Moontanman

My vote for interstellar travel goes to magnetic sails, they will be slow but they'll get you there.... Generation type ships will be the ticket for sure unless some bright boy or girl comes up with some sort of warp drive type effect but we can't count on that can we?

I know everyone here doesn't read science fiction but Harry Turtledove wrote a long series of books about just that scenario. it starts out at the beginning of WW2 when the world is locked in global warfare and aliens invade and take on all sides... One of those alternate histories he is so good at, there are 8 books in the series. We might be in a unusual position with two stars only 4.5 light years away and both of them are high metal stars that could have planets... earth like planets... but Harry Turtledoves aliens come from Tau Ceti...

Thanks great resource...

Umm no, accelerating at 1G to very near light speed and then decelerating would get you there in a little over 6 years earth time and less than 4 years ship time. I can't seem to find the equations I need to be exact but 280 years is way off the mark...

Retired Military Personnel To Confirm UFO Incursions at American Nuclear Weapons Sites One day, if the past is any representation of the future, I expect to see something like what happened in Iraq at the start of the Iraq war. An American high official will be on a podium outside saying that reports of UFOs landing around the capital are completely baseless and should not be believed. As alien space craft slowly pass by in the back round and aliens wave to the camera,

Could you expand on that a little? I'm not familiar with Hobbes or the concept of a finite hell....

John Varley suggests organisms that spread via seeds launched into space in his Gaen trilogy. It's not as far fetched as it might seem at first glance and we have left out the possibility of machines arriving instead of biological aliens. A machine might view our planet as nothing but a source of refined metal, ignoring us completely as it "eats" our cities and vehicles to make copies of it's self. I think we can take MRlogics second scenario and speculate about it if we are specific about the characteristics of the aliens. But I take exception to aliens landing anywhere on the earth, I think they would be more likely to come into orbit and contact us...

The main thing I have trouble with isn't temporary suffering, it's permanent suffering. How could a human deserve to suffer forever? I can see God giving us free will and that free will could result in suffering of both the guilty and the innocent but to burn in hell forever? If that doesn't make god evil I can't imagine what would.

First off MRlogic is making some assumptions and while most people assume the same thing the word aliens does not necessarily mean complex intelligent technological beings. but if we assume that then we have to speculate why they are here. Explorers that stumbled on us? Tracking down our radio signals? Colonizers? Missionaries of some sort? Defective space craft and looking for someplace to land and repair? Conquerors? I am sure there are many more possibilities but to speculate you really have to choose a reason why they are here and go from there. Personally I think technological advanced aliens would have no need for planets and if they are here they are exploiting the resources of the solar system to build more space colonies to house thier population before they move on to another star. Their interest in us would be minimal at most... I think that is indeed the reality of the UFO phenomena but I have enough bruises from promoting that scenario

There is always the Nuclear light bulb rocket with many times the Specific Impulse of the NERVA type nuclear rocket. Best chemcal rocket Specific impluse 450 NERVA Specific impluse 900 Nuclear light bulb rocket Specific impluse 5,000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaseous_fission_reactor

Why does it have to be fast interstellar travel? A torus using magnetic sails could there in a few generations...

Do neutrons attract, repel, or have no effect on each other?

GE Salmon, a fish genetically engineered from three different fish. There seems to be a huge amount of emotion being touted as reason not to eat it but very little if any real evidence it could be harmful. Will you eat it when it comes on the market?

The age of sexual consent seems to be a big part of this conversation but it should be pointed out that the idea of sexual consent at age 18 is new. In some parts of the USA, until the 1970s ( i think) the age of sexual consent was 12, possibly even younger in some places or even nonexistent. Age of consent has been quite low and variable in the USA at least until recent years. I can't see how the idea of early or late puberty years ago figures into it.

The first thing to remember is that melting down a magnet destroys the magnetic effect, there is no special ore that is magnetic. A magnetic sphere has north and south poles just like a bar magnet. If you were to forge a bunch of parts that when fitted together would make a sphere, then magnetize them and so that the part that points inward is always one charge and the part that points outward was the opposite charge the pieces would all repel each other if you tried to form them into a sphere, I'm not sure what the field lines would look like.

I agree AP, this is just another hoax, the lizard is not as big as the photo seems to indicate, not even close and the OP is either a victim of the hoax or perpetrating it. Penicillin comes from mold on oranges, i think, but if you were sick you would have no way to use that mold to your benefit. Even if the gecko is somehow a cure for aids how do you administer it? Eat the gecko raw? Grind him up and inject the pureed lizard into your veins? The Tokay gecko is quite common, bred in captivity and it would be nuts to pay that much for an animal so common and easy to come by. A hoax for sure, the forums chain is being rattled for sure! AIDS has resulted in many desperate hoaxes that bilk billions of dollars out of desperate people but this is no better then the Hoax about having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS.

Does anyone know how big we could builds a torus colony. 600 miles across, 100 miles thick, built like a continuous suspension bridge, 1/4 gee gravity due to centrifugal force on the inside surface. Could we build this with current technology

Just because someone paid that much for the gecko doesn't prove it cures AIDS, it just shows how gullible desperate people are.

HB, seriously dude, a bitch slap is the correct thing to do in this situation? Go to a biker bar for advice? Maybe go to a biker bar if your looking to hire a hit man, in the moves, in real life you'd be more likely to get your ass kicked by a biker chick, I never figured you for a misogynist HB... You can't ignore verbal nagging? You call nagging abuse? Nagging drives men to drink? Let some one slap the shit out of you then have sex with you while you taste blood in your mouth from the slap, "yeah that's better baby, just behave and everything will be ok....." Nagging in the work place is the same as physical abuse of a spouse who can't get away from you because you will beat the shit of of her if she does? The males behavior is ok? you never though he might have actually done something to upset his spouse resulting in the nagging? You've got to be kidding me.... I am quite sure there is plenty of blame to go around in the OP's case, blaming the woman is bullshit, both of them need to get their act together, the woman might really be an asshole and the man completely innocent but both are obviously not handling the situation in the correct way and the son suffers while they fight, so juvinile... Both of them need a knot jerked in thier asses....

Um... the dad? I was subjected to this when i was a kid, it's maddening for sure but once i had kids I realized that although Mom was wrong Dad could have stepped up the plate but all he really wanted was to use me to control mom. My Dad really didn't want the responsibility of kids, he just wanted to do the same thing as mom, use me. Both parents were in the wrong and it took me many years to realize this.

YES! That is exactly what needs to be done, fewer people is the answer, absolutely amazing how few people seem to understand that... No to mention that the people you give money to will just multiply even faster and soon there will be less money or you will have to take more from the "rich" birth control is the only real answer to the problem of poverty...

I'm not sure what you mean lemur, do you mean that faith requires a god, that god requires faith, or that faith creates god?