Bill Clinton Backs 100 Year Starship 299
astroengine writes "The light-years between the stars is vast — a seemingly insurmountable quarantine that cuts our solar system off from the rest of the galaxy. But to a growing number of interstellar enthusiasts who will meet in Houston, Texas, for the 100YSS Public Symposium next week, interstellar distances may not be as insurmountable as they seem. What's more, they even have the support of former U.S. President Bill Clinton."
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but Bill Clinton supports it!
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:5, Funny)
Bill Clinton supports it
I stand corrected.
Socialists love to build pyramids... (Score:0, Funny)
From the Soviet space program to empty skyscrapers in Pyongyang, politicians love high-visibility mega-projects that make for good propaganda - even if the populace is starving. Only free market capitalism, which includes both for-profit and voluntarily-funded non-profit ventures, can remain rooted in economic reality and allocate a civilization's resources wisely.
Space efforts should probably focus on near-term economic needs like: asteroid mining, space-based solar energy, and eventually space-based manufacturing. Those are the things that will solve all our environmental problems, provide cheap energy, revolutionize agriculture, lower living costs, and lift billions out of poverty! But other star systems are not realistic for the time being...
(Signed: Alex Libman's sockpuppet.)
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:5, Funny)
...barring someone radically overturning Einstein...
The idea of FTL is not 'out for the count' by a long shot, despite Einstein... In the same fashion we pressurize our airplanes and remain quite oblivious to the outside conditions, we have to find a way to encapsulate a piece of space time in our little ship while it zips along at warp 9... Now cue the naysayers to tell me how crazy I am for even thinking it. Radical, yes, but no crazier than the idea of man on the moon, or human flight. Faster than sound? I should be locked up for thinking up such insanity!
Excellent idea! (Score:4, Funny)
Hopefully a post-singularity entity will lob a black hole after the ship. Or two, just to be sure.
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:5, Funny)
Clean coal, man. People keep telling me it's the right stuff.
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:4, Funny)
Well, if someone on slashdot says it can't be done, then that's enough for me...
Call it off, boys!
Re:Methinks people don't appreciate the scales her (Score:2, Funny)
"We have failed to uphold Brannigan's Law. However I did make it with a hot alien babe. And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?"
-Zapp Brannigan