100 Year Starship Initiative, Website Up

[Mussels]

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me.

Leave the men where they lay
They'll never see another day
Lost my soul, lost my dream
You can't take the sky from me.

I feel the black reaching out
I hear its song without a doubt
I still hear and I still see
That you can't take the sky from me.

Lost my love, lost my land
Lost the last place I could stand
There's no place I can be
Since I've found Serenity

And you can't take the sky from me.

you win a cookie.

 

[RejZoR]

Yeah, it's time for us to send real space crafts into space, not just jet engines and tiny bit of crew and cargo. Space Shuttles were really closest to that at the moment. At least until they scraped them...

 

[Red_Machine]

Speaking of which you fellow Trekkers will be happy to know ST2 is coming 2013

No I won't. And it's not Star Trek 2. That was The Wrath of Khan thirty years ago.

 

[H82LUZ73]

Yeah, it's time for us to send real space crafts into space, not just jet engines and tiny bit of crew and cargo. Space Shuttles were really closest to that at the moment. At least until they scraped them...

RIP Space Shuttles......In Our minds and hearts forever ,now for an ode to them..........(I remember this is my first time watching RUSH.....)

Countdown Lyrics
Performed by Rush
Review The Song (7)

Lit up with anticipation
We arrive at the launching site
The sky is still dark, nearing dawn
On the Florida coastline

Circling choppers slash the night
With roving searchlight beams
This magic day when super-science
Mingles with the bright stuff of dreams

Floodlit in the hazy distance
The star of this unearthly show
Venting vapours, like the breath
Of a sleeping white dragon

Crackling speakers, voices tense
Resume the final count
All systems check, T minus nine
As the sun and the drama start to mount

The air is charged
A humid, motionless mass
The crowds and the cameras,
The cars full of spectators pass
Excitement so thick you could cut it with a knife
Technology...high, on the leading edge of life

The earth beneath us starts to tremble
With the spreading of a low black cloud
A thunderous roar shakes the air
Like the whole world exploding

Scorching blast of golden fire
As it slowly leaves the ground
Tears away with a mighty force
The air is shattered by the awesome sound

Like a pillar of cloud
The smoke lingers high in the air
In fascination
With the eyes of the world
We stare...

Chocolate chip cookie

No I won't. And it's not Star Trek 2. That was The Wrath of Khan thirty years ago.

Uhm NOPE The reboot ST2 .........whistles.......http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/ Also dubbed ST2 from Chris Pine himself......

 

[Red_Machine]

Uhm NOPE The reboot ST2 .........whistles.......http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/ Also dubbed ST2 from Chris Pine himself......

Chris Pine is a moron. I don't even consider them Trek films because of how WRONG they got everything. Spock had been in Starfleet for at least 20 years before Kirk joined, first contact with the Cardassians wasn't until the 2330s and the journey from Earth to Vulcan at warp 4 would take a hell of a lot longer than four minutes. Not to mention the top speed of the COnstitution class was warp 7.

That film was riddled with so many errors it made my flesh crawl.

 

[Vulpesveritas]

Fact: Earth will eventually run out of resources to exploit, especially metals and food.
Fact: The asteroid belt is full of resources, from rare metals, to water and carbon.
Fact: It takes less energy to mine asteroids than it would to colonize the moon.
Conclusion: We really should look at doing some mining...

 

[Disparia]

Chris Pine is a moron. I don't even consider them Trek films because of how WRONG they got everything. Spock had been in Starfleet for at least 20 years before Kirk joined, first contact with the Cardassians wasn't until the 2330s and the journey from Earth to Vulcan at warp 4 would take a hell of a lot longer than four minutes. Not to mention the top speed of the COnstitution class was warp 7.

That film was riddled with so many errors it made my flesh crawl.

Events? Nothing to get wrong when you place it in an alternate timeline

It could go faster, but IIRC the ship was damaged and limited to warp 4. Correct though, is that the time to travel from Earth to Vulcan is much greater than 4 minutes, regardless if TOS or TNG+ warp math is used.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Fact: Earth will eventually run out of resources to exploit, especially metals and food.
Fact: The asteroid belt is full of resources, from rare metals, to water and carbon.
Fact: It takes less energy to mine asteroids than it would to colonize the moon.
Conclusion: We really should look at doing some mining...

In the same vein:

Fact: The moon is closer to Earth than the Keiper belt.
Fact: The Keiper belt is the closest source of asteroids/meteors to Earth.
Fact: The moon can be used as a jumping point from Earth to the Keiper belt.
Fact: He3 exists on the moon, and can be processed into a fuel source for any future mining endeavour.

Closing with the biggest one:
Fact: There are no well funded initiatives to colonize the moon currently. People are more worried about things close to home (global economic crises, finding basic resources, etc...) than to those big dreams of people who are lucky enough to have their basic needs.


So, yeah. I understand the allure of real life starships. I also think that people have more to deal with at home than they would like to admit, so dreaming about a utopia in space is a good way to distract from the current suffering. Whenever this project is killed I won't shed a tear, but I would like to see the mentality applied to more immediate and pressing needs...

 

[twilyth]

Fact: Earth will eventually run out of resources to exploit, especially metals and food.
Fact: The asteroid belt is full of resources, from rare metals, to water and carbon.
Fact: It takes less energy to mine asteroids than it would to colonize the moon.
Conclusion: We really should look at doing some mining...

James Cameron and a consortium of investors already beat you to it.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012...crazier-than-deep-sea-drilling-advocates-say/

 

[Vulpesveritas]

In the same vein:

Fact: The moon is closer to Earth than the Keiper belt.
Fact: The Keiper belt is the closest source of asteroids/meteors to Earth.
Fact: The moon can be used as a jumping point from Earth to the Keiper belt.
Fact: He3 exists on the moon, and can be processed into a fuel source for any future mining endeavour.

Closing with the biggest one:
Fact: There are no well funded initiatives to colonize the moon currently. People are more worried about things close to home (global economic crises, finding basic resources, etc...) than to those big dreams of people who are lucky enough to have their basic needs.


So, yeah. I understand the allure of real life starships. I also think that people have more to deal with at home than they would like to admit, so dreaming about a utopia in space is a good way to distract from the current suffering. Whenever this project is killed I won't shed a tear, but I would like to see the mentality applied to more immediate and pressing needs...

At the same time, many of the things which are happening at home are going to have to be fought on different grounds. Namely the hunger, disease, inequality - these things are unlikely to go away, until we get nanobots and a political system that does not exist for profit. On that same vein, said political systems need to become tolerant in order to advance ahead. The way things are now, we really just need to stop looking back at previous trends of justifying war with religion, suspician, and resources, and instead actually create a one world government by the people, for the people, and of the people, with true freedoms and an educational system within which tolerance is taught, as well as a higher respect for sciences.

And unfortunatly as things are, we have way too many idiots and greed-driven individuals who don't care about the future in office around the world. Until that changes, very little can be done at home.

However, we can at least make a push for space colonization, so at the very least if said idiots at home end up killing us all off, or a comet comes swinging by, at least some of us will survive.

So eh, pretty much there is no straightforward solution for how it should be approached.

 

[Delta6326]

though the idea scares me a little but at the end of the day would you rather be dead and gone or 'live on' in an artificial body potentially as an Ai that still holds your soul and personality?

I would rather be dead

This sounds awesome and I so wanna watch Star Trek now Go Iowa!

I would totally help out and spend the rest of my time helping build a starship as long as my name can at least be put some where on the ship.

 

[twilyth]

I would rather be dead

This sounds awesome and I so wanna watch Star Trek now Go Iowa!

I would totally help out and spend the rest of my time helping build a starship as long as my name can at least be put some where on the ship.
http://img.techpowerup.org/120426/Capture060.jpg
http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-b-sheet-12.jpg

You can always go for cryonic suspension - alcor

 

[Inceptor]

In the same vein:

Fact: The moon is closer to Earth than the Keiper belt.
Fact: The Keiper belt is the closest source of asteroids/meteors to Earth.
Fact: The moon can be used as a jumping point from Earth to the Keiper belt.
Fact: He3 exists on the moon, and can be processed into a fuel source for any future mining endeavour.

The Kuiper belt is beyond the orbit of Neptune, the closest asteroids are the near-earth asteroids, which orbit within the inner solar system.
The Moon isn't the best jumping-off point for further exploration. It's likely that money will be spent to go there and stay, at least semi-permanently, but it's probably more energy efficient to go straight to Mars or theAsteroid belt -- it would take longer but it's a more efficient use of energy. The orbital mechanics would be a bit more challenging but I think the energy expenditure would be smaller to get to a near-earth asteroid, than to land on the Moon.
The Moon is the next Antarctica; scientific bases, expensive tourism. Maybe something economic, at some point.
He3 is only useful for nuclear fusion; fusion reactors have to actually become feasible (produce more energy than is put into them), then successfully miniaturized for use in space --- this is all a long way away, decades --- small fission reactors are doable now.

 

[Lionheart]

you win a cookie.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I would rather be dead

Id rather live on. then i could steal a spaceship and become a space pirate!!

 

[the54thvoid]

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me.

Leave the men where they lay
They'll never see another day
Lost my soul, lost my dream
You can't take the sky from me.

I feel the black reaching out
I hear its song without a doubt
I still hear and I still see
That you can't take the sky from me.

Lost my love, lost my land
Lost the last place I could stand
There's no place I can be
Since I've found Serenity

And you can't take the sky from me.

Uncredited songs are persuable under copyright law.

Song from opening sequence from 'Firefly'.

But you all knew that.