Friday, November 11, 2005
Some science stuff:
Red Dwarf:
There's a star 15 light years from here with three known planets, one a rocky eathlike type except too close to the red dwarf star for life as we know it.
I'm personally much more interested in the planets of these relatively nearby stars, than the far away ones, because it's possible I or my hypothetical grandchildren could go there. I'm counting on both significant life extention and space travel such as fusion, within 50 to 100 years. And computers - Let's say I'm 50 now and 100, 50 years from now. In 50 years, a pretty good computer simulation of me could fit in a box the size of a baseball, and a fusion drive unit could get that baseball up to light speed in about 2 months at 20g's of constant thrust, so this star would be 15 years and 4 months away, say a 31 year round trip.
Scientists, on the other hand, are not as interested in this star itself, as the idea that red dwarf stars might have planets friendly to life. This is important for at least two reasons - there are lots of them, about 10 times as many red dwarfs as sun-type G stars, and, they last for many billion years, so it's handy place to keep your stuff for long term storage.
Some guy's invented mini-windmills, for powering low-power devices like, say, remote earthquake sensors.
Red Dwarf:
There's a star 15 light years from here with three known planets, one a rocky eathlike type except too close to the red dwarf star for life as we know it.
I'm personally much more interested in the planets of these relatively nearby stars, than the far away ones, because it's possible I or my hypothetical grandchildren could go there. I'm counting on both significant life extention and space travel such as fusion, within 50 to 100 years. And computers - Let's say I'm 50 now and 100, 50 years from now. In 50 years, a pretty good computer simulation of me could fit in a box the size of a baseball, and a fusion drive unit could get that baseball up to light speed in about 2 months at 20g's of constant thrust, so this star would be 15 years and 4 months away, say a 31 year round trip.
Scientists, on the other hand, are not as interested in this star itself, as the idea that red dwarf stars might have planets friendly to life. This is important for at least two reasons - there are lots of them, about 10 times as many red dwarfs as sun-type G stars, and, they last for many billion years, so it's handy place to keep your stuff for long term storage.
Some guy's invented mini-windmills, for powering low-power devices like, say, remote earthquake sensors.
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