Utopia Talk / Politics / Voyager 1

murder rank	Mon Jan 12 23:08:02 Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977. It is the most distant man-made object from Earth. This November it will reach a distance of 1 light day from Earth. And it will have taken > 49 years to make it that far. And back on Earth clowns are talking warp drives and faster than light space travel.
murder rank	Mon Jan 12 23:15:15 Forget interstellar travel, someone prove that you can catch Voyager 1. -
Rugian rank	Mon Jan 12 23:19:32 100 years ago, the idea that you could send anything man-made 1 light year into the universe would have been treated as pure science fiction. Baby steps.
Pillz rank	Tue Jan 13 00:13:34 Okay, I was having a discussion with an AI engineer, and they said that, ultimately, we're going to pump out all of the magma from the earth and replace it with hydrogen gas. And we need all the magma so that we can have the raw mineral resources required to create Elysium-style space stations on earth. Oh, also, we need to begin mining the moon. We will shortly, according to them, in the next ten years, we'll have industrial operations on the moon. Then we'll begin building giant space stations, and in the next century, there should be trillions of human beings occupying space station and space stations and moons across the solar system. This, I have come to realize, is an actual belief that engineers have, and they are actively trying to get us there, and fuck me, siphoning all the mineral resources out of the earth to replace them with hydrogen. I hope Putin nukes something soon.
murder rank	Tue Jan 13 01:17:50 "100 years ago, the idea that you could send anything man-made 1 light year into the universe would have been treated as pure science fiction." Light day, not light year. It'll take close to 18,000 years for Voyager 1 to reach a distance of 1 light year from Earth. "Baby steps" Yes, which is why it's ridiculous that con artist try to convince people that we're going to skip right over all the steps between where we are and achieving even 1% the speed of light. -
Sam Adams rank	Tue Jan 13 07:53:51 The ocean is too big and stormy, no one could possibly cross that. -aztecs
jergul rank	Tue Jan 13 09:46:31 18000 years to reach one light year is entirely respectable. We, as a species, just die too fast. Might as well have day-flies wanting to travel to Alpha Centauri. The fix, if we absolutely want it, is biological. For example, send frozen material off to join that very different time line. 100k years give or take does not matter.
jergul rank	Tue Jan 13 09:47:19 I am not going to cross the Atlantic Ocean unless I can do it in 10 seconds. -Sam Adams.
murder rank	Tue Jan 13 14:09:17 "The ocean is too big and stormy, no one could possibly cross that." If we launched a Voyager 3 today, it would take about as long to reach the same distance from earth as Voyager 1. Almost 50 years and there's been no significant development in propulsion.
jergul rank	Tue Jan 13 14:52:00 Murder That is not really true. Or rather, a voyager optimised for speed would have been faster 50 years ago too. It is a function of fuel that decides how much acceleration the vehicle is given. So bigger booster gives more speed. Assumption that friction = 0, so nothing to slow down the cruising glide.
jergul rank	Tue Jan 13 14:52:48 Note. Not anything like fractions of light speed. More 50% faster or whatever.
Rugian rank	Tue Jan 13 15:22:39 murder We already have the technology to travel at ~0.1c. We have just never attempted to use it.
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