[psyco junkie]

So NASA is building a warp drive...who wants to play on Pluto when its done?

http://io9.com/59632...irst-warp-drive

[andrewthewookie]

Pluto? I'd rather play on Uranus.

[TK-421]

I still think we're 100+ years from commercial faster than light travel.

[SCHULER]

andrewthewookie, on 12 January 2013 - 01:32 AM, said:

Pluto? I'd rather play on Uranus.

idk if it was mean to be a funny but im rotflmao

[Antonious]

I'm still very skeptical on the whole warp drive theory.

andrewthewookie, on 12 January 2013 - 01:32 AM, said:

Pluto? I'd rather play on Uranus.

[PREDATOR 47]

See, the thing is that it's NASA. They are a bunch of really smart guys, but it's a government organization, which means they will take their sweet time in getting this put together.

If this were two private organizations working on this, there wouldn't be budget cuts to worry about, bickering congress, this would be put together faster because of one word: competition.

Without that, I'm currently in doubt I will see this happen in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of it and how they came up with a way to make it plausible is amazing.

This post has been edited by PREDATOR 47: 12 January 2013 - 11:05 AM

[andrewthewookie]

Just because there's no specific company to company competition does not mean NASA wants to take their time. They want it out as soon as, if not sooner than anyone else. What could be better for confirming that our country needs NASA than making an actual faster than light engine? They'd get all the funding they could ever need in a heartbeat.

The issue right now is finding a way to power such an engine, not the engine itself. Once we figure out the power requirements, it should be fairly easy (relatively speaking) to construct the rest of it.

This post has been edited by andrewthewookie: 12 January 2013 - 11:19 AM

[TECHDP=)]

andrewthewookie, on 12 January 2013 - 01:32 AM, said:

Pluto? I'd rather play on Uranus.

LOL

[PREDATOR 47]

I have no doubt that constructing a warp drive would affirm that NASA is absolutely necessary, and I never questioned whether or not they are useful. I'm just saying that NASA has the tendency to take their time with things, and with all the budget cuts and the way our government doesn't want to do anything productive other than argue, I just don't see this happening anytime soon.

I agree that one of the big hurdles with technology is how to power it, but they seem to have the theory of it down and their recent calculations obviously make this a lot more do-able.

All I'm saying is I wouldn't hold your breath on this happening anytime in the near future, because NASA is slow and they have a lot of work to do to get this off the ground.

[TECHDP=)]

Just thinking about this actually scares me and amazes me.
Think about everything that's out there.

Wait. Haven't we only explored 5% of our ocean? I'd like to see discoveries in our very ocean first.

[OEFVeteran]

we know more about the surface of the moon then we do about our own ocean... less then 1% of the ocean floor has been explored....

to put it quite simply... more then 70% (could be way off, been a lon ass time since i've seen this stat) of the worlds processed gold from before ww2 rests on the bottom of the ocean... and we have found billions of dollars in gold coin in old ship wrecks... means there is billions left to find....

[dustyshouri]

PREDATOR 47, on 12 January 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

I have no doubt that constructing a warp drive would affirm that NASA is absolutely necessary, and I never questioned whether or not they are useful. I'm just saying that NASA has the tendency to take their time with things, and with all the budget cuts and the way our government doesn't want to do anything productive other than argue, I just don't see this happening anytime soon.

I agree that one of the big hurdles with technology is how to power it, but they seem to have the theory of it down and their recent calculations obviously make this a lot more do-able.

All I'm saying is I wouldn't hold your breath on this happening anytime in the near future, because NASA is slow and they have a lot of work to do to get this off the ground.

They don't take their time because they're lazy, they take their time because it's necessary. They can't afford to mess-up, so they're going to make absolutely sure that they take every precaution and do any amount of tests necessary to make sure they don't fail. A single failure can cost them millions of dollars and set them back a few years at best.

This post has been edited by dustyshouri: 12 January 2013 - 02:24 PM

[TK-421]

dustyshouri, on 12 January 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

A single failure can cost them millions of dollars and set them back a few years at best.

Or cost people their lives. Remember, NASA has never lost a person in space, I'm sure they're not itching to break that record.

[andrewthewookie]

At this point, it's also not just NASA working on this. Theory and applications from many different fields, from many different institutes will contribute. NASA is just being the spearhead on this project, pushing it forward and providing direction for research.

[OEFVeteran]

TK-421, on 12 January 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

dustyshouri, on 12 January 2013 - 02:23 PM, said:

A single failure can cost them millions of dollars and set them back a few years at best.

Or cost people their lives. Remember, NASA has never lost a person in space, I'm sure they're not itching to break that record.

Space Shuttle Challenger... close family friend of mine died on that launch....

Space Shuttle Columbia....

while they may not have died in space itself, NASA has lost lives...

NASA has been seriously lacking in its innovation in the past decade... look at how many success they have had versus failures...

NASA, and the space race, used to be a cause this country was behind... putting a man on the moon, the international space station... the huble telescope... putting robots on mars... NASA needs another "moon landing" to rally this country.... in a time where this country is sick of hearing about gun violence and other political nonsense on the news, we need a victory... NASA could be that organization to give us this victory... and i am not saying its a warp drive but some kind of innovation that makes life better for all human kind... some new technology or some great leap forward in exploration...

[andrewthewookie]

To be fair, it's not so much a lack of innovation, it's a lack of money to bring that innovation to practical use in the space program. That's why we were using ageing shuttles built in the 70s until just recently.

[OEFVeteran]

thats becuase the focus in this country has been so negitive lately that the policy makers dont want to throw money at a seemingly failing agency...

[TK-421]

OEFVeteran, on 12 January 2013 - 08:01 PM, said:

Space Shuttle Challenger... close family friend of mine died on that launch....

Space Shuttle Columbia....

while they may not have died in space itself, NASA has lost lives...

NASA has been seriously lacking in its innovation in the past decade... look at how many success they have had versus failures...

NASA, and the space race, used to be a cause this country was behind... putting a man on the moon, the international space station... the huble telescope... putting robots on mars... NASA needs another "moon landing" to rally this country.... in a time where this country is sick of hearing about gun violence and other political nonsense on the news, we need a victory... NASA could be that organization to give us this victory... and i am not saying its a warp drive but some kind of innovation that makes life better for all human kind... some new technology or some great leap forward in exploration...

You forgot Apollo 1. And yes, NASA has lost lives before, but only within Earth's atmosphere, never in space itself, and I'm sure they want to make sure they lose nobody else.

What we need is more coverage. People need to hear what NASA is doing, why they're doing it, what they're gaining from it. Right now, the general consensus is that NASA is spending tons of money for very little return on their investment, because nobody ever hears about what NASA is gaining from all this money they're spending. They just see a ton going out, and nothing coming back. Start showing people what is coming back, start showing people what good their money is doing, and I'm sure they'll start getting behind NASA again.

[Antonious]

Curiosity rover.

Landed on Mars just a few months ago and hardly anybody gave a shit.

This post has been edited by Antonious: 12 January 2013 - 09:15 PM

[ShadowZero]

It is sad that no one gave a shit about Curiosity. I thought it was pretty cool, though. It's just more and more people are in the mindset of "Does it involve me? No? Ok, then I don't give a shit." It's sad.

As far as NASA taking their time, wouldn't this be because they lack the funds to move through the process faster? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but think about it. It's like a little kid playing paintball. He'd go every weekend if he could afford it, but he's lacking in the funds to do so, so he can't.