On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:27:29 -0800, Erik Max Francis <max@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>John Schilling wrote:
>> Who do you imagine is capable of sending spacecraft to Saturn within a
>> decade? NASA couldn't do it, not even with unlimited funding and the
>> certain knowledge that every NASA employee would be tortured to death
>> if they failed. Nor ESA, nor the Russians, nor the plucky unstoppable
>> Chinese what are going to rule the world within a decade. The United
>> States Air Force would be a long shot, and who else is there?
>You'll have to be clear about exactly what you think is impossible,
>since we've done it before. Neither the planning or the actual trip (if
>one were to use simple chemical drives, possibly with gravity assists)
>takes longer than a decade, as _Apollo_ and the _Voyager_ programs show,
>respectively (and _Apollo_ is vastly more complicated than what we're
>talking about here -- we're talking about a simple probe that will test
>the FTL drive).
"We" have done this before?
I don't recall being involved in the Apollo project. Were you?
A bunch of people who are now dead, or close enough as makes no
difference, did it before. They can't do it again. That a bunch
of completely different people are now doing business under the
same name, doesn't mean they can do what the dead guys once did.
You might as well ask Xerox to develop the information technologies
that will dominate the coming decades, or the Tennessee Valley
Authority to built a first-rate hydroelectric power network, or
the Rolling Stones to make a decent album.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*John.Schilling@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
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