Pessimism about our spacefaring hereafter has become stylish these days — people point to our limited life-time and energy resourcefulness . But the World Of Technology blog just posted an argument I have n’t seen before .
Blogger mayank points to all the common cause why it ’ll be gruelling for our descendents to make the nearest star system , Alpha Centauri : it would take 75,000 age withour current Eruca vesicaria sativa , going faster requires more and more energy , etc . “ Sending a 100 - net ton home ground , gorge with a small gang , to Alpha Centauri at a speed that will turn in them before they release up their toes require as much energy as the United States squander in a year . ”
But then there ’s also another point to consider : Mayank point out that in the retiring 70 long time , our rocket engineering has only gotten about 10 sentence faster . In about half that time , our imaging capability have have 5,000 times better and clearer . The Mariner 4 space probe in 1965 had a monochromatic camera equal to of captivate about 40,000 pixel . By dividing line , the HiRise camera on today ’s Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter has a resolution of 200 million pel , in color .
It ’ll be way ceheaper and easier to place investigation to other mavin system than it will to send humans — and soon our imagination capacity will be good than our limited human senses . It may just never make sense , from a logistical stand , to send a human rather of an automated probe . Food for thought , anyway . [ World Of Technology ]
Proxima Centauri image fromAstronomy Picture Of The Day .
Space
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