Talks on TRAPPIST-1

[Meliva]

Yes, but Trappist - 1 is only 39 lightyears away, which means we are only seeing things 39 years ago. In the scale of the universe, nothing much would have changed.

that depends really. if no outside forces get involved, then yes. but lets say 8 years ago it got hit by a huge meteor, that would make quite the change. or if there are lifeforms on it already, and they end up nuking themselves into oblivion 3 years ago. but if its uninhabited and no foreign objects(meteors, supernovas, aliens) get involved then it would remain unchanged for the most part. but it doesn't change the fact that we are seeing it 39 years ago. but in 39 years we will know for sure how it looks today.
granted until we get faster then light space travel. or at the very least fast as light space travel(which would be a 39 year trip) not much we can do with knowledge of other planets that far away.

[DezNutz]

Yes, but Trappist - 1 is only 39 lightyears away, which means we are only seeing things 39 years ago. In the scale of the universe, nothing much would have changed.

that depends really. if no outside forces get involved, then yes. but lets say 8 years ago it got hit by a huge meteor, that would make quite the change. or if there are lifeforms on it already, and they end up nuking themselves into oblivion 3 years ago. but if its uninhabited and no foreign objects(meteors, supernovas, aliens) get involved then it would remain unchanged for the most part. but it doesn't change the fact that we are seeing it 39 years ago. but in 39 years we will know for sure how it looks today.
granted until we get faster then light space travel. or at the very least fast as light space travel(which would be a 39 year trip) not much we can do with knowledge of other planets that far away.

The only plausible way for an object to "reach" "light speed" or faster is via wormholes and even then the object isn't actually reaching those speeds.

[Grapefruit]

A common language isn't going to magically make cultural, religious, and other differences just evaporate where everyone lives in peace and agrees to the same point of view.

So good luck with that.

I do not believe a common language will magically fix anything, but i do think it is a step in the right direction.
Nothing is ever gonna make everybody have the same point of view.
There will always be those idiots who insist on praying to their imaginary friend, using him/her as an excuse to persecute others and holding back the evolution of mankind. If they were all to learn English we could use logic and reason and if that fails simply show them Monty Pythons 'Life Of Brian' to demonstrate how ridiculous their beliefs are. This will not work on all of them but hopefully we can reduce their numbers and influence.
And as for cultural differences, 'variety is the spice of life' and at least if we can understand each other we can begin to use words instead of bombs to resolve our differences. I do not believe we should become race of clones who all look the same, eat the same, think the same, but understanding can help us towards mutual respect.
We need to take the United Nations concept a step further, towards a government where corrupt politicians argue over the right thing to do, while pretending to care about the whole world and not just the little area they were born in. (all politicians are corrupt, its just a fact of life). We also need to achieve this without resorting to violence to force any country to comply.
If we are going to explore other solar systems and meet other races we need to send people who can represent our entire world not just one country.
Maybe if we can reach even some level of peace, understanding and respect among ourselves The Galactic Council, The United Federation Of Planets, The Vogons or some other intelligent race will consider us civilised and contact us.
But that is just daydreaming. Realistically we need to learn to work together so we can get off this planet before our star goes supernova and kills us all.
This TRAPPIST-1 discovery is a good example of people from different countries working together towards this goal and i bet this was helped by them all being able to communicate with each other in a common tongue.

Oh, and of course this game would not work as well if it was not for the everyone types in English rule.
I have one occasion set a student the homework of coming on here and sending me a message.

[Grimrock Litless]

Its impossible to unite all the humans on earth, as we humans are born with this nature, as in millions of years of development has made us like this.

Everyone wants to be the richest, most famous and be the leader of everything(For the highest chance to have a mate, pass on the gene, similar to that of apes), that is why it is impossible, unless, we forsaken the evolution, at that point, I am not sure we are humans anymore.

We are most united when everyone has a common goal, but that is impossible as well, since some would have other goals, good or bad.

Languages only makes use understand each other better, in words, what we all most understand is our heart, the known how on what people think about what they think about something, this promotes the creation of a common goal, but like I said before, that is impossible as well, since some would have other goals, good or bad.....

[Mack]

Ok how far is pluto? Can we even see that rock very wellm? We dont even know whats on the rock right next to us which would take several years to travel to in the fastest vehicle we have available today.. what makes anyone think that any scientist on Earth knows what's on that rock that's 39 light-years away by the way how fast is light how long would it take to travel 39 light years think about it that's pretty far when we don't even know what's right next to us....

Voyager 1, Earth's most distant spacecraft, left the solar system and entered interstellar space in 2012. According to NASA, it is currently speeding away at 38,200 mph. For Voyager 1 to travel 39 light-years, it would take the spacecraft 685,000 years.... I don't believe there's a satellite even close to that thing

how would creating a story like this generate funds for NASA seeing as though it's funded by the government? well think about it like this if no one in the United States civilian wise is interested in interstellar space or the moon or anything like that then who would be willing to pay taxes to fund NASA therefore they need to keep our interest in space so that way we have no question about billions of dollars being wasted on NASA

[Most Lee Harmless]

'billions of dollars being wasted' does kinda let us know your view on NASA : but those billions of dollars are not dumped into some hole in the ground, or ceremonially incinerated in a hidden room at HQ : they are spent on research, equipment and employing people : very smart people, who delve into deep, dark and obscure corners of our technological world and develop ideas, means and ways to explore it further. Those billions of dollars fund corporations and companies, university's and R&D depts. They develop new materials needed to function in extreme conditions : control systems : communications : physiological and biological advances required to keep humans functioning in extreme conditions : the list is endless and sometimes the benefits end up having little to do with 'reaching Pluto' but certainly help you navigate to the that new mall via GPS.
The early space programme depended on humans doing endless complex calculations by hand : the entire computational power of the Apollo spacecraft lagged severely behind your cell phone, the one you threw away when you last upgraded, that is. The computational know-how that led from room-size IBM's to lap-tops that can contain the entire accumulated knowledge of humanity enclosed in its chip or accessible to its wi-fi connection, was driven by 'billions of dollars being wasted' on pure research. Almost every aspect of your daily life uses some technology, some material, some insight, gained from very smart people engaged in very complex and cutting-edge research into what then seemed esoteric, even wasteful but now is so common-place we dont even think about it or bother much to find out.
NASA may never reach Pluto, nevermind anywhere else further away : but the journey, the trying of it, will produce daily wonders which we will ignore and, instead, we will say 'what a waste of money cos they never got there'.
I write this and send it, you see it and read it on a platform, developed by billions of wasted dollars spent funding the likes of Berners-Lee who, while trying to discover the smallest particles and how they work, needed a tool to communicate with the other folk also wasting billions looking for strange stuff : they are still looking for those small things, but we got the world-wide web out of it. What a waste.

[Mack]

The misdirection and lies is what gives me my view of NASA.. I can't deny them and all the great scientist that worked with them and still are they're Great accomplishments and future accomplishments. the deception annoys me.

[Grimrock Litless]

'billions of dollars being wasted' does kinda let us know your view on NASA : but those billions of dollars are not dumped into some hole in the ground, or ceremonially incinerated in a hidden room at HQ : they are spent on research, equipment and employing people : very smart people, who delve into deep, dark and obscure corners of our technological world and develop ideas, means and ways to explore it further. Those billions of dollars fund corporations and companies, university's and R&D depts. They develop new materials needed to function in extreme conditions : control systems : communications : physiological and biological advances required to keep humans functioning in extreme conditions : the list is endless and sometimes the benefits end up having little to do with 'reaching Pluto' but certainly help you navigate to the that new mall via GPS.
The early space programme depended on humans doing endless complex calculations by hand : the entire computational power of the Apollo spacecraft lagged severely behind your cell phone, the one you threw away when you last upgraded, that is. The computational know-how that led from room-size IBM's to lap-tops that can contain the entire accumulated knowledge of humanity enclosed in its chip or accessible to its wi-fi connection, was driven by 'billions of dollars being wasted' on pure research. Almost every aspect of your daily life uses some technology, some material, some insight, gained from very smart people engaged in very complex and cutting-edge research into what then seemed esoteric, even wasteful but now is so common-place we dont even think about it or bother much to find out.
NASA may never reach Pluto, nevermind anywhere else further away : but the journey, the trying of it, will produce daily wonders which we will ignore and, instead, we will say 'what a waste of money cos they never got there'.
I write this and send it, you see it and read it on a platform, developed by billions of wasted dollars spent funding the likes of Berners-Lee who, while trying to discover the smallest particles and how they work, needed a tool to communicate with the other folk also wasting billions looking for strange stuff : they are still looking for those small things, but we got the world-wide web out of it. What a waste.

Exactly what I think.

They hide most of it from the public because if the public knows, other nations would know as well, if its a weapon or not, if both side knows it, then the side that spend much effort to find such discovery would be in vain.

There is such things as space race in the past, the race for the first man to land on moon, the race was close between USA and Russia, but US won in the end. Because of the help from a german scientist.

Same thing happened with weapons, the race to make the first nuke, between USA and Germany. It was also a close race, US won in that one too.

[ChaIbaud]

Discovering other life? Cool. Furthering greed by humans? Cool. Interstellar war over the planet(s) other intelligent life-forms possess? Cool.

Onto grapefruit's message, I think everyone should learn English because it is the only language I know and that's not fair to me that they learned something incorrect. People will fight over anything. Why not be able to understand them cursing you while getting scalped in the exotic Congo or executed in the shifting sands?

[Mack]

we struggle on our space station and we've barely been on the moon?