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NASA's Giant Pinhole Camera
Cecil writes "The University of Colorado at Boulder has come up with an interesting proposal, and NASA has decided it has enough merit to give it funding. They're developing what is in essence a pinhole camera where the pinhole is 30 feet wide, and the "film" is tens of thousands of miles away. The "New Worlds Imager" as it is called, may eventually have enough resolution to get visual images of extrasolar planets as small as Earth's moon around stars 100 light years away, and would be able to search them for the key signs of life-as-we-know-it, like oxygen, water, and ozone. Other ideas that NASA will be developing include a lunar space elevator and magnetized beam plasma propulsion."
You hold the film and go stand back.
Farther.
Farther.
Farther!
Farther!!
Farther!!!
There's no way this is going to work. I mean, how the hell are they going to lift into space a pin big enough to poke a 30-foot hole. Where are they even going to *find* a pin that big?
Gotta be the most hare-brained scheme ever. Sheesh.
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Time to submit my vinegar and baking soda rocket fuel formula!