On tonight's TV there was a throwaway comment about water particles having been found floating about somewhere in the universe. The scientist predicted that one day Mankind might use this water to inhabit another world once our own Sun has expired. Despite the water being countless light years away [I forget how many] I was excited by this news! A job for SWORD methinks! Now which ship should we send?
Fireball H2O
ReplyDeleteO know, bad one ;)
(laughs) that IS bad, eviled ... so bad, I wish I'd thought of it!
ReplyDeleteWhat do they mean by particles of water? Is it big globules? Sorry, my knowledge of science is shamefully lacking. Finding them does seem exciting.
But I do need to ask .... will humans even exist by the time the sun has expired? I'm not referring to wars or pollution or anything like that .... just the question of will humans still be the same species by that time? Aren't we talking tens or hundreds of millions of years? This seems like some kind of hyperbole to me ... sorry, not meaning to rain (or pour water) on that scientist's parade.
Anyway ... the answer to the question of which SWORD vehicle is easy ... it's none of them. This would be a task for serious players ... namely, SpaceX. (grins)
SpaceX are just far too small for the job Toadster! Or maybe you meant the private space flight company of the same name? [we really do need a private space flight firm called SWORD to balance things up!]. I suppose the scientist meant that we could colonise another planet[s]with water as soon as we are able to, not necessarily waiting for the death of our sun. Personally it seems a remote possibility as we have only succeeded in placing 11 people on our own moon. Remarkable as this was, it would take astronomically more energy and unimaginable human endurance to leave the confines of our own Solar System never mind our Galaxy. Maybe in 3011. Still, I do hope we get there and it'd be great to be around at the time!
ReplyDeleteI can only go by what you tell me the scientist said, Woodsy. No fair changing it after the event. (laughs)
ReplyDeleteBut it was a good opportunity to have a dig at that kind of description all too frequently used on astronomy-type programs. As one of many examples, there was a (I think) BBC series, presented by one of the actors from Jurassic Park ... he's talking about that very thing ... the death throes of The Sun ...
Sam (getting more and more excited, adding nuance after nuance to his vocal delivery) : "So one day, the Sun will expand to a size larger than the orbit of the Earth, and we'll all die and be dead and killed FOREVER!"
(Toad's head snaps up from the book she's reading ...)
Toad: "Oh. My. Goddess! We're all going to die!" (runs around putting brown tape over the windows ... brown? yech ... why is there no red coloured tape in the house?)
Toad: "Wow, thanks for the warning, Sam. Jeepers, I better call Mom and let her know. How long have we got before this happens, Sam?"
Sam: "Oh, only about a billion years ..."
Toad: "A billion years? What the ....? So maybe time before it happens to wash my hair AND finish what's probably the most boring, overrated book ever written, namely "Lord of the Rings" then? Talk about hyperbole, Sam! Get a sense of perspective, please! And you owe me for the brown tape now ..."
Lowering the tone, I recall that when the Apollo missions were going, there was a report that water droplets from the ship (eg discharged from the loo) were orbiting the craft. So Earth has been responsible for some "water particles" too..
ReplyDeleteLowering the tone down to the gutter, do you mean Captain's Logs Andy! Hee hee. Couldn't resist.
ReplyDeleteAs for Lord of the Rings being boring Toad, that's orc-fighting talk!Maybe you should have it read to you!
The item you saw may have been that we've recently discovered a single cloud of water vapor that has 140 trillion times more water than all Earth's oceans. But water is all over the place. And really, water is utterly trivial to make. We do it already. You could send a ship to go looking for water in deep space, but its own hydrogen fuel cells would produce loads of excess water as a byproduct long before the ship reached its destination.
ReplyDeleteShort version: any SF story where aliens come to Earth to steal our water (or water is used as a trading currency with a space-faring race, as in Star Trek: Voyager) is full of something, and it isn't water.
But still, imagine a spaceship going to explore a weightless ocean in space that looked like this…
OK, Woodsy ... can you come round and read it to me now, please? Tea and bickies to keep you going.
ReplyDeleteYou're right of course .... it is a great book ... probably ... just not my cup of tea. It's another of those books I so much wanted to like ... but it just doesn't work for me (heavy sigh). The loss is mine.
Amazing picture, Richard. And it's funny you should say that about making water (no sniggers at the back there *grins). This evening I was shown a story from the Dan Dare CGI series. It might have been called, "Dead Space".
The story has demonic-looking aliens stealing the Earth's oceans, cos they need water (for food, so I gathered ... not certain about that though).
These aliens have the most amazing trans-warp technology .... and they have cloaking devices ... etc. ... all the usual stuff. But I kept thinking, "they can design and build all THAT, but they can't make water???"
It was fun though.