This in from NASA
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/07/16395770-estimate-suggests-that-our-galaxy-contains-17-billion-sizzling-hot-earths?lite

You know, the more I read about space exploration, the more convinced I am that we will probably never colonise other planets in a significant manner; over 90% of all planets are either too far or too close to their sun, gas giants or lacking a critical element, be it water, magnetic field or atmosphere. And even if we were to find a suitable planet, it would be so far away, that our spaceship would not physically and technologically withstand the journey.

And aliens, although I am sure they exist, I fear we won't meet any for a long, long time, since habitable planets are so few and far between and the ones that harbour intelligent, advanced life in the same period of our existence are likely to be out of reach. (I realise that the conditions for the evolution of life need not be the same for every species; in fact, they may vary wildly, but still the odds are against one such encounter.)

I don't mean to be a party buster... I'm just really annoyed ( ) I wasn't born a thousand years from now, in a time when we'll have spaceships possibly advanced enough to make it to the final frontier.

On a lighter note here is proof that there is no intelligent life in the Universe:

From YouTube, Fun with SunBurn, the engine I am working on for Supremacy:

(Those are flying windmills from an example game on the Supremacy webpage.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Jjxrexa5A

I'm pretty sure that the ancient Greek astronomers & their 17th-19th century counterparts might have said the same thing: "I wish I had lived in a time when people have visited the Moon and explored the planets!" ;-)

and now this:
http://news.msn.com/science-technology/video?videoid=4c21428a-8ca2-4cd8-8d1e-71409ac64bdb&ap=true

KOI 172.02 or is that spelled Cardassian?

cool
sad we can't take a look to see what's there

Even travelling on warp speed would take a long time to get there. Apparently the star is ~1040 ly away, so it would take about a year on warp 8 and ~50 days on warp 9.99 to get a ship there

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI_172.02

I believe It might happen one day, although we or our children won't see it yet.

Faster than light? Not really but...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/18/nasa_eagleworks_warp_drive/

Or is it?

I wouldn't mind a two month trip at warp 9.9 (provided the engines can take it around the clock), but there are always other solutions: Q, the Traveller, Kes or the Borg could lend a hand in getting you there faster.

Unfortunately Warp 10 is not the same here as in Star Trek, here it refers to the multiplication factor of the speed of light, that means ten times the speed of light, while in Star Trek the factor is computed from a more complex formula.

Be it warp 10 or not I call dibs on the position of chief engineer of Humanity's first FTL space exploration ship.

Well, I used a more complex formula for the examples I mentioned, based on a fit of actual values I found a long time ago on the wikis and elsewhere. So, my values are as "realistic" as possible (=in line with the series).

Read the spoiler below at your own risk

Ok, so we'll apply for crew positions then

Given my science background, I call dibs for Chief Engineer

Already called it



But if you insist I guess I could be happy as captain, just call me sir from now on

Damn, you got me there chief engineer Vjeko ;-)

OK then, I call dibs for science officer (Spock's or Data's job)

It was logical since I'm in engineering college

So, suddenly you outrank me, aye aye sir

...and I'm in physics. Quite logical indeed if you put it that way

Well, both La Forge and Data were lieutenant commanders around the 4th TNG season, so we would be equals in rank

Yeah, but Spock was Commander and first officer, so that entire science position isn't defined by rank. I'm more of a Scotty type engineer, European, accent, and my type of Croatian (Zagorci, a regional classification) are famous for alcohol production/consumption and tolerance, bhahaha

I heard about this on BBC news, they made quite a fuss over it on both the 6pm and 9pm bulletins. I didn't see if ITV mentioned it though. I usually only watch BBC news.

*Brain melts*

Might as well call dibs for Mess officer, cook and (maybe) diplomatic "amuser", since I've got music recipes. How's that?

Welcome aboard.

Thank you sir!

Don't be fightin' over them ranks! There are more than ONE chief something on a ship, for when the one played by a main actor was off-duty. On the Enterprise-D, they had several chief engineers and chief medical officers (you can tell from the dialogues). In this case, I'd be invaluable on the ship, since science, psychology and cooking are among my passions. Add to those hundreds of hours of Need for Speed "experience" and a degree in linguistics, I'd be eligible for a number of positions, like science officer, counselor, chef, helm officer and communications officer.

so where is that ship gonna head?
I rather expect once we have the technology we'll first send cheap drones to check it out and then rather all keep home and enjoy with instant transmission via quantum mechanics which is already known to work faster than light.
We probably will feel being there for real with computers adapted to our brains and feel no need to raise a single fingertip.

I believe our first mission will be to visit Proxima....

lol a bit dark over there

Not true neither in real life nor in Trek. Starfleet uses subspace communications which make use of higher dimensional spaces.



Agreed. However, we need to find a captain first. Kenneth or Matress are you interested? Mike will be the Admiral

By the way, some time ago I was playing in a Trek-RPG-via-email game for about a year. We had to take turns and write short stories about our characters taking into account what the others had written of course. One man stunts (eg single-handedly destroying the Borg etc) were forbidden. I graduated from the Academy and then joined the USS Akagi if I recall. It was really fun

OK then but first I have to single-handedly destroy the Borg etc. (Similar to coding a combat engine without using Unity.)

We also need a first officer and a conn officer....

Ok well then we need another method, but research on such quantum effects is still at it's youth so maybe we just need to wait a bit more to get it uncovered. At least I rather expect faster than light communication than travel.