No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar System)

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

It is never possible to escape the suns gravitational influence. Every massive particle in the universe is influenced by the gravity of every other.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Regardless, even NASA says that Voyager has not left the Solar System yet. One can be in interstellar space and still be in the Solar System.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

What are you basing that on? The great strides we've made in manned space flight since putting a man on the Moon almost a half century ago?

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

so by the time we go get it, it should be only half way there

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

Actually, the technology is already there for a manned mission to retrieve Voyager if we really wanted to.

NASA tested nuclear rocket engines successfully (on the ground) back in the late 1960s.

What is (and has) been missing is political will and desire. And that can change overnight practically. Especially if we get a couple of national leaders with their desire for their name to be attached to some massive lasting achievement.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Yeah. That's nice. Get back to me when US astronauts don't have to go to Travelocity to buy a ticket on a Cold War era Soviet craft to get into low earth orbit.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Has it still got that bitchy lesbian captain?

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

That's why we sent it out of the Solar System.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

We could have a really cool space program if The Obama would propose one and then get assassinated.

It worked before.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

As well as any minor particle, if that theory holds to be true. I hope it is because I want to believe all the entanglement ideas are true and it will lead to superluminal communication at some point. Edit: I beg your pardon RickDeckard, I misunderstood your meaning of massive. Yours being all particles having mass, my thinking of massive as in large body.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

no u

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

Not by NASA definitions. Interstellar space does not necessarily mean outside the solar system. A good analogy is thinking of interplanetary space, you can be in interplanetary space but still under gravitational influence of the Earth.

So you can have clearly entered interplanetary space but still be in the Earth/Moon system. In the same way Voyager has finally broken away from the last of the Suns atmosphere, but it's still in the Solar System.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

That is barring the occurrence of a decline in human civilization, either catastrophic or eventual, that both puts a massive delay on that level of technology and/or results in the intervening generations forgetting that Voyager even existed.

We could be looking at an eventuality where future astronomers using a radio telescope in 40,000 years spot Voyager and assume it's even more proof of alien life, what with all the hubbub in the papers about alien artifacts found on the moon.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Once we lose track of Voyager we will probably never find it short of luck. Anything can happen out there and Voyager is like the size of an atom when compared to the whole galaxy.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Human civilization took around 10,000 years to arise starting with ZERO. If some catastrophe reset human society to pre-historic levels, a lot of our existing knowledge would survive. I'd wager humans would be back to our current technological levels within 10,000 years.

Yes, if we forgot Voyager existed in the meantime, we wouldn't have much hope of ever finding it. But I think that's unlikely.

You couldn't spot Voyager with a radio telescope as it will not be emitting radio waves by then. And if human civilization were reset and eventually re-discovered the artifacts on the moon, we would quickly conclude that they were human in origin.

Footprints around the lander--yes, they'll still be there--will show the inhabitants of the lander were bipedal with feet the same size as humans. An analysis of the craft will show that it was designed solely to reach the surface from orbit. The plaque placed near the lander will have the Earth engraved upon it. The technological level of the craft will be too primitive to be from an interstellar species, etc., etc.

Look at it this way: supposing such a total reset of human civilization could occur, we might be living in one. What would WE make of finding the remnants of a 50- or 100,000 year old lunar lander on the surface of the moon? We wouldn't conclude aliens. We'd conclude that there was an epoch of human history of which we were completely unaware. Of course, if such a technologically advanced prior civilization HAD existed, we would have discovered evidence of it by now.

It's not going to pass near any significant planetary bodies, so I would think it's trajectory will be quite predictable. I would expect that, withing 2-300 years, humans will be perfectly capable of retrieving Voyager if they desire.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

You appear to be assuming that our technology will continue to progress indefinitely and that there are natural limits will not preclude us developing craft that could pick Voyager up.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

It amazes me that a truly incredible achievement by very dated technology- even by todays standards - descends into these ridiculous "I'm so much smarter and more knowledgeable then you" bitch-spats


I think it is fucking cool!!! Yay !!!!!!!

could I see it with my binoculars?

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

I'm curious about the definition of interstellar space. Maybe i missed it, but none of the articles seemed to explain the meaning of the term, only that it does not mean outside the solar system. Why wouldn't all space be interstellar? Is not everything that is not a star, by definition, between stars? This seems much ado about nothing other than NASA wanting some press for an awesome but decades old achievement.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

We don't know how the gravitational pull from other stars will affect it. We barely understand the edge of our solar system.

We also don't know what's out there. For all we know there is a asteroid traveling between star systems that gets close enough to it to slightly change it's course. Not much. Maybe a degree. But a degree over hundreds of years? Big difference.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

I think the key phrase is "outside the solar system". The controversy is just exactly what is the definition of where that is.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people?

We still need to launch four more Voyagers for that to happen.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

I think Bailey nailed it, by saying Voyager is outside of the sun's "atmosphere." In a certain sense, you can consider space that far out to be part of the sun. To be in "interstellar space" means to be in space that is no longer "part of" a star, even in the most tenuous sense. You are "between stars" even if you're still within the area of influence of the star.

To use the planetary analogy introduced above, you might say that you are in "interplanetary space" in an airplane, because you are no longer on the solid part of the earth. But the term is better reserved for that part of space where there is no longer any detectable trace of earth's atmosphere.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

To an extremely minimal degree, in two to three thousand years, or even in ten thousand years. It will simply be too far from any other stars for them to have a measurable effect. You talk about "one degree" but that is several orders of magnitude too high. The gravitational effect of unknown bodies will be more like a millionth of a degree over that time period.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Not assuming we will progress forever; we could probably go retrieve Voyager now if we willing to spend a trillion dollars to do it.

I would rate our odds of achieving faster than light travel to be pretty low, maybe 5%. But even without FTL, I'm pretty sure humans will somehow, someday travel to other stars.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

I'm not sure why you're sure of that. I'd rate the odds as very low indeed.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Can you imagine what it would be like to be out there with Voyager? The sun isn't even a disc at that remove, it's just the brightest star visible. It's cold, it's dark, and it's so incredibly quiet. Probably the only other matter around for millions of miles are bits of dust.

Wow.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Even if we can't ever conquer faster than light travel, there is nothing in known physical laws that won't make slower than light travel up to around 90% of the speed of light possible.

At that speed, with time dilation and extended life spans it will be possible for a career starship crewman to make many interstellar round trips over the course of a lifetime.

Re: No thread on this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Voyager leaves Solar Syste

Even that will require a little something I like to call the Temporal Compensation Duck.