You know I was watching recently video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzZGPCyrpSU
and it REALLY got me daydreaming again about Project Orion type robotic probe. Imagine the fact that people of today know how to build a spaceship that could travel to the other star systems in few decades and yet they don't do it.
I mean this would truly be such an epic adventure humans haven't felt in centuries now, since all Earth is explored and that "little" part that's not explored (mostly under the sea) does not raise people's eyebrows, unless you're a "nerd".
It's called Project Orion because back in 50's & 60's scientists figured out they could make a spaceship that could be propelled by atom bombs which would give that kind of a spaceship real powerful boost that it could travel 10 light years in 100 years or nearest star in 40 years, but it doesn't need to reach other star system for the mission to get exciting. Just our solar system is still one great unknown. Beyond Pluto is Kuiper belt, which has been little bit observed, but beyond that is even greater mystery like Oort cloud which will probably never be observed with telescopes and it's filled with trillions of rocks and what not and this sucker would be very powerful that it could take a really good look at it. Not to mention how gravity of the Sun behaves at such distances, Voyager gave few hints but since it's very faintly powered probe it can mostly tease us.
For more information how mystical our Solar system is you can watch TV documentary series "How the Universe Works" season 4 episode 4 "Edge of the Solar System"
This Project Orion like probe would be big enough to carry nuclear reactors to power it and it needs to if it wants to run for 100 years or more. Not to mention that it would reach Oort cloud in only 15 years! Compare it to Voyager that will be there in 7000 years. And then after exiting our Oort cloud it will enter space between stars or Oort cloud of another star.
Of course once when it gets to another star system it will take pictures of some other planets. Maybe one of those Super Earths which are rocky planets but bigger then Earth and can be closer to star to support life, since they'll probably have stronger magnetosphere and maybe observe life that is truly bizarre.
I mean sure some people will say we'll have more powerful telescopes to observe planets in other systems, but even then what ever we see we can only have knowledge about it comparing it to the planets of SOL. And you know how it is no matter how much you imagine it's not even close to the real thing. For instance ancient Greeks logically deduced that up on North there must be a land where day is so long that Sun never sets and they imagined this almost paradise land they called Hyperborea, but the reality was much different.
=★= So what's needed? ★★☼☼
Well it will probably need international cooperation since it's gonna drop nukes and the price, nobody knows really how big, but I don't think it's gonna be over 200 billion dollars since it's not going to bring human crew. I mean this would be one of the world's wonders, but the one that goes away. The biggest part would be the shield of steel that takes impact from the bombs which will have a diameter around 400 meters or 1300 feet. Atop of that will be the mechanism that poops atom bombs, atop of that the head with the brain and many, many instruments and perhaps little probes that could be launched on the way. Then on top of all another smaller shield for the micro-particles and rocks in space.
=★★= Motivation? ★★★★
Yes this is the real motherfucker, how to talk people in or even bigger problem how to make politicians of many nations cooperate? It reminds me of a nature documentary I watched about gorillas where narrator noted and wondered "Why aren't gorillas making shelters for themselves since they're intelligent enough" and they shows gorilla in the rain holding palm leaf as an umbrella.
Well maybe it's not so impossible as it seems. Certainly if there was discovered Earth like planet in vicinity of 20 ly especially after few more years of Star Wars movies then it would capture people's imagination that they would want to visit it.
http://i.imgur.com/slxMmTT.webm
and it REALLY got me daydreaming again about Project Orion type robotic probe. Imagine the fact that people of today know how to build a spaceship that could travel to the other star systems in few decades and yet they don't do it.
I mean this would truly be such an epic adventure humans haven't felt in centuries now, since all Earth is explored and that "little" part that's not explored (mostly under the sea) does not raise people's eyebrows, unless you're a "nerd".
It's called Project Orion because back in 50's & 60's scientists figured out they could make a spaceship that could be propelled by atom bombs which would give that kind of a spaceship real powerful boost that it could travel 10 light years in 100 years or nearest star in 40 years, but it doesn't need to reach other star system for the mission to get exciting. Just our solar system is still one great unknown. Beyond Pluto is Kuiper belt, which has been little bit observed, but beyond that is even greater mystery like Oort cloud which will probably never be observed with telescopes and it's filled with trillions of rocks and what not and this sucker would be very powerful that it could take a really good look at it. Not to mention how gravity of the Sun behaves at such distances, Voyager gave few hints but since it's very faintly powered probe it can mostly tease us.
For more information how mystical our Solar system is you can watch TV documentary series "How the Universe Works" season 4 episode 4 "Edge of the Solar System"
This Project Orion like probe would be big enough to carry nuclear reactors to power it and it needs to if it wants to run for 100 years or more. Not to mention that it would reach Oort cloud in only 15 years! Compare it to Voyager that will be there in 7000 years. And then after exiting our Oort cloud it will enter space between stars or Oort cloud of another star.
Of course once when it gets to another star system it will take pictures of some other planets. Maybe one of those Super Earths which are rocky planets but bigger then Earth and can be closer to star to support life, since they'll probably have stronger magnetosphere and maybe observe life that is truly bizarre.
I mean sure some people will say we'll have more powerful telescopes to observe planets in other systems, but even then what ever we see we can only have knowledge about it comparing it to the planets of SOL. And you know how it is no matter how much you imagine it's not even close to the real thing. For instance ancient Greeks logically deduced that up on North there must be a land where day is so long that Sun never sets and they imagined this almost paradise land they called Hyperborea, but the reality was much different.
=★= So what's needed? ★★☼☼
Well it will probably need international cooperation since it's gonna drop nukes and the price, nobody knows really how big, but I don't think it's gonna be over 200 billion dollars since it's not going to bring human crew. I mean this would be one of the world's wonders, but the one that goes away. The biggest part would be the shield of steel that takes impact from the bombs which will have a diameter around 400 meters or 1300 feet. Atop of that will be the mechanism that poops atom bombs, atop of that the head with the brain and many, many instruments and perhaps little probes that could be launched on the way. Then on top of all another smaller shield for the micro-particles and rocks in space.
=★★= Motivation? ★★★★
Yes this is the real motherfucker, how to talk people in or even bigger problem how to make politicians of many nations cooperate? It reminds me of a nature documentary I watched about gorillas where narrator noted and wondered "Why aren't gorillas making shelters for themselves since they're intelligent enough" and they shows gorilla in the rain holding palm leaf as an umbrella.
Well maybe it's not so impossible as it seems. Certainly if there was discovered Earth like planet in vicinity of 20 ly especially after few more years of Star Wars movies then it would capture people's imagination that they would want to visit it.
http://i.imgur.com/slxMmTT.webm
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
