign world than developing technology for "terraforming" a planet.

As to the question of a one-way mission, DePree says the idea is not as hush-hush as you might expect. NASA doesn't intend for a suicide mission, he said, but rather is debating the idea that an astronaut may live out his or her natural life on another planet and never return to Earth. Johnson said there are astronauts who have already volunteered for one-way missions before, and it's not a ludicrous proposition.

Swirling controversy
Even with these explanations, there is still wild speculation about the program. Worden mentioned the idea of working with third-parties to help fund future missions. He said Larry Page, the Google founder, asked how much it would cost to fund the mission (the answer: about $10 billion). This begs the question: is NASA ready to leverage its work by enlisting private enterprises?

Some scientists have wondered how the 100-Year Starship would deal with the effects of long-term space travel. Johnson said that even after spending a few months in space, the wear and tear starts to show -- astronauts who have visited the Space Station often cannot walk for a few days. Johnson said muscle mass starts to decline and bone density decreases after prolonged periods in outer space.

Short of an official news release, one that spells out exactly how the starship program will proceed, many assume that the program is just in an early stage. Johnson said the funding level of just $1.1M sounds like it is simply for research.

Worden may have slipped by revealing the program, but -- as evidenced by NASA’s lack of cooperation -- it may be too early for any new revelations.
 
I posted this in the Science Video Thread, too, because of the live video tomorrow, but just in case they announce they have discovered alien life (and it is female and sexy), no one will have to dig for this thread.

NASA Astrobiology Press Conference: Have They Made Breakthrough In Search For Extraterrestrial Life?

Has NASA made a breakthrough in the search extraterrestrial life? That's what some are speculating after NASA sent out a curious press release announcing a news conference on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an "astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life."
 
Yeah well apparently it's not reasonable until after the proof is put down. You're stupid for saying such things before evidence shows up.
 
Astronomy, red dwarf stars: Number of stars in universe may be vastly larger than thought - latimes.com


The new census, based on analysis of the light signature of the galaxies using instruments at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, pushes the total number of stars in the universe to 300 sextillion (that's 100 billion squared, multiplied by 30).

that's what I thought,
last time I counted I got in the high 290s of sextrillions.

seriously, how can anyone know the number of stars in the universe?
did they find the edge, boundaries of the universe?
 
Astronomy, red dwarf stars: Number of stars in universe may be vastly larger than thought - latimes.com




that's what I thought,
last time I counted I got in the high 290s of sextrillions.

seriously, how can anyone know the number of stars in the universe?
did they find the edge, boundaries of the universe?


Silly number to even bother with.

If they've accepted that we can only see a portion of the universe... let alone the fact that popular theory states the universe is forever expanding... why bother?
 
My friend, there are so many more doors to knock on before you start pointing fingers at NASA and space exploration.


No my friend, not doors, but people who die from hunger.

It's about spending billions of dollars to prove their is life out there, which will help confirm the belief there is not a God out there.

We are doing a poor job of being our brother's keeper.
 
No my friend, not doors, but people who die from hunger.

It's about spending billions of dollars to prove their is life out there, which will help confirm the belief there is not a God out there.

We are doing a poor job of being our brother's keeper.

Maybe you didnt catch the meaning of my last post. NASA is the least of your worries. Hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions, are wasted on trivial and meaningless nonsense. And where others are dying.

It has nothing to do with proving there is not a God out there. Tell me, if life exists elsewhere or science can prove everything, what does that have to do with God existing?

I'm not getting into a religious debate here. There's nothing athiest about Space Exploration.
 
Maybe you didnt catch the meaning of my last post. NASA is the least of your worries. Hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions, are wasted on trivial and meaningless nonsense. And where others are dying.

It has nothing to do with proving there is not a God out there. Tell me, if life exists elsewhere or science can prove everything, what does that have to do with God existing?

I'm not getting into a religious debate here. There's nothing athiest about Space Exploration.


I was just wondering why we allow people on this planet to die of hunger.
 
I was just wondering why we allow people on this planet to die of hunger.

I know, and that's fine. You're right.

But there's more than enough money to feed everyone in the world. And still continue with space exploration. Money is wasted, literally wasted, on many things. Knowledge is not one of them.
 
I was just wondering why we allow people on this planet to die of hunger.

Maybe you should go to Africa, travel that continent from north to south and east to west.

And see the impact that global warming has had there on the land and the flora and the fauna. And how much fertile soil has become sand and desert and the disappearing snows of the Kilimanjaro.

And then ask yourself why you continue to post a lot of the silliness on that topic.

If you're so concerned about people dying of hunger.
 
Maybe you should go to Africa, travel that continent from north to south and east to west.

And see the impact that global warming has had there on the land and the flora and the fauna. And how much fertile soil has become sand and desert and the disappearing snows of the Kilimanjaro.

And then ask yourself why you continue to post a lot of the silliness on that topic.

If you're so concerned about people dying of hunger.

It all comes back to water, too.
People are dying from dirty water, a lack of sanitation, not even to mention that there is no water available for agriculture for too many people.

Science is here to help with these problems. I don't know what other research was done with this NASA study, but they were looking at a toxic lake, maybe there will be spill-over research toward the safer, cleaner water end.

And, NASA is a key player in weather research. Very few things can aid the poor and helpless like understanding storm and weather patterns both for the immediate safety of people, but also for the redistribution of fresh water through rainfall.
 
Back
Top Bottom