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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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By major, I'm meaning that I believe dealers and many retail customers will even be afraid to buy a 1973 Happy Halloween once ounce silver bar without weighing it and acid testing it. I really believe counterfeiting will become that rampant. |
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mithridates

Joined: 03 Mar 2003 Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
I predict that the discovery of an Earth-like extrasolar planet either this year or the next will completely change the way we view space and our view of our role in it.
As long as it's located in the habitable zone of its star, that is. |
How long before the launching of generation ships to these new worlds? |
A long time, barring any unexpected advances in propulsion. Luckily though our ability to observe other worlds increases quite rapidly so we'll able to be able to view other worlds directly long before we ever get to visit them. IMO that's the field we should be spending most of our money on. |
Of course there are too many unknowns, but what would you speculate: 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, 1000 years from now?
I would speculate that such a project will be undertaken by some group of pioneers between 2170 and 2199. |
Apparently we have an idea of how it could be theoretically done, so all that we have to do is to find out how to put this into practice:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090506-tw-warp-drive.html
I'm optimistic that it'll happen sooner rather than later (I'll go with 100 years) because humans really are obsessed with the idea of other planets like our own. Even Gliese 581c garnered quite a bit of attention (here it is compared to the search term Lithuania):
http://www.google.com/trends?q=gliese+581%2C+lithuania&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1
and that just was a planet ten times the mass of the Earth orbiting a red dwarf star. It was thought at the time that it might have an earthlike climate but further calculations showed that Gliese 581d is much more likely. With nations like China/Japan/India/Brazil finally stepping in and private industry (SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, Armadillo Aerospace to name a few) beginning to find its legs I'm optimistic that we're on the verge of a real change in the way space exploration is conducted. |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:11 am Post subject: |
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| Within a decade, it'll be hard to find Americans who admit that they were either a Republican or a Democrat. A few die-hard holdouts will admit it and blame the mess on the opposite party, but most people will be too embarrassed to admit that they were ever loyal to either party. |
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Junior

Joined: 18 Nov 2005 Location: the eye
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 6:26 am Post subject: |
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| If that happens, I predict Jewish lobbies will bribe the US government to send American troops to fight Iran and the number of Americans who will die fighting Iran will be at least 10 times larger than the number of Israelis who will die fighting Iran and we'll lose anyway. In other words, Iraq all over again. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired
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Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:53 am Post subject: |
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| Reggie wrote: |
| If that happens, I predict Jewish lobbies will bribe the US government to send American troops to fight Iran and the number of Americans who will die fighting Iran will be at least 10 times larger than the number of Israelis who will die fighting Iran and we'll lose anyway. In other words, Iraq all over again. |
There is no money for that. They might want to (33% want a land invasion) but there is no money for it. The bond markets (aka China) would not finance a war that would destroy what is left of the global economy by disrupting oil supplies. |
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