Rocky Planet found outside our Solar System!

[heruamon]

mrstickball said:

heruamon said:

The administration would have been freaking raped by the like of communist hater if they had pushed hard for space initiatives, specificly.  There was alot of money for R&D in general, and that's what needed, as propulsion is only one piece of the puzzle (although a very important piece).  WRT a mineral, I was thinking something sci-fi-ish...nothing that we already have on Earth...some super dense alloy 100X lighter than aluminum but 100X stronger than steel...believe me...if we discover something like that on Mars...Mars would be colonized in 20 years!  It’s sad, but in higher education, there is almost a disdain for researching, for the sake of knowledge…everybody is looking at the bottom-line…and what products they can make a buck off…

See, here's the thing:

I don't think that exotics should dominate the reason we go to space. Common business should. The reason for this is that there will be far more capital to invest in spacial resource aquisition if we have many reasons to go, instead of just a few rare, but valuable reasons. Think about history: Some of our greatest progresses came in finding very common items. People wanted light, so we got the lightbulb. People wanted faster transportation, so we got the car. People wanted a quicker way to asia, so we found America. So on and so on.

Could Mars be colonize quickly if an exotic was found there? Yes. But if we want it to be colonized right, we need a lot more than just one exotic. We need an extensive network of resources, and ways to acquire resources to make it happen.

For example, space tourism is becoming a more hotly discussed commodity as of late. Does it really serve a noble purpose? No. But the fact is that the profits earned from such a thing will result in more R&D on assets that can be put into other projects. Eventually, business can catch up and invest where government can't or won't.

Consider my thread a few days ago: John Carmack, developer of Doom, is also a space junkie. He founded Armadillo Aerospace. They are in a contest to provide private landers for the moon. Guess how much their lunar lander cost? It cost the US government $11 billion USD in 1969 dollars. Still guessing? It's costing Carmack ~$1m USD for his lunar lander that's 15 feet tall, and can land on the moon, and relaunch back to earth or to a lagrange point elsewhere. With costs being at that for private businesses, it may become a matter of time when BP, Wal-Mart or Virgin are going to the moon. And unlike the government, they'll keep the capital rolling into those areas.

When i was working on my MSEE...I saw this trend, where we are moving away from 6.0 basic research, more and more every year.  The problem is that coporations WON'T invest in it, and they depend on the government (US in the past) to plow millions into this to get this accomplish...but the government has been weaning this more and more over the decades, because of all the furor over eggheads wasting money.  It was great to see Carmack's team win it last year...but let's not forget...they haven't landed on the moon yet!  Also...NASA put men on the moon in 1969...we've made huge strides in teechnology since then...and I think the Chinese will be on the moon, before we are again.