A SENIOR NASA official has promised to deliver a spaceship that will travel between alien worlds “within a few years”. Speaking at a conference in San Francisco on Saturday, NASA Ames director Simon Worden said his division had started a project with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called the “Hundred Year Starship”.
The project was kicked off recently with $1 million funding from DARPA and $100K from NASA and hopes to utilise new propulsion ideas being explored by NASA. Star Trek fans, prepare to get excited – electric propulsion is here, according to Mr Worden.
“Anybody that watches the (Star Trek) Enterprise, you know you don’t see huge plumes of fire,” he said. ”Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds.”
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I suspect that they have had this technology for a LONG time now but are only now just making it public.
I read the other end of the stick on this one. That whoever is to board the spaceships will not return to earth alive. I guess there’s enough fanatics to go round. Not sure I’d particularly like to be one of them but if a man’s dream comes true and man’s dream comes true. The few years bit bugs me though. One moment it’s impossible – next minute it’s gonna happen in a few years.
yes, NASA would like to travel back to the time when it got funding!
you wouldn’t get very far in a hundred years. This would only be useful for our nearest neighbours. Still, it’s worth doing.
whats the point if you cant travel faster than light? i think people forget earth is a pretty cool place to begin with
Well, duh NASA being into interplanetary travel and experimenting with propulsion.
In response to the title: I sure hope so! If they weren’t even planning to accomplish this we’d all be in huge trouble. Within the next 100 years or so mankind will either have to take *drastic* measures in regards to population control, or colonize another planet. There’s no way around it. If we’re gonna go for the colonization thing (which I sincerely hope is the case), then we’re already lagging way behind.
It’s easy to think of money spent on such research is wasted and much better spent saving starving children i Africa. Don’t get me wrong – of course we shouldn’t neglect our responsibilities towards developing nations – but the survival of mankind depends on us either being willing to kill off huge numbers of people every once in a while or being able to colonize other planets.