Image via WikipediaFaster Not Better?
When talking about interstellar probes in the mainstream, the matter of speed always come up. Usually that speed is the speed of light, and how at the present we can’t obtain that with our current state of rocket technology. What happens if we do achieve a cruise speed of 12 percent of the speed of light, as envisioned by the designers who put together Project Daedalus back in the 1970s? Daedalus called for a 3.8-year period of acceleration that would set up a 46-year cruise to its target, Barnard’s Star, some 5.9 light years away. That’s stretching mission duration out to the active career span of a researcher, but it’s a span we might accept if we could be sure we’d get good science out of it.
But can we? Let’s assume we’re approaching a solar system at 12 percent of c and out there orbiting the target star is a terrestrial planet, just the sort of thing we’re hoping to find. Assume for the sake of argument that the probe crosses the path of this object at approximately ninety degrees to its orbital motion trajectory. As Kelvin Long shows in a recent post on the Project Icarusblog, the encounter time, during which serious observations could be made, is less than one second. A Jupiter-class world, much larger and observable from a greater distance, itself offers up something less than ten seconds at best for scientific scrutiny.
That’s a paltry return on decades of construction and flight time, not to mention the probable trillion or more dollars it would take to build such a probe, and it hardly compares well to what we’ll be able to achieve with even ground-based telescopes as the next generation of optics becomes available. What to do?
Strange UFO? UAP? Porthole? Fiery Object
Image via WikipediaNew Zealand Releases UFO X Files
Government Spying On UFO Bloggers
The physics experiment that will one day let you walk through walls
Image via WikipediaScientists in China were able to make a "false wall" in an incredible demonstration of illusion optics. Find out why you
shouldn't believe your eyes anymore, thanks to physics.
House Republicans Vote for the Rape of Little Girls
Via Talking Points Memo:
On Thursday night, hours before passing the tax cut compromise, House Republicans thwarted a bill that aimed to protect girls around the world from being coerced into child marriage. They opposed it because, they claimed, it might fund abortions.
[snip]
The text of the bill does not mention abortion, contraception or family planning. Instead, it directs the president to make preventing child marriage a priority, especially in countries where more than 40 percent of girls under the age of 18 are married. The ways to do that, according to the bill: support educating communities on the dangers and health effects of child marriage, keep young girls in school, support female mentoring programs and make sure girls have access to health care services.
US Sues China at WTO on Wind Power Subsidies[snip]
The text of the bill does not mention abortion, contraception or family planning. Instead, it directs the president to make preventing child marriage a priority, especially in countries where more than 40 percent of girls under the age of 18 are married. The ways to do that, according to the bill: support educating communities on the dangers and health effects of child marriage, keep young girls in school, support female mentoring programs and make sure girls have access to health care services.
China appears to provide subsidies that are prohibited under WTO rules because the grants awarded under the program seem to be contingent on Chinese wind power equipment manufacturers using parts and components made in China rather than foreign-made parts and components.
“Import substitution subsidies are particularly harmful and inherently trade distorting, which is why they are expressly prohibited under WTO rules,” said Ambassador Kirk. “These subsidies effectively operate as a barrier to U.S. exports to China.
Markets Ponder China Bailing Out Europe ( Again )
China has indeed voiced support for the idea of diversifying its holdings by purchasing sovereign debt of troubled eurozone members (which ares still denominated in euros).
So it is that newswires are abuzz with news that the Chinese are once again making noises to similar effect:
This Fucking War
US medicines for Afghan soldiers disappear
Hugo Chavez Militarily Confiscating Farms of Venezuelan Patriots? Using Foreign Forces?
Sacramento-area pilot punished for YouTube video
Missoula District Court: Jury pool in marijuana case stages ‘mutiny’
Jihad Watch: Iraq becoming Islamic state
Let Them Fight...: Afghanistan; Continued Subterfuge in the Ranks of our New 'Allies'
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