Kepler-22b

[Mistress Kitti]

Daaayyyuuummm Unky! Looky who's a math genius! * I was too lazy to do the equations, so thx* So by your calculations it would take apprx 26+ million years to get there. *faints* Can forget 'bout Another Great Step For Mankind then!

The point is that when we make contact with life outside our planet it will be just communication. We can't fly very far very fast. Even if they are more advanced than us your sci-fi inspired ideas about space travel are ludicrous. Our contact will be more akin to HAM radio conversations than anything else.

Earth: "Hi guys, how are you?"
Them: "Good, and yourself?"
Earth: "Um, we're ok. A few problems but ok overall. Hey can you fly 600 light years within one generation yet?"
Them: "No, you?"
Earth: "Nah, me either. Ok lets get on skype and trade some music. Bye!"




Light years is a distance/time measurement, Kitti. So it would take 600 light year to get there.

Well, when you put it THAT way *siiiigh* there goes any hope of opening up the communication barriers. I think I'm more curious to see the outcome of their search for alien life than actually getting there. Just how advanced would they be? More dinosaur-like life forms? W/ the technology we have, is it possible to study from afar? I mean if a satellite can pick up a termite's activity in the Sahara dessert from space, why not??

[rasterbee]

Grunky I think the error is shuttle speed outside of Earth's influence. It says it has to reach 17.5k mph to escape but in space's vaccumish blah blah blah the shuttle could go a hell of a lot faster, I think.

Grunky look at this yahoo answers link, it has sources and everything.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...6204858AAMQsgihttp://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...6204858AAMQsgi

[TheGr8UNKy]

Grunky I think the error is shuttle speed outside of Earth's influence. It says it has to reach 17.5k mph to escape but in space's vaccumish blah blah blah the shuttle could go a hell of a lot faster, I think.

I'm sure it could go a lot faster after leaving Earth's gravity pull.

[rasterbee]

Right so we already sent something into space that went 150k mph. Almost 10 times as fast as your math, which you just googled anyways because I did too but that's what I wanted you to do because I'm lazy.

[Lucas101]

I heard, emphasis on the HEARD as I know very little on the subject and am not a wikiexpert, that it is even possible to go faster then what they have to date, as it is possible to use a gravitational orbit to slingshot the spacecraft faster then the thrust that it could get from its engines.

That said I think we should just build a dome on the moon or something instead of using up all these resources on finding planets that are way out of our range ...

[rasterbee]

Didn't some scientists just shoot a particle faster than what we call the speed of light? I know than can do like 99% easily but if they can surpass what we thought was unsurpassable then we have no idea how fast space ships or whatever form of transportation we will use will be. If we can break down and reassemble living matter and transmit it wirelessly long distances that would be nice too.

[Lucas101]

Didn't some scientists just shoot a particle faster than what we call the speed of light? I know than can do like 99% easily but if they can surpass what we thought was unsurpassable then we have no idea how fast space ships or whatever form of transportation we will use will be. If we can break down and reassemble living matter and transmit it wirelessly long distances that would be nice too.

No they observed neutrinos, which are particles emitted by the sun that go throw earth like a knife through butter, travelling faster then light, but this has been known for a few years as I remember my astrophysics prof briefly mentioning it 2 years ago ...

But like you say there is so much that is unknown about space, for example all space calculations are admittedly incorrect as the scientists have to account for some unknown mass, which is called dark energy/matter/light. Its examples like this that make me shake my head at all this 'space explorations' as scientists dont even have a solid grasp on the fundamentals yet are already trying to find another earth no matter how far away it is.

But like you say there is no knowledge of what the fastest mode of transportation is, and who knows maybe some of those crazy writers were right and there are some holes in space time which allow spaceships to take 'short cuts'

[Boleslav]

I for one am convinced that if anyone can figure out a solution to the complexities of interstellar travel it will be the posters of OT.

[rasterbee]

Shut up. I'm being nice so be cool.

And Lucas, no man look http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html

Ok so yeah it was neutrinos but we shot them here in our labs, they weren't from the sun. So we did make something go faster than the speed of light.

[Lucas101]

Shut up. I'm being nice so be cool.

And Lucas, no man look http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html

Ok so yeah it was neutrinos but we shot them here in our labs, they weren't from the sun. So we did make something go faster than the speed of light.

I stand corrected ... I thought that they were using results observed from the Sudbury Neutrino experiments of a while back, but all of this stuff is way over my head and thinking about it causes my head to hurt so I'm not even sure how this is relevant