Sir David Attenborough says we in serious trouble if we dont change our ways.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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2 things. First the Voyager probes passed by a "beach" and nearly landed in the Pacific Ocean.


The moon on the left is Europa, the planet is of course Earth. The blue spheres represent all the water on both worlds. Europa has a huge amount of water under its icy crust.

Second its not the distance its the time over 30 years in deep space. That's the accomplsihment not the distance. If we had built a probe powered by an Orion drive (some in the 1960-70 were arguing for just that) it could very well have flown past Alpha Centauri almost a decade ago.

That's not to mention the payload one of those drives could launch in to orbit. It could put in to LEO a station like the one seen in 2001, or it could deploy a prefab Lunar or Mars outpost all the way to its destination.

There is a capability we have as a civilization right now, but its not exploited, it is not funded. BTW The budget of the US DoD could pay for 17 Orion Heavy Lunch Vehicles in a year. If you can't build a Martian outpost out of 850,000 t (that is over 8 Nimiz class carriers) of payload then your are doing something wrong.