A month....ugh...
I've been too political at RDW lately. Apologies to the 3 readers (yes, I know one is me).
I think I'll go hard-geek on this blog. Eh, its a release.
With that said...
Since this blog is called “Reality Check” I’m going to make a prediction that is based on a simple observation derived from extreme geekatude and my inability to NOT watch Discovery/History channel shows rooted in astrophysics:
You and I, nor or children nor our children’s children will travel anywhere near say….Uranus (insert joke here).
It’s simple math really (and anyone that knows me knows how I feel about math).
Right now our fastest rocket ship goes about 17,000 miles per hour. Granted, I’ve gotten speeding tickets for less but in reality, this is a snails pace.
Space is big (I expect a call from Stockholm after that brilliant piece of insight).
If we were able to shoot “straight at Mars”, at 17,000 mph it would take you roughly 130 days.
Great.
Then there’s the trip back.
And the supplies.
And the fuel.
Oh, and then there’s the nagging “cant really shoot straight there because of the whole motion of planets” thing.
And what if we went rediculoulsy faster? Say…..1,000,000 miles per hour?
Yup, about 35 hour trip.
Anyone think we’re close to achieving this speed?
The universal speed limit is ~186,280 miles per second (~669,600,000 MPH). Even if we were to achieve (close to) this and we shoot “straight to” Uranus (Ha! I’m a child, I know…)– it takes light roughly an hour and a half for light to travel there from Earth.
Well that would work – kinda. Unfortunately, that speed will not soon be approached.
Mars?
Maybe in a few decades.
Believe me, no one is more disappointed at this reality slap in the face than me.
Reality:
What if we go the other way, say...to Mercury?
Well that becomes even more problematic. You see, the Sun is hot (can you say Nobel Prize #2?).
I mean really hot.
As Jimi would say “Africa hot”….times a Gagillion-gazillion,
Ohh yeah…Nobel Prize #3!
*(FYI - I would have picked Pluto, but apparently its not an honest-to-goodness planet anymore. Pfft...)
