Posted on 04/24/2007 5:50:02 PM PDT by frithguild
I have an idea: we ought to send hillary and other major objectionables to claim possession.
Send Gore to check it out.
Fahrenheit?
Would we still have to pay the IRS if we moved there???
The force of gravity is the result of the masses of the two objects multiplied by each other divided by the distance from each other squared. If the planet is 5 times as massive as the earth, I'd think we'd about be squashed like bugs.
They'll have to come up with something better. If they think that's *habitable*, they can go live there. I'll pass and wait for something more comforatable.
I’m packed and ready to go!
Let’s send Hillary first.
Maybe they have oil.
It’s also about 1.5 times larger so the gravity is only about 2.2 timse as intense.
I think we need a fact finding mission, gather all in congress for an all expence paid trip to Pelosi planet! Free burkas on arrival, Pass all the laws rolling around in your silly heads, Be a legislator for life, Be around everyone who agrees with you, Open bar for Ted and Murtha, Listen to yourself continuously rant on subjects that don’t mean a thing, Burn all the fossil fuel you want and don’t feel guilty, Global warming? No problem there is none we said so! Yes come to Pelosi planet where everyone is a friend even our enemies!
Uh-huh. Gee. I wonder what it will take to learn more about it.
Oh, yeah. Gobs and gobs of taxpayer money.
yeah right! I’m sure it has 80% Nitrogen and 20% Oxygen atmosphere. 75 % surface covered by water. A Van Allen belt and an ozone layer to protect from solar radiation. A moon to cause ocean tides. 24 hour rotation to distribute solar warming. Not only that, but it will only take a couple of hundred years to get there. yeah, great find!
Calling crew of Serenity!
Rura Penthe!
Great post. The chances of finding a planet with all those characteristics within any reasonable distance are basically nil. The best we can hope for is something that’s terraformable, e.g. in the right ballpark with respect to solar flux and mass, isn’t geologically dead (i.e. has a magnetic field) and has a rotational rate within a certain range. Any atmosphere would almost certainly have to be terraformed, as our 80/20 N2/O2 atmosphere is a product of living organisms (the taiga having a lot to do with it).
As far as getting there, that’s something we can control, though today while we know in a theoretical sense how to do it, we’ve never built even a testbed let alone have enough He3 to fuel something like a Daedalus engine. However, now we at least *might* have something to shoot for and a reason to start working on interstellar technology.
It’s still too soon to get really excited, though. In a few weeks hopefully some spectroscopic measurements will tell us something about the planet’s chemical composition (it would be great if it transited the star but the chances of that are miniscule).
Do you just make up your own science as you go?
“Gee. I wonder what it will take to learn more about it.
Oh, yeah. Gobs and gobs of taxpayer money.”
‘Our requested budget to explore the Universe is infinite because the Universe is infinite, Congressman. Also, it may take a while.’
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