Be ready to be here for quite some time

Note the following article dealing with space travel. The key point I take away from the article is that we are never getting out of our solar system. No technology works to give rapid travel and without rapid travel, humans would have to go into space for hundreds if not thousands of years in an outdated spaceships with no hope of ever getting new equipment. That's the biggest downside to conventional travel to far away places, in my opinion - no way to get the latest technology to the travelers. Imagine if the Apollo program was actually to go to some far away planet. They would still be in the middle of nowhere while look how the technology progressed in the last 40 years. They would have to basically make do with technology that now is beat by any run of the mill graphic calculator. Same applies to any ship leaving now. Advances are so rapid, and space travel is so slow that even if someone decided to dedicate their entire lives to it, they would basically be stuck techonologically unless they themselves develop something new (which given the limitations of being in a ship with limited resources is virtually impossible). Any thoughts?

Same Subject, Different Reception

Ever wonder what makes a movie popular? Most times, if not always, it's not scientific accuracy but spectacular effects and/or big name actors. Two prime examples: Deep Impact/Armagedon and Volcano/Dante's Peak. Both pairs of films came out within a few months of each other. Both Armagedon and Volcano did much better financially in the theatres than Deep Impact (which to be fair, had a bigger opening) and Dante's Peak, even though the later ones where much more scientifically accurate - Dante's Peak so much so that it drew praise from volcanologists. Deep Impact was also praised by astronomers. Surprisingly, both Armagedon and Volcano was not a hit with the critics, but the general public loved the amazing effects (at least at that point they were) and one can say bigger stars in Armagedon and Volcano. Now, over time, both of the underdogs drew grudging respect and even when they were in theatres, many people preferred them over the more popular pair. Nevertheless, we have those pesky box office results. Money talks, or so they say. And although I cannot think of another similar situation where two movies so alike in subject matter coming out within months of each other, if Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is any indication, fans still prefer larger than life experiences when going to the movie theatre, and saving more scientific movies, hopefully, for their Netflix or DVRs. Any thoughts?

Space, the Final Frontier

I found this graphic fascinating: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/12/humbling-video.php

It's a shame that we can't see anything in real time and are stuck seeing things as they were in the past. Any thoughts as to ways to overcome this problem? I personally do not see any. Even if we send out billions of tiny satellites all over the universe, they would only be able to send radio waves back that also travel at the speed of light and by the time they arrive in most places, we may not even exist anymore to receive either the radio waves or the satellites if they return.

It's interesting how it even takes the sunlight 8 minutes to reach us. For all we know, our sun may have blown up and we wouldn't know it for 8 minutes. Ah, bliss.