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Can We Travel To That Exciting New Exoplanet?
An anonymous reader writes "The news last week that exoplanet Gliese 581g may be in the 'Goldilocks zone' and could therefore hold liquid water and alien life got everyone all excited, with good reason. A potentially habitable planet — and only 20 light years away! But to put things in perspective, here are a couple of estimates on what it would take to travel to Gliese 581g. One scientist puts the travel time at 180,000 years based on current space flight technology, while another explains that it could be quite quick if we build a matter-antimatter drive, and can figure out how to bring along 530 times as much mass in fuel as is contained in the ship and cargo itself."
And you Space Nutters are against life extension research too... How do you reconcile that in your religion? Why is unlimited space OK but unlimited time is wrong? Why is it OK to want to see rocks light-years away, but seeing the future of the human race 10000 years from now wrong?
OK Taco, erase this comment from the /. database!
This is a huge fantasy. The planet is 4 times the mass of earth; so because of its gravity, I'd weigh 600 pounds. Most of the fat bitches at Wal-Mart would weigh about half as much as my car, and they'd all outweigh a 1000CC motorcycle.
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Space Nutters care not for reality. Whether it be engineering, physics, chemistry, biology or psychology, what's important is the emotion. The romantic emotional impact of "exploring" a complete vacuum with laughable technology and pitiful biology is a paradox that is completely lost on the delusional Space Nutters. You can't argue with them, the next thing you'll learn is that we only have computers today because of NASA and other stunning falsehoods and revisionist claims. The Space Nutters are lunatics. Luckily there's very few of them. Since they don't believe in life extension, they're a self-correcting problem!
why do we a shit about another planet when we can't even control the shit that happens on our own come on people.....
If so, the US will be more than happy to inva^H^H^H, bring democracy and free trade to it's inhabitants
yes, and if we were meant to fly, God would have given us wings..
Bah, damn Luddites
NO vision!
Ah, arrogance, always the first accusation leveled against scientific incredulity by the crackpot or woo-addled moron.
Don't worry, I'm sure if you wish hard enough you conjure an FTL reactionless drive that contradicts both Newton and Einstein. And we'll see who's laughing then!
So if I throw myself against this wall enough times, do you think I'll eventually learn to walk through it?
No. More likely the laws of physics say it's impossible. Or at least highly improbable (if I lived a million years, and threw myself against the wall constantly, there's a 1 in googleplex chance I'll pass through the wall). The same is true about crossing the space between stars.
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