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Mission Could Seek Out Spock's Home Planet
An anonymous reader wrote with a link to the official Planet Quest site. Planet Quest has the goal of exploring the galaxy via sophisticated instrumentation for another habitable planet. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is working to plan out missions for the project, and researchers are now theorizing that the instruments may be able to explore the system of 40 Eridani. Hardcore Trek fans may know 40 Eridani as the star associated with the planet Vulcan. "The SIM PlanetQuest instrument will be so accurate, it could measure the thickness of a nickel at a distance from Earth to the moon. Using a set of mathematical models based on Newton's Laws, Tanner was able to conclude that SIM would be able to definitively determine whether there is an Earth-mass planet orbiting in the habitable zone around 40 Eridani A, and could also determine its orbit. This is quite an exciting prospect, since NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, planned for launch after SIM, would not only be able to take a rudimentary 'picture' of the planet, but also could search for signatures of life such as methane and ozone."
Wonder how long before the marketing boys start calling it that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
fascinating...
Space. The final frontier.
These are the voyages of the starship Doogan.
Her five year mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisation.
To boldly go where no man has gone before.
You can just picture the comm message as Scotty tells the captain they won't leave earth orbit and will have to search for spock in New Mexico.
liqbase
but also could search for signatures of life such as methane and ozone
So we're only interested in flatulent life, then.
You would think that Borg technology on the other side of the galaxy would be a lot more interesting than a group of alien philosophers contemplating lint in their belly buttons. :P
Peace and long life.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
c'mon. logic says this is so unprobable that it will probably happen ;o)
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
...if they can measure the thickness of the steps at Mount Seleya.
If we discover the Vulcans before the warp drive then our timeline will be wrong.
We'll probably see a Vulcan in a skyscraper with a telescope looking back at us.
I'm hoping for CETI 5.0 (alpha) personally.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Obviously they're hoping to find hot green alien chicks to have sex with to help cure their virginity
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Wasn't that also one of the many stars you could fly to in outpost, the buggiest game of all time?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
The SIM PlanetQuest instrument will be so accurate, it could measure the thickness of a nickel at a distance from Earth to the moon.
Yes, but how many football fields away can it measure the width of the Library of Congress from?
I'm a Star Trek fan (although not so much of the original series, I have to admit), but I'm totally confused by this constant recent desire to tie every space mission to popular sci-fi. In a mainstream news article, I can understand it. But here on Slashdot? Do we really need Vulcans to be involved before we get excited about a *mission to explore another solar system*? That's incredibly cool on its own. By hyping it up as somehow Star Trek-related, you really minimize the plain awesomeness there is in space exploration.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
Or is more and more of our science funds going to PR stunts. It is sad to say, but I believe that NASA has outlived its usefulness.
As long as "Ceti Alpha V" doesn't find me, I'll be happy.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Nonono, not just, we still need a warp drive. When you build it, they will come.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes I make mistakes. Don't we all?
Don't many of us owe our very existence to mistakes that our parents made?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
that sounds great. SIM Earth was fun!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
We can get there in time for pon farr! Wacky giant Q-tip/axe weapons optional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pon_farr
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Her five year mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisation.
Using today's technology, 1,000,000 year mission (roundtrip).
If you don't run out of food.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
There may be life, just not as we know it.
Gravity is a contributing factor in nearly 73 percent of all accidents involving falling objects. -Dave Barry
"Hardcore Trek fans may know 40 Eridani as the star associated with the planet Vulcan."
Unfortunately, hardcore Trek fans don't know that the planet Vulcan is fictional.
Is that a hot nickel, or a cold nickel?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hmmph. Apparently hardcore Battlelords fans are being left out of this.
I just want to see what is at Wolf 359
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Tell that to your flip phone, the talking nav system in your car, your iPod, your flat-screen TV, all of that cool medical imaging equipment at the hospital that saved your various family member's lives and to the systems that helped to develop the heart pacemaker, for openers.
Star Trek helped DEFINE cool for you non geeks.
Without Star Trek, many of the scientists who developed those pieces of equipment never would have even gone INTO science and the vast majority of those cool gadgets YOU rely on to get laid with wouldn't even exist and you would have to rely on your complete lack of charm to try to be a success with women.
To paraphrase William Shatner: "Get A CLUE!"
Of course, TPF and SIM were cancelled, sorry, "deferred." Got to keep the Hubble, ISS, and manned program going.
STAR TREK ISN'T REAL.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...oh, wait, wrong franchise.
Blank until
"The SIM PlanetQuest instrument will be so accurate, it could measure the thickness of a nickel at a distance from Earth to the moon."
Last I heard the boys still had issues dealing w/simple math. It might be best to hold off on such parlor triks as this until the tutors come back with a reasonable report...
Fans of the old Star Trek would probably prefer one of those many planets where kirk fought for some hot alien woman.
Purists would want to maintain the storyline and have Vulcans be our first contact.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Star Trek nerds, lol. Your hobby is the cause of your virginity.
Neither my wife or I are virgins.
Nirvana for Rush and Lou
Uh, guys... Spock is a fictional character. That means he doesn't really exist. He is played by an actor named Leonard Nimoy, whose home planet is Earth.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I must admit that I'm old enough to remember when Vulcan was supposed to be a planet of Epsilon Eridani, not 40 Eridani. Epsilon is much more Sun-like.
Of course, the Vulcans would have to argue with the Comporellon folks, who also live in the Epsilon Eridani system. :-)
...laura
dont worry, that khaaant happen :)
Does this mean that we can finally line up all the Neanderthals who still think the moon landing is a hoax, let them look through the shiny new "telescope" and see the lunar landers still parked where they landed about 38 years ago?
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
Not green.
Green-blooded.
Ignore this signature. By order.
...Spock's home planet is Earth. His mother was a human and his father an ambassador to Earth named Sarek.
The Ariane 5 is the largest non-commercial (since it is operated by the European Space Agency or ESA) European launch vehicle and it first successfully launched in 1997. It can throw 16 metric tons into LEO.
Heh heh... You get "troll" for "Spock is make believe".
That'll teach you to stay away from controversy...
No! This is Ceti Alpha VI! On Ceti Alpha V there was life!
Oh, great, another metric unit we have to memorize: Moon-Earth distance nickel thicknesses. How many Libraries of Congress is that?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
"Star Trek nerds, lol. Your hobby is the cause of your virginity."
Yeah, I can easily imagine somebody anonymously flaming Star Trek nerds on a Friday night beatin the hotties off with a stick.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Just for long enough to send back pix of the remains of Apollo 1, so all these moon-landing deniers can STFU.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
You over-estimate the influence of the show. If star trek hadn't been there other sci-fi would have filled its place. Imagination isn't the sole domain of any one piece of sci-fi, so lets not overstate it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
What? Next thing you'll be telling me is that my Kryptonite pendant won't actually disable any passing superhumans!
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
/ducks
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I know this might sound crazy, but-- gah, nevermind I think you already said it.
apollo 1 never made it off the ground.
in fact Grissom, White and Chaffee were killed in a fire during the test.
Who run Barter Town?
I think he meant Apollo 11. Remains in this case being the lower portion of the lander and other moon equipment we used.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Open their Razr phones like communicators, not tricorders. Instead they hold up their iPods and and do the "whirmrmrmr" sound while they "scan" the backside of some hottie on the subway, and say "Fascinating" with an upraised eyebrow.
Also dawns on me that only people 35+ years old would have any association between a flip-phone and Star Trek's original communicators. Defines the generation that designed these phones as well as (apparently) Slashdot's demographic.
Is it just me, or is it getting OLD in here??
Yah, my oops. Thanks for the correction. Apollo 11 then.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
I might have to turn in my geek card, but does Mr. Spock have a first name?
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
Star Trek nerds, lol. Your hobby is the cause of your virginity.
Or maybe their virginity is the cause of their hobby. Or maybe their virginity and their hobby share the same cause. Or maybe the two are unrelated. Or maybe Star Trek nerds aren't as virgin as their cracked up to be.
Anyways, I don't care, I don't feel concerned, I'm neither a Star Trek nerd nor a... I'm not a Star Trek nerd..
You just got troll'd!