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Terrestrial Planet Finder

Posted by timothy on from the idea-flagpole-getting-full dept.

solarlux writes "The Terrestrial Planet Finder has taken one step closer to reality as two architectures have been approved by NASA. The first, TPF-c, will be a single optical telescope which employs a coronograph to block starlight for planet detection. TPF-i will be a flotilla of infrared telescopes flying in formation to form a interferometer. TPF-i will analyze the planets identified by TPF-c for life signatures. The telescopes are to be launched within the next 10-15 years."

10 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. 10 to 15 years by bsDaemon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    to find another planet. 150,000,000 years to get to it. Don't forget that we are seeing things as they used to be! discovering other planets is only has good as our ability to get there, which is nil. Not to mention that they probably arn't even there anymore.

  2. Planning by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've always been very impressed by the timetables NASA is using.
    It must be an enormous task to plan so many years ahead into the uncertain future, not sure if the funding will be there. /me tips my hat to them

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
  3. 10 - 15 years? That's quite a horizon. by machinecraig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO - something planned to happen 10-15 years from now has a great risk of not happening.

    Entirely too much can change. You're talking about a funded project that would have to survive multiple shakes up in Administration (and think of all the Bureaucratic structures a NASA funded project relies on!!!) , not to mention a project that would have to be able to keep it's funding for that long.

    Plus - in 10-15 years, it's entirely possible that technology might make this particular project irrelevant.

    1. Re: 10 - 15 years? That's quite a horizon. by Saluton_Mondo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Most missions of this kind have a long horizon... 10-15 yrs isn't that far away.

      --

      Batman: "Slake your thirst. You'll have worse than a parched sensation when we're through with you!"
    2. Re:10 - 15 years? That's quite a horizon. by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the 25th May 1961 President John F Kennedy told Congress: "I believe that this nation should commit itself, before this decade is out, to the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."

      10-15 years isnt much long than the 9 quoted here.

      Sure, it needs massive impotus to continue, but a 10-15 year plan is extremely feasible.

      The other alternative is to make the plans so low key that they slip unnoticed under the noses of whichever government is in power at that point.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  4. Re:10-15 years? by Paulrothrock · · Score: 3, Insightful
    A race would leave their planet for a lot of reasons. There is a ton of resources in space, including rare minerals in the platinum group. Also, there are manufacturing processes that benefit from microgravity, particularly in the making of crystals for electronics. Finally, they'd run out of room eventually, and have to move somewhere.

    But, then again, why would anyone have left Europe in the 1500s? Doesn't seem efficient.

    --
    I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
  5. Intelligence limitations by carvalhao · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As usual, we are impared by our own lack of intelligence. We are going to spend a considerable amount of money building a complex infrastructure to retreive information that is... well... pretty much useless.

    We'll be searching for a planet similar to Earth because we believe all life must come in some kind of carbon-made structure forming an organism that needs water to sustain itself and that releases some kind of carbon substance into the atmosphere. We also believe that life on Earth was possible to to it's "moderate" conditions. YET, we keep discovering ON EARTH new species previously unknown who live in the most extreme conditions.

    So, from my point of view as an engineer... we'll be looking at a science subject without knowing exactly what to look for and without being able to extract any conclusive information. Futhermore, the technology that has to be developed to attain this study is not altogether new. So, no new relevant or important data, no new significant tech... What's the point, then?

    If they need a sugestion on where to spend a couple of billion dollars... why not that not yet fully explored planet Earth, with loads of life that considers itself intelligent?

    1. Re:Intelligence limitations by dtolman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pretty much useless? Whats the point?

      This is basic science - its sole purpose is to expand the boundaries of human knowledge. Most great discoveries are by taking a look at something no one has ever seen before. If we never look, who knows what we'll find?

      Furthermore - we only have two earth sized planets in the solar system. Thats two datapoints to understand the past, present, and future of our world. By examining other similiar worlds, it could be great use in figuring out what things could happen to our planet - either now or in the future!

    2. Re:Intelligence limitations by Angry+Toad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We have exactly one example of an earthlike planet. That's not much in the way of data, true. On the other hand it is an indisputable, actual, real example of life evolving on a planet.

      Parsimony pretty much dictates that before we can consider as realistic other, purely hypothetical modes of life we need to understand the apparent distribution (or lack thereof) of planets with earthlike biomarkers.

      I can come up with all sorts of extraordinary ideas about how life might work on other worlds. So can you. All the same I'd argue that making a survey that specifically looks for conditions which we know for certain can be associated with life is the first and logical scientific step which can should taken on this subject.

      I actually don't understand people having objections to such a survey - imagine finding two or three strongly supported oxygen/CO2/water worlds within a few hundred light years!

  6. I guess light travels more slowly than I remember. by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    to find another planet. 150,000,000 years to get to it. Don't forget that we are seeing things as they used to be! discovering other planets is only has good as our ability to get there, which is nil. Not to mention that they probably arn't even there anymore.

    You do realize that with a detection range of a few dozen to a few hundred light-years, we'll be seeing planets as they were at most a few dozen to a few hundred years ago, not hundreds of millions of years, right?

    A laser boosted sail-probe could reach a nearby star system ( 10 LY) within one human lifetime. It would be impractial to send one big enough to carry humans, but an automated flyby survey would definitely be feasible.