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+--- Thread: Solar Sailing (/showthread.php?tid=5848)
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
I know how much you all hate space exploration, and me, by proxy, for liking it, and that you all think that using bundles bank notes as fuel for stoking fires is a better usage of it than space, and that you all hate space in general, and are committed to preventing any exploration of any kind by anyone into space...
...but here's an article on solar sails anyway.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/worlds-first-solar-sail-photo-japan-100618.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikaros
Solar Sailing - Weltall - 13th July 2010
I think you mistake our reticence on a particular, impractical aspect of space exploration as a blanket hatred of space exploration in particular.
Solar Sailing - EdenMaster - 13th July 2010
I don't hate space, nor the exploration of it, nor you. I'd love to see humanity branch out and reach for something that will enrich humanity. We will not find that on Mars. We will find a desert. Now when we find an Earth like planet and have the means to reach it and settle there, or make contact with the extraterrestrial life that is all but certain exist out in the blackness, then I'm all aboard :D
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
*Declares war on Weltall and EM for contradicting HRM*
What I want to know is, what is the maximum possibly velocity attainable from solar sails... if they garner speed through the collection of photons, does that mean that they must always have their sail facing a sun? Would their speed, or at least their intake of photons, be reduced, or eliminated, far from a star, in the interstellar medium?
Solar Sailing - Dark Jaguar - 13th July 2010
Darunia, their maximum speed is always going to be below the speed of light. Short of hibernation or a generational ship, they aren't going to get us far fast. Also, their startup speed will always be slow. Unlike in Star Wars, it takes a while. Yes, they have to aim the sail at something bright, or at least brighter than whatever is opposite it (where the light would have a slowing effect). If you want something faster, try a very massive parachute way in front of a space craft and set off a nuclear bomb inside the parachute. Hope that thing's made of nanotubes though or it'll likely tear off the craft instead of dragging it.
At any rate, no matter what someone builds, the speed of light is the universal barrier. Exploring other worlds around other stars is something that should be done with the understanding that you'll never see anyone you know again, and it'll only be distant future generations on Earth that find out about it.
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
I refuse to accept that it is impossible for people to visit other stars and return in an acceptable amount of time. The technology is not here yet and will not be in our lifetime but I am confident that it is out there and, provided that luddites* like you folk don't stand in the way, we will achieve it in the future.
* :p
Solar Sailing - Dark Jaguar - 13th July 2010
Bah if we were meant to visit the stars god would have made us with warp drives.
Darunia, the beginning of ignorance always starts with "I refuse to accept". Reality doesn't always match our expectations. Don't complain to me, complain to Einstein. He's the one that came up with the universal speed limit. I don't doubt we'll one day be able to land on distant worlds, but there's a sacrifice. Unless something fundamentally shakes up what we know about how space and time works (and I'm willing to accept that that could happen, but just sitting around hoping for it won't accomplish anything and is just delusional by itself) then we're stuck with the speed of light. Warp drive is, unfortunately, a pipe dream. Worm holes are better, but we've yet to observe anything of the sort and as of right now they're just a mathematical artifact of certain space time solutions. (The other aspect they don't talk about in the movies is worm holes are basically black holes from the outside. Falling into them would spaghetti you just as badly before you got shot out the other side.)
Solar Sailing - EdenMaster - 13th July 2010
Darunia Wrote:I refuse to accept that it is impossible for people to visit other stars and return in an acceptable amount of time. The technology is not here yet and will not be in our lifetime but I am confident that it is out there and, provided that luddites like you folk don't stand in the way, we will achieve it in the future.
I wonder if ancient alchemists said things not unlike you just did hundreds of years ago, in their attempts to turn lead into gold and water into the elixir of life.
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
Don't complain to me, complain to Einstein.
Complain to you...? I'm not. Who declared you the omniscient sage of scientific knowledge? I'm not complaining to you, nor am I adressing this to you.
I hope you feel smart for pointing out the manifold problems preventing us from going to the stars next Monday. You need not, as I am aware of them. I expect that they will be overcome in the future, not next weekend. Just as in 1720, someone dreaming of flight wouldn't even be able to conceive of the science of the Concorde, but it turned out happening.
I bet Tendites in 2500 will be looking back and comparing us in that light.
I wonder if ancient alchemists said things not unlike you just did hundreds of years ago, in their attempts to turn lead into gold and water into the elixir of life.
Or, if ancient scientists said the same thing in their quest to harness electricity, fly, split the atom, or create the radio.
Checkmate. Thanks for playing.
Solar Sailing - EdenMaster - 13th July 2010
I bet the TendoCity 500 years from now will still only be only be five of our descendants arguing over the same things.
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
Amazing how the community hasn't grown at all in ten years.
Solar Sailing - EdenMaster - 13th July 2010
If anything, it's shrunk. We used have about fifteen members
Solar Sailing - Weltall - 13th July 2010
What's more amazing is that it exists in spite of its small size.
Also, I don't think radio or atomics was ever a going concern of ancient scientists.
Solar Sailing - Dark Jaguar - 13th July 2010
Darunia Wrote:Don't complain to me, complain to Einstein.
Complain to you...? I'm not. Who declared you the omniscient sage of scientific knowledge? I'm not complaining to you, nor am I adressing this to you.
I hope you feel smart for pointing out the manifold problems preventing us from going to the stars next Monday. You need not, as I am aware of them. I expect that they will be overcome in the future, not next weekend. Just as in 1720, someone dreaming of flight wouldn't even be able to conceive of the science of the Concorde, but it turned out happening.
I bet Tendites in 2500 will be looking back and comparing us in that light.
I wonder if ancient alchemists said things not unlike you just did hundreds of years ago, in their attempts to turn lead into gold and water into the elixir of life.
Or, if ancient scientists said the same thing in their quest to harness electricity, fly, split the atom, or create the radio.
Checkmate. Thanks for playing.
Darunia, know what the difference is? People back then had proof of concept for flight, birds. No one was saying flight was physically impossible. Where's your proof of concept for faster than light travel? You're committing the "they doubted Galileo too" fallacy. There's no equivalence.
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
Darunia, know what the difference is? People back then had proof of concept for flight, birds.
Yes, birds can fly. That does not mean that man can. It is not inately obvious that anything a bird can do, man can. It would have been difficult to conceive of gas-powered turbines and engines and propellers in the 5th century.
If birds = proof of flight = man can fly,
then
Photons = proof of speed of light = man can go that fast
Or, at least, close to it. To claim that our knowledge of physics is definitive, and there is no more to be written about the speed of light is ignorant.
I need you guys to stick around me, tonight anyway... I fear that DJ may try and burn me as a witch if I speak anymore of human travel at or near the speed of light.
Solar Sailing - Dark Jaguar - 13th July 2010
Darunia, for all your talk about rationality, you really don't actually "get" what being scientifically minded is all about.
It means taking things on existing evidence. Your whole "maybe everything we know about physics will be overturned" is a pathetic argument. You can literally use that argument to justify anything. Maybe everything we know will be overturned and we can travel backwards in time (a consequence of travelling faster than light by the way). Maybe everything we know gets overturned and we find out the universe was created by the milk of a celestial goat. Maybe everything we know will be overturned and perpetual motion machines will actually work. Maybe everything we know will be overturned and homeopathy will work.
It works for so much nonsense JUST AS WELL as for your dream of faster than light travel. Yes, that COULD happen, but BEST AVAILABLE EVIDENCE suggests otherwise. Don't just sit around day dreaming. If you want to say we'll someday go faster than light, DO THE WORK, and be willing to accept whatever result you get. Otherwise, you're just daydreaming and pretending it's serious.
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
Wow, DJ... does this really offend you? Were your parents mugged by starry-eyed physicists with astral wanderlust? For all the haughty poise you throw around this place, you are not the know-all, end-all source for science and knowledge. Dismissing my ambitious hope for humanity one day reaching the stars because you cannot accept it as possible is proof only that your imagination has finite bounds. Your declarations of what is impossible because you cannot conceive of it have no bearing on anyone or anything beyond your own person. You make me so mad....! You make me WANT TO SMOKE!
Solar Sailing - Dark Jaguar - 13th July 2010
I don't see any evidence in that missive of logical fallacies.
Honestly, it doesn't offend me at all. Don't misread that. I'm saying that right now there's no scientific support for the idea of faster than light travel. If you really wanted to know, I'd LOVE to be able to reach distant worlds in a week's time instead of in thousands of years on a generational ship. There's very little I'd like to see more than that. In fact I was supporting space travel in that previous thread of your's.
Your appeal to me being "angry", to me "not knowing everything", and so on is meaningless. All that matters is evidence to back up the idea. Do you have it?
I don't have absolute knowledge nor do I claim to, but my "guess" is better than your's. You'd do better to make rational arguments backed by evidence than just attacking me. I'm just the messenger. Keep this in mind. I'm constantly reading new stories about astronomy, I love it. I look into all sorts of interesting "solutions" to something like warp drive, but peer review of most of them (and yes, that includes the physicists who came UP with the ideas) have in just about every case concluded that none of them are workable.
Solar Sailing - Weltall - 13th July 2010
I'm actually going to have to back DJ on this, Darunia. Your position is essentially that "X must be true because you can't disprove it".
Ironically, your fervent atheism is based on the fact that Creationists can't prove the existence of God. Creationists use the same argument you have used above, often with the same level of ire in defense of your faith. I'm surprised you haven't told us we're all going to burn in the fires of hell. :FuckYou:
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
All that matters is evidence to back up the idea. Do you have it?
Absence of proof is not proof of absence. And you know it.
I don't have absolute knowledge nor do I claim to, but my "guess" is better than your's.
Lol....? What makes it better?
You'd do better to make rational arguments backed by evidence than just attacking me.
How can I make rational arguments about a hypothetical quasi-science?
Solar Sailing - A Black Falcon - 13th July 2010
Weltall Wrote:I'm actually going to have to back DJ on this, Darunia. Your position is essentially that "X must be true because you can't disprove it".
Ironically, your fervent atheism is based on the fact that Creationists can't prove the existence of God. Creationists use the same argument you have used above, often with the same level of ire in defense of your faith. I'm surprised you haven't told us we're all going to burn in the fires of hell. :FuckYou:
Conservatives like to believe in absolutes...
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
I'm actually going to have to back DJ on this, Darunia.
/sad face
Your position is essentially that "X must be true because you can't disprove it".
What? All I'm saying is that just because traveling at speeds approaching those of light is impossible today, does not mean it forever will be. Physics is not ultimately understood. Nobody can deny that. You don't know where it will be in a century.
Ironically, your fervent atheism is based on the fact that Creationists can't prove the existence of God.
Admittedly they are similar arguments at first glance, but boiling down atheism to "Creationists can't prove the existence of God" is comically stupid. My argument is not that since Creationists can't prove it, it's not true... my atheism exists entirely independent of Creationists, or any religious affiliation. My beef isn't solely with Creationists--though they are easy targets. I don't mean to launch into any crusade here, but basically all I know as a self-aware individual is what I can see. I see no deity. Religions claim and adhere to beliefs that transcend reality and invoke things that are, to my estimation, illogical and impossible. Most of these beliefs, furthermore, are founded and based entirely on spectral evidence.
I'm surprised you haven't told us we're all going to burn in the fires of hell.
Not hell. Goron penal colonies. Much worse.
Solar Sailing - Weltall - 13th July 2010
A Black Falcon Wrote:Conservatives like to believe in absolutes...
This is true, but I know you're saying this and implying that liberals do not. I'm shifting, gradually, closer to a true neutral political philosophy anyway. There are a lot of beliefs conservatives view that I no longer believe.
not A Black Falcon Wrote:All I'm saying is that just because traveling at speeds approaching those of light is impossible today, does not mean it forever will be. Physics is not ultimately understood. Nobody can deny that. You don't know where it will be in a century.
If that was how you put it at first, I would have said nothing. However, you seem anxious to view, as enemies, those of us who are skeptical about the idea of immediate space colonization, and as such, your attitude is more along the lines of "FTL space travel is inevitable because we can't prove it's impossible." It's a variation of the same argument.
Quote:I don't mean to launch into any crusade here, but basically all I know as a self-aware individual is what I can see. I see no deity.
Intellectual honesty should leave you open to the idea that there are possibilities far beyond what you can sense. Atheism is, literally, the belief that no beings fitting the general description of deities exist. I base my agnosticism on the basis that I can't see a deity, either--but, I remain open to the idea that such a concept is possible and we don't (perhaps can't) ever know for sure whether it's possible. I believe FTL space travel is possible on the exact same premise. It's considered impossible now, but this is possibly only because we don't know enough to figure out the trick.
And, if your retort is "well, FTL travel is based on theory", well, I can give you any number of theories that could explain potential 'gods' that may be out there somewhere in the meta-existence, too. The only theories I will ever discount entirely are ones that I can personally test, or that others have personally tested. I do not believe that it is possible for me to punch through an iron wall because I know it's physically impossible.
I don't know if gods are impossible or not. Therefore, I can't be honest if I say "there are no gods". Or, if I take a solid position on the possibility of faster-than-light space travel. I can only know what is possible for me to know.
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
Weltall, we appear to have different definitions for 'god.' Super-intelligent aliens, with whatever powers, to me, are certainly not gods. Gods, in my definition, are entirely independent from extraterrestrials; the word 'god' or 'deity' cannot apply to an extraterrestrial but in a poetic sense. There certainly could be aliens with mind-boggling powers that would, to us, seem god-like, but this would not make them gods.
My definition of a god is inextricably linked to terrestrial religion: a god is in most sense as I understand it, a creator... a being that created the earth, or man, or both. A god, in my definition, is linked to man by some manner. Any being that has evolved independent of the Solar system, and has in no way influence man or events on this planet, is in my definition, not a god.
There are so many conflicting religions, all of which make claims based on spectral evidence. Virtually all of their claims cannot be proven. One may argue, that they cannot be misproven. But, say there are six people. They represent six different religions with competing theories on cosmology, life, etc. etc. They all gather in a room, and view an apple on a table. The first says it is red, the second green, the third blue., etc. etc. They cannot all be right. At best, one is right, and the rest are wrong... or, they are all wrong. (Barring the hypothetical possibility that they all perceive color differently; for this argument we will say that they do not.) I see the different sects of religions the same way. They all adhere to beliefs because they were indoctrinated at an early age and grew into it... which is the only way religions persist over time, excepting a limited number of natural converts that occur later in life.
In fact, I'll go a step further, and declare that agnosticism is the default human mentality. A man born in the wilds and raised by wolves will either develop his own theology, or not believe in any religion. He will certainly not be Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist. Similarly, people are born free of bias on religion: they are typically raised under one, and so they accept it and grow into it and live with it... just as they are born into a certain language, grow to learn and use it, and swear by it. All other languages would seem foreign to them... but there is no one, true devout language that is the shining beacon. If we look are religions like languages, and accept them all as equal with unique traits and characteristics, but none fundamentally better than the others, then we see the truer nature of religions. Viewing religions from a third person perspective, free of the biases of any one of them, and seeing that they are all just social constructs, entirely equal on paper, and that none of them hold any higher truth or secret afterlife than the others: that is my view of religion. They are all equal, and in the absence of humanity, none of them would have any bearing. When man dies, his languages die, and so do their religions. When man is gone, there will be no more christianity; there will be nobody left to prolong it. The same with the French language, the same with Buddhism, the same with the Dutch language, the same with Creationism. They are man-made ideas one and all, and nothing more. Mine is a purely academic stance.
I'll grant it that I, as a fallible human being, cannot empirically know, as this moment, that the Christian deity does not exist. Just as the Pope cannot empirically know that Zeus and Thor did not. Just because his deity is chic today doesn't make it any more real than the other deities, though.
Solar Sailing - Weltall - 13th July 2010
My concept of what may potentially constitute a god is vastly more comprehensive than mere space aliens with ESP, or what people with similarly-limited imaginations and worldviews came up with to worship.
If my perceived reality turns out to be an extraordinarily complex simulation designed by a group of nerds on some upper plane of meta-existence, those nerds are my gods. It is definitely possible. I cannot, therefore, discount it. I am not, of course, suggesting that this is either true, or even likely.
Solar Sailing - A Black Falcon - 13th July 2010
Weltall Wrote:This is true, but I know you're saying this and implying that liberals do not. I'm shifting, gradually, closer to a true neutral political philosophy anyway. There are a lot of beliefs conservatives view that I no longer believe.
I think any cursory comparison of the Democratic and Republican parties would show that, at least in their American incarnation, liberals are not like that, while conservatives are.
Now, it probably is true that as either side gets closer towards its edges this kind of thing gets more common; Soviet-style "liberalism" certainly didn't allow for any dissent within the party. The American Democratic party, however, is a true "big tent" party, with many different constituencies within it. On every major issue it is usually very difficult to get most of the Democrats to vote for the bill, because each group makes up its own mind about what it wants. The Democrats have a more populist form of presidential selection too, as we saw with Obama (where, had the Democrats used the system the Republicans or the Electoral College did, Hillary would probably be president now; Obama won because the Democrats tried to make things more even some years back).
In comparison, the American Republican Party is absolute -- you either vote their way, or you vote their way. Republicans almost always vote in unison on every significant issue. This is very, VERY different from the Democratic party. The Democrats believe, probably to a fault, that everybody's view is important and relevant, and that you should not just tell everybody what to believe and expect them to follow it...
I, at least, think the contrast is clear. :)
Solar Sailing - Darunia - 13th July 2010
Like Weltall, I too am drifting to the center from the right. But I still find some issue with your labels here.
In comparison, the American Republican Party is absolute -- you either vote their way, or you vote their way.
Are you referring to Republican congressional members voting, or layman voters?
Republicans almost always vote in unison on every significant issue. This is very, VERY different from the Democratic party.
I do not concede that you are correct, but if the party with the greatest number of votes on an issue is logically the winner of a democratic contest, it sounds like the GOP has the right idea here.
The Democrats believe, probably to a fault, that everybody's view is important and relevant, and that you should not just tell everybody what to believe and expect them to follow it...
That does sound vaguely like those mooks.