Hi Member's, Could the below article/report be `True Maybe Do you believe ? I believe in ZomeThing
Air & Space

Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship?

By John Brandon
Published Novemebr 4, 2010
| FoxNews.com

Paramount
NASA appears to be debating a way to permanently colonize another planet, boldly going where no one has ever gone -- and where no one could come back, some fear.

A NASA official may have made a 35-million-mile slip of the tongue.
The director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California casually let slip mention of the 100-Year Starship recently, a new program funded by the super-secret government agency, DARPA. In a talk at San Francisco's Long Conversation conference, Simon “Pete” Worden said DARPA has $1M to spend, plus another $100,000 from NASA itself, for the program, which will initially develop a new kind of propulsion engine that will take us to Mars or beyond.
There's only one problem: The astronauts won't come back.
The 100-year ship would leave Earth with the intention of colonizing a planet, but it would likely be a one-way because of the time it takes to travel 35 million miles. That’s a daunting prospect, partly because of the ethical dilemma, and partly because it may be the only recourse.
"What psychological challenges should we anticipate in those who volunteer in good faith and with great courage, yet find themselves confronting misgivings or loneliness or feelings of rage or beset with mental illness?" asked Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team.



A NASA spacecraft has been beaming to Earth incredibly detailed pictures of the surface of Mars. And the beautiful colors and rich textures of the red planet will shock you.


Related Links The Psychology of Leaving Earth Behind ForeverThe Race to the Red PlanetBuzz Aldrin Dreams of MarsHorror Stories From Space: 10 Ways Life in Orbit Can Be RoughMore Leaks Plague Space Shuttle, Delaying Launch


There's one other bizarre aspect to the plan: Humans would have to be “adapted” to the alien world, Worden said, instead of figuring out a way to make the planet more hospitable to them.
“The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds,” Worden said during his talk. “Twenty years ago you whispered that in dark bars and got fired.” (Worden actually was fired, he confessed during the talk, under the Bush administration.)
Since that revelation, hundreds of news reports about the program have theorized that the substantial indicates the Hundred Year Starship is a dramatic shift for the stalled space program, not just a research project; others suggest it is a serious attempt to find a way to Mars. And NASA? The space agency seems to be dodging all questions.
FoxNews.com first contacted NASA’s Ames Research Center last week and scheduled a call with Worden for Monday. The call was postponed to Wednesday. Late Wednesday the space agency postponed again, before finally canceling the interview, citing Worden’s busy schedule.
After a week and a half, DARPA issued a press release announcing the program -- but conveying no more information than in Worden's initial speech.
But what is the Hundred Year Starship? Some experts argue that any program that suggests putting humans into space for their entire life, or for multiple generations, is doomed from the start, since many people react negatively to the idea of leaving the planet and never returning. Others are more supportive, saying it is the only way to settle a space colony.
New exploration
Speculation about colonization takes many forms, and some of the freshest ideas sound a bit peculiar. Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies, who wrote in the Journal of Cosmology recently, suggest sending four astronauts on a one-way mission who “establish their presence” and do not come back. The suggestion is to send supplies to them occasionally, but the risks are similar to what Columbus undertook to explore the new world. (That analogy is a bit suspect, however: Columbus was most famous for actually returning.)
Les Johnson, a well-respected author, spoke to FoxNews.com and agreed with the plan: a one-way, hundred-year mission may be the only way to get to Mars or other planets.
The main issue has to do with a basic physics conundrum. In order to travel the great distance to Mars (about 35 million miles), a starship would need a tremendous amount of fuel. Yet fuel adds more weight -- in fact, every pound you add to a requires 4 pounds of fuel. The more fuel you add, the more you need simply to move the ship's bulk, making it impossible to go one-way to Mars, much less roundtrip.
Johnson said the only solution is a longer mission using some form of propulsion that has not even been invented yet, or is still untested. One is a massive solar sail, which captures energy from the sun. Another is a fusion reactor that generates power without any on-board fuel.
Dr. Chris DePree, who heads the Observatory, also helped fill in some gaps on a 100-year mission to another planet. “It seems like the only realistic way forward, if we really want to colonize the solar system, is to have one-way trips,” DePree told FoxNews.com. “It might be that technology improves, and the grandchildren of those first Martian colonists return to Earth.”
He also explained what “adapting humans” means: The suggestion sounds absurd, but science may actually have more luck developing new breathing apparatuses or using chemical injections to make humans able to live on a foreign world than developing technology for "terraforming" a planet.
As to the question of a one-way mission, DePree says the idea is not as hush-hush as you might expect. NASA doesn't intend for a suicide mission, he said, but rather is debating the idea that an astronaut may live out his or her natural life on another planet and never return to Earth. Johnson said there are astronauts who have already volunteered for one-way missions before, and it's not a ludicrous proposition.
Swirling controversy
Even with these explanations, there is still wild speculation about the program. Worden mentioned the idea of working with third-parties to help future missions. He said Larry Page, the Google founder, asked how much it would cost to fund the mission (the answer: about $10 billion). This begs the question: is NASA ready to leverage its work by enlisting private enterprises?
Some scientists have wondered how the 100-Year Starship would deal with the effects of long-term space . Johnson said that even after spending a few months in space, the wear and tear starts to show -- astronauts who have visited the Space Station often cannot walk for a few days. Johnson said muscle mass starts to decline and bone density decreases after prolonged periods in outer space.
Short of an official news release, one that spells out exactly how the starship program will proceed, many assume that the program is just in an early stage. Johnson said the level of just $1.1M sounds like it is simply for research.
Worden may have slipped by revealing the program, but -- as evidenced by NASA’s lack of cooperation -- it may be too early for any new revelations.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/...-Year_Starship
Source Link above


Just filling in some Empty`Space & Keeping everyone updated
Makes me HomeSick...: )

 

And then there's Bad News for someone WoW
Guess the prices will get higher now
Crime & Courts

20 Tons of Pot Smuggled in Border Tunnel Seized


Published November 03, 2010
| Associated Press

I really think they should make it legal/tax `it & pay `off our National Debt ~*

AP
Nov. 3: Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Morton, left, inspects a bundle of marijuana with a Homeland Security agent at a warehouse near the U.S.-Mexico border.

SAN DIEGO -- Federal authorities in San Diego have made one of the largest marijuana seizures in the United States, confiscating more than 20 tons of pot that was smuggled into the country through an underground tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of California's border with Mexico, officials said Wednesday.
Mexican authorities seized more than four tons of pot from the warehouse on their side of the border.
The marijuana is worth more than $20 million if sold on the streets of San Diego, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton. The bricks of pot were packaged for sale.
"This is obviously the work of a cartel," said Morton, who held a news conference outside the warehouse in an industrial park near the Otay Mesa truck crossing, across from Tijuana.
Officials said the lightening-speed, 12-hour operation started Tuesday night when U.S. authorities watching a warehouse under surveillance followed a tractor-trailer as it left the building.




ICE agents called in the California Highway Patrol, whose officers stopped the rig near Temecula, California, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) way. Authorities say they found 10 tons of marijuana inside the tractor-trailer. The driver, a U.S. citizen, and his Mexican wife were arrested and will be arraigned in San Diego on Thursday.
Authorities quickly obtained a federal search warrant to enter the warehouse, where they discovered 10 to 15 more tons of marijuana, Morton said.
They also found the opening to the tunnel, which ran the length of six football fields under the border and ended at a warehouse in Mexico, Morton said. The tunnel had lighting, ventilation and a rail system to send loads of illegal drugs into California.
The clandestine passageway was too low to stand up in and was believed to be in operation for only a brief time, Morton said.
Officials said the seizure was the largest ever in California and was believed to be the second-largest in the U.S. The largest amount of marijuana seized by Drug Enforcement Administration agents was in 2008 in Oregon, where 33 tons were found, DEA special agent Ralph W. Partridge said.
Wednesday's announcement comes only weeks after Mexican officials made their largest marijuana seizure ever, confiscating a massive 134 tons believed to belong to the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Morton said officials haven't determined which cartel was running the drug tunnel.
Officials have found 125 underground tunnels along the border built by Mexican drug cartels to elude detection since the early 1990s, ICE officials said. Of those, 75 have been found in the past four years. Many were discovered before they were completed. The majority were found along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico.
Morton credited the increase in tunnel discoveries to "good old-fashioned law enforcement" efforts, with agents keeping a close eye on the thousands of warehouses storing goods moved back and forth across the border.
Morton said such a rapid bust, which came after a monthlong investigation, was possible because of cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities. He said that cooperation is better than ever, making it tougher for Mexican drug traffickers to move their loads and forcing their smuggling businesses to move underground.

 

I think with the number of people required to build a starship, it would be impossible for every single one of those people to keep it secret.

 

Hello `Lou, thanks for filling in some empty space on the MCF & making our sponsor's happy with more activity

I believe nothing is impossible...I believe the secret can be kept if you keep all the people captive on a secluded island with no contact with the
outside world...Or you go underground in the tunnels...Also it's possible the drug cartel's are funding this project Maybe , but it all could just be `Smoke & Mirror's, or all go up in one big cloud of `Smoke...
That's `all, I'm tired...., but it's my contribution for 2day or now : )

 

I've been in the government / defense acquisition business for many years. $1M may sound like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket in terms of developing new technology. It means someone is funding a 'what-if' drill for about a year. DARPA doesn't generally build anything. They just explore emerging technologies to see if something useful could possibly come of it. If so, the project is tossed over the fence to someplace outside DARPA to pursue further and actually build something.

The $10B price tag is about the right order of magnitude.

Very interesting stuff, KidSpace. New propulsion technologies to allow interplanetary travel will eventually be needed / explored. Would love to see it in my lifetime...

 

Oh yeah, because Enterprise did not have the ability to turn around and head home if they decided against going out into the planets, I forgot........ of course, if you travel 15 years out, it will take 15 years to get back more than likely. My grandfather worked with NASA under the Gemini and Apollo programs. He told me that even then people were talking about the possibility of going to Mars, but with the rate of technology, they figured out that by the time they built a ship and it made it halfway to Mars, they could build a ship that would beat it to Mars within a few years. So we're working on having the technology so that we can make it to Mars within a a couple of weeks tops.

So we're working on the technology to have a hyperdrive and light speed, apparently!

 

That would be really interesting to finally build a hyperdrive and be able to explore outer space.

 

The danger of a hyperdrive is a breakdown. You'd hate to be 15 light years away and break down and be stuck with just a standard rocket fired engine.

 

I'm all for it. I would love the idea of travel among the stars.

Space, just make sure you swing by and pick us up. lol

I wonder if AAA can give them a jump that far out.