In Hunt for Alien Planets, Frustration Lingers Over Canceled Missions

In Hunt for Alien Planets, Frustration Lingers Over Canceled Missions

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2145ca018638.jpg[/atsimg]

www.space.com...

While the Corporation of America is Dead set on Dominating the World; Under the Guise of Freedom And Democracy(We know thats a lie) Spending untold Trillions on illegal Wars.

NASA can't scrap together enough money to fund their most essential exploration programs.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a9ecfe29f6bd.jpg[/atsimg]



Over the Years i've been following Space and topics related to Space for over 7-9 years now and its really been interesting and a great learning experience.

You learn Enough and Learn that once you learn enough you realise you truly do know nothing.

Lets hope they can find funding for the Proposed missions in the Above Article....

So we can shed some light on the nearby planets in star-systems nearby....

New Estimate: 2 billion Earths In Our Galaxy Alone

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1c06ef347382.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4d4420cfda67.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/76f129558a11.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/668c7fd90eab.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1e1723737c5a.jpg[/atsimg]


D i s c u s s

]

reply to post by TheUniverse

I agree OP. We definitely don't spend enough on space exploration.
All the doom and gloom threads aside, it is a fact that one day the earth will be destroyed; by the sun when it expands if nothing else. Mankind has to realize that we have to get off this planet eventually.
We need to be out there searching for other homes and/or places where it be suitable to colonize.

They had it right in the 60's when they made space exploration as part of the war effort. Instead of fighting on the ground, sea and air, they need to have wars that determine the winners by space exploration results, IMO...


....In a perfect world of course...

Well, it's a known fact that the first country that discovers an economically-viable way to get in and out of space will dominate the world. IMO, we should concentrate on building something like a space elevator, more than space exploration. Imagine the exploration that could be funded by a country that could successfully take advantage of our solar system's resources..

Originally posted by MrFake
Well, it's a known fact that the first country that discovers an economically-viable way to get in and out of space will dominate the world. IMO, we should concentrate on building something like a space elevator, more than space exploration. Imagine the exploration that could be funded by a country that could successfully take advantage of our solar system's resources..

You mean, "imagine the rape and commercialization of space by a country that could successfully sub-contract enough low bidders in order to reap benefit$$$$ for said country".

A space elevator would be almost worthless right now. We can't "take advantage of our Solar's System's resources" when you haven't even sent a human being further out than our own freaking moon. That's not how "exploration" works. A country that will be able to successfully utilize the riches that space provides will be the one that has the most unique and experienced space exploration team. In order to understand our Solar System more, human beings need to start setting foot on objects such as asteroids, Mars, the Moon again, and should have a target set to begin limited year round habitats so that we finally know more than the pictures of a rover is giving us.

reply to post by zcflint05


Well yeah, we'd obviously have to land on Mars/asteroids first, but I'm just saying that finding a cheap way isn't even part of our focus at the moment, aside from handing it off to the private sector. We can do a lot better than that.

Not so, check out the Kepler mission.

4 months and already over 1200 possible candidates and 16 confirmed.
kepler.nasa.gov...

So much to seek and so little time,how will this be possible.Stars and planets look so similar

Humankind as it is now doesn't deserve to colonize other worlds. The military/space spending graph says it all. The problem isn't that some senators didn't give NASA more money, the problem is that our entire race is flawed. The primary problems being corruptibility, and tendency toward hate and fear.

Whether we could ever evolve a society which could overcome our inherent problems, I don't know. I am doubtful. Who knows, maybe the aliens intentionally built these flaws into our genome, to help make sure we'd be unable to create any kind of interstellar empire.

reply to post by AngelHeart


Try reading the Article(s) in The OP next time.

Geoff Marcy mad over Cancellations - SPACE.COM LINK

Geoff Marcy is mad. Not mad as in 'crazy,' although many scientists thought he was nuts when he first started hunting for planets orbiting far-distant stars over 20 years ago. Now that over 500 exoplanets have been detected and the Kepler space telescope has over 1,200 candidate planets waiting to be confirmed, Marcy's dedication and hard work (and his sanity) have been vindicated.

But Marcy is still mad at NASA for canceling exoplanet missions like the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM). He's also angered by what he sees as a lack of leadership and cooperation for exoplanet missions within NASA and the larger astrophysics community. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets] Marcy expressed his ire at a recent exoplanet symposium hosted by MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager."I'm unhappy about the last 10 years, and the next 10 years," he said.

New Estimate: 2 billion Alien Earths in Galaxy alone

Roughly one out of every 37 to one out of every 70 sunlike stars in the sky might harbor an alien Earth, a new study reveals. These findings hint that billions of Earthlike planets might exist in our galaxy, researchers added. These new calculations are based in data from the Kepler space telescope, which in February wowed the globe by revealing more than 1,200 possible alien worlds, including 68 potentially Earth-size planets. The spacecraft does so by looking for the dimming that occurs when a world transits or moves in front of a star.

I'm actually surprised you surmised i didn't know about this discovery already... a lot of people heard about this i am a huge space buff i was waiting years for Kepler to be launched!!!!!

Not so, check out the Kepler mission.

Hrmm Nope Read the Articles they are cancelling and/or delaying missions that may be able to observe planets and/or detect more exo-planets in the galaxy.

reply to post by paperface


Well they can tell they are planets because they are much dimmer than the stars they orbit; although now they have found evidence for many wandering rogue planets that lack a star to orbit around with a recent study i saw.

The one method they proposed of doing i don't know if its a proposed part of the mission(s) Geoff Marcy is mad about but it would use an occultor to block the light from the star so they can observe the planets around the star.

The light from the star is so bright it makes it almost impossible to directly view the planets without using an occulter. See here

New Worlds Mission

Exoplanets appear extremely close to their host stars when observed at astronomical distances. Even the closest of stars are several light years away. This means that while looking for exoplanets, one would typically be observing very small angles from the star, on the order of several tens of milli-arcseconds. Angles this small are impossible to resolve from the ground due to astronomical seeing.

Exoplanets are extremely dim compared to their host stars. Typically, the star will be approximately a billion times brighter than the orbiting planet. This makes it near-impossible to see planets against the star's glare.

Oops, missed that little link, I think I was too mesmerized by the pretty pictures! Apologies!

reply to post by Observer99


With this mindset I'm glad you are not in the position to vote for or against an aerospace budget. When you close the mind things become more comfortable to those, like when you think the world is lying to you about things you are uneducated in. So how would you know the difference?

Nasa needs to be scrapped. The amount of money they've spent vs. the rewards the space program has achieved do not justify it. Those corporations you so hate are the ones that are going to get us out their in a timely manner at a far cheaper cost.

Government needs to fully privatize space and give the corporations a reason to get out there and you will see them achieve things that Nasa would take forever to accomplish.

reply to post by kro32


Kind of contradictory don't you think? If return of investment is so low how do you expect private ventures to fund space exploration?

Well, now that the existence of other planets has confirmed, maybe the best way to get the best bang out of our space dollars is to 1) develop a real lifting platform, like a space plane, that can get the job done and is re-usable, and not screw around, but build an actual platform that works and has the payload. 2) Change the direction of NASA from "exploration" to "colonization" 3) Make our education system teach the truth that wwe can't stay here and that we should be focusing on getting to another "home" and make everything else secondary 4) Find a form of propulsion for spacecraft that makes sense for long duration/high speed missions and get it done.

reply to post by CosmosKid


Relax Cosmos, (not that you displayed alarm), I believe we have a couple billion years to develop such technology, if mankind lasts that long. Imagine what life could be like in the year 10,000, or 100,000 AD. At that point if mankind on earth still exists, and travels to distant worlds with life hundreds of thousands of years behind us in technological evolution, would we really want to disrupt their natural progression, or just observe?

reply to post by Illustronic


This is why i agree with the scrapping of the Shuttle Program.

I really wanted NASA to kick it into full gear with their research into newer forms of Propulsion and thats exactly what they are focusing on now.

www.space.com...

I could not find another link but i have read they are focusing on Propulsion R and D more so than before. Now that the Space Shuttle Cancellations will free up a lot of Cash. 2 billion per Launch OUCH

Imagine what we could have spent that money on.

2 billion per launch wow...

With 2 billion Alone we could have 2-3 Inner solar systems probes sent to asteriods/comets and/or planets in the solar system.

*Sigh*