why can't we send a rocket like a dozen galaxies away?

[rocketman420]

i mean like we have dozens of rockets tested each year, but nobody is really interested in going to the moon or to mars, right?

 

so if we can get some rockets into space then in space where there's no air resistance, an extra gallon of fuel should create the inertia needed to send a rocket like 50 galaxies away, see if there's anything interesting there...

[Martin]

i mean like we have dozens of rockets tested each year, but nobody is really interested in going to the moon or to mars, right?

 

so if we can get some rockets into space then in space where there's no air resistance, an extra gallon of fuel should create the inertia needed to send a rocket like 50 galaxies away, see if there's anything interesting there...

 

It is possible that you think a galaxy is a planetary system like the solar system.

 

A galaxy is a collection of stars like a billion stars, or 10 billion stars, or several hundred billion. Maybe Wikipedia has something for you about that. Galaxies are on the order of a million or more lightyears from our (milkyway) galaxy.

 

So any probe we could construct would take a million or more years to get to another galaxy, and when it reported back to us what it saw there the radio message would take a million or more years to get back.

 

I'm understating the typical distances and times.

 

====================

 

To make sense of your question I have to believe you didn't mean to say galaxy. You meant send a spacecraft probe to some nearby star that has planets. We know plenty of stars that have planets orbiting them. Some are only a few tens of lightyears from here. So a radio message from a probe would only take a few tens of years to get back to us.

 

If humans survive as a technologically competent species, and don't trash or exhaust their planet, then I have no doubt that they will eventually get around to doing just what your post suggests---send probes to nearby planetary systems and check them out at close range.

 

For now, the game is to build better telescopes so that we can study the planets orbiting nearby stars and learn more about them (without having to send probes there.)

 

I would say that advanced telescopes able to detect oceans, and analyze cloud-cover, are at least as important for the longrange future of earth-life in space as manned missions to Mars---possibly more important.

[Psycho]

Yes we can, but the fiftieth closest galaxy is about 5 million light years, and considering the fastest a man made probe has gone is 70,000 m/s and C is 3,000,000 m/s even at that speed twice that speed it would still take 107 million years and even scientists don't have that longer attention span.

Edited July 20, 2009 by Psycho

[D H]

Rocketman:

 

You are vastly underestimating how big, and how empty, space is and you are vastly overestimating the state of rocket technology. The US has launched five satellites that will eventually escape the solar system. The last one launched was New Horizons in January, 2006. It will reach Pluto in July, 2015. The other four (Pioneer 10 & 11, Voyager 1 & 2) were launched more than thirty years ago, and have left the planets far behind.

 

Whether any of these previous four have left the solar system depends on what is meant by leaving the solar system. In the sense that leaving the solar system means transitioning from the heliosphere to interstellar space, one (Voyager 1) is in the boundary. The other three are still well within the heliosphere. If any of these probes were on a heading to the nearest star, it wouldn't arrive for another 75,000 years. Voyager 1 is the fastest of the five and it is moving at 1/20,000 the speed of light.

[rocketman421]

Martin... you're really quite smart yes that is what i had imagined and thanks for correcting my wording... i should have said "a dozen systems away".

 

So like say the star sirius is 8 light years away, and dh said for the fastest ship it will be 20,000*8 years to get there, so it will only take like 160 thousand years to get there...

 

yeah that is a long time nevermind this question... after all civilization has only been around for like 2,000 years so by that time we'll have flying cars and teleportation machines and ships that will overlap voyager 30 times traveling to sirius

 

for now its best just to use telescopes as martin said i guess... if ships are too slow at least light isn't.

Edited July 20, 2009 by swansont
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[lifestream]

well we havent abandoned mars/moon mission nether. There is a ongoing plan to get a man to the moon by 2012 and also starting with a lunar base to train for mars mission in further future.

 

Id say there is just as much stars in the galaxy as there is sand grains on earth.

 

Chemichal propulsion aint good for outerspace probing. Best currently used propulsion is ion - with no friction it can accelerate slowly and reach high speeds or solar surfing.

 

We should start with proper outer-space missions when we can get to moon and back in 2 hours.

[Tolmosoff]

I would like to see a probe sent to our moon and instaments to search out viable ( Volcanic Tubes ) on our moon as a moon base.

Volcanic tubes can be sealed from outside vacum and solar power to transmit electric energy underground for oxygen generation, lighting and farming and that i cal ( Volcanic Cities ).

Forget that boon doggle of a Mars habitat will cost 10's of billions.

 

Solar Radiation ? to space explorers will be a quick grave yard with ( tumors and Cancers ).

 

Volcanic cities are a great shield against solar radiation.

Our ancesters lived in caves and was a home for protection. Most all planets have volcanic activity ( Natures Habitat ).

 

Build rockets and extract fuel for very powerful load set off from our moon to see other solar systems and no need for a launch pad.

[rocketman421]

well we havent abandoned mars/moon mission nether. There is a ongoing plan to get a man to the moon by 2012 and also starting with a lunar base to train for mars mission in further future.

 

doesn't u.s. already have a man on permanent reserve at the moon? but yeah its pretty interesting i mean say like for 200,000$ i believe i read in popsci you can get a personal trip to space (i forgot its called xflyer or something) and the moon is like 5-6 days of travel so we could totally build like hotels & amusement parks over there as a luxury destination.

 

also maybe we can drill it for oil & resources. hell, lets drill all the planets. i think the main problem with mars is it takes like 2 years for a person to get there which is incredibly boring. only thing that sucks is you'll have to stay indoors on the moon or otherwise wear a spacesuit if outside...

[AzurePhoenix]

also maybe we can drill it for oil & resources. hell, lets drill all the planets

Oil comes from organic material converted by heat and pressure. Organic material specifically as in dead organisms.

 

... And no one's been to the moon in decades.

[insane_alien]

one exception to that rule is titan though. its basically just a big old ball of hydrocarbons. although at earth temperatures it would all be gaseous as it is mainly short chain alkanes. but these could be converted to petroleum and diesel.

 

by the time we are able to mine titan though, we won't be using oil for fuel.

[AzurePhoenix]

by the time we are able to mine titan though, we won't be using oil for fuel.

Which is unfortunate... wouldn't even need to drill for it on Titan.

[CharonY]

You are probably thinking of Spaceship one which actually is only able to reach space. A conventional trip to the space station is in the order of 20 millions. And the costs for FTL gateways is even higher.

[rocketman421]

No! It was not spaceship1 or spaceship2. those ones are expensive and all you get is a tiny window on a space bus and i believe it costs like ~20 million.

 

I think what i meant was "SpaceX" one of their newer prototypes is supposed to cost like 200k to get you up into space and its not like a spacebus or shuttle its two people, its just you and the pilot and you get to ride shotgun.

Edited July 21, 2009 by rocketman421

[insane_alien]

yeah, they haven't built that.

 

it doesn't really exist outside on an engineers head at the moment where it nice and cheap. once it gets out it'll almost definitely be far more expensive.

 

spaceship1/2 actually exist and will be around 200k when testing phase is completed.

 

i also wouldn't call it a space bus, it only does suborbital so it can't actually take you anywhere like the ISS or something like that.