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NASA Reveals Hundred Year Starship Program
cmansley writes "NASA Ames Director Simon Worden revealed that NASA Ames has 'just started a project with DARPA called the Hundred Year Starship,' with $1 million funding from DARPA and $100K from NASA. Worden said 'Larry [Page] asked me a couple weeks ago how much it would cost to send people one way to Mars and I told him $10 billion, and his response was, "Can you get it down to 1 or 2 billion?"'"
In other news: Google To Expand Outsourcing
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
$10 billion to $1-2 billion? What corners are they going to cut I wonder...
"Ok astronauts, we had some budget cuts so you will have to hold your breath once you get out of our atmosphere..."
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
.. oh, you mean ALIVE?
one-way..... he and Sergey Brin not getting along these days? Or do they have someone else in mind?
How is Jefferson Starship a "starship"?
If the maximum distance from the Earth to Mars is 401.3 million km, then the statuses that they read on Facebook or Twitter will be no newer than 22 minutes. This does not include the initial HTTP request.
With the time and money that NASA puts into researching issues as minor as "how are astronauts supposed to poop in space without gravity", I'm sure that this "gotcha" has not been overlooked.
If they are still considering investing in sending someone to Mars knowing full well about this hang-up, It is reasonable to conclude that somewhere, someone, has successfully developed an ansible, and that they are keeping this technology from us.