NASA Gravity Probe Set for Launch 250
The Real Dr John writes "NASA announced
yesterday that its longest running program, Gravity Probe B, was ready and
scheduled for launch on April 17th. The project has taken 44 years to complete,
at a cost of approximately $700 million. The reason for the high cost is that
the probe contains the most sensitive gyroscopic equipment ever created, which
will be used to test Einstein's theory of gravity. Einstein predicted that the
gravity created by a large body warped space-time, but he also predicted that if
the large body was rotating it would create a drag effect on space-time
known as frame dragging. Gravity Probe B will be able to test
Einstein's theory using Earth's relatively small gravitational field because the
instruments are so sensitive."
Einstein was a (gravitational) drag... (Score:5, Funny)
Posted by Bill Gates: (Score:2, Funny)
Did I mention that my car is a Maybach 62, which costs $380,000? With an expensive car like that, you want to make sure the upholstery doesn't get dirty.
Eww! (Score:4, Funny)
AAagh! Mental images of my ex dancing! *SHUDDER!*
Bureaucracy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Einstein was a (gravitational) drag... (Score:5, Funny)
Ouch! Hey what's with the tomatoes?!
Anti-gravity probe? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too sensitive (Score:2, Funny)
not funny (Score:1, Funny)
This is why I turn my cell phone to silent instead of turning it off.
Re:Too sensitive (Score:2, Funny)
Woohoo! A new one: IAPP/IANPP!!
Re:Einstein was a (gravitational) drag... (Score:2, Funny)
Quantum Mechanics 101: If you have there is a possibility of something happening and not happening, it will both happen and not happen.
Re:Eww! (Score:3, Funny)
With CowboyNeal. NAKED!
Naked Physicists... (Score:5, Funny)
Since the project was conceived by three scientists after a naked midday swim at Stanford University's pool, more than 1,000 people have worked on the satellite. Two of its founders are dead. More than 90 people have earned their doctorates working on the project.
Naked physicists... wow... with the current administration in charge, this project would have never been approved.
Re:Gravity Probe A (Score:3, Funny)
Take that, Space! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:considering string theories (Score:2, Funny)
Ah, GP-B.... (Score:5, Funny)
When I was a grad student there, we had a running joke that nobody could get an astrophysics degree without selling at least a piece of their soul to Francis Everett, the chief booster for this project.
I was there when a rogue group suggested that, in the intervening four decades, technology had advanced enough to do the frame-dragging experiment with a laser-coordinated satellite net for half the cost.
We also circulated the "fact" that the GP-B launch date slipped by about 1.05 days per day. A friend defined it as a new universal constant for project overruns...
Duke Nukem Forever (Score:3, Funny)
Since then the game has changed publishers and target platform numerous times, and changed intended game engines a stunning 57 times. Of the original five-man development team, two are still on the project, one currently holds a senior managerial position at Intel, and two are since dead. In 1995 when the original UNIX intellectual property block was licensed from Novell to SCO, the Duke Nukem Forever project was split off and separately sold to a company called 3D Realms, who still oversees it and currently publically states that DNF will be available "when it's done".
ThinkGeek (Score:2, Funny)