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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."
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
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
If we discover the Vulcans before the warp drive then our timeline will be wrong.
You obviously underestimate the number of people who flip open their Razr phones like tricorders and make the "shhhhh" sound when they automatic doors open for them. Anything is cooler when you integrate Star Trek into it.
Absolutely, yup, you're right.
....remember that to do stuff that we know is cool you have to convince the general public, who: ;)
But....
1: Are a bit dim at times (average IQ of 100 apparently!
2: Are going to be paying for it either through taxes or by buying the products that have adverts plastered across the side of the spaceship.
You've got to get the money from somewhere, and "cool" gets money these days.
For the REAL future of space missions, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3JjUUdjWU - a bunch of British TV presenters decide to make a rocket...out of a 3 wheeled car. And it ends up being the largest non-commercial European space launch ever...now that's cool.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
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!"
Where's the "-1, Wet Blanket" mod option?!?
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!