DARPA Wants to Conquer the Solar System by Century's End

I don't know how I missed this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Year_Starship

DARPA's a pretty big name to be tossing around - maybe we really will pull this off. By the way, the wikipedia article is a bit too much of a stub - the Hundred Year Starship initiative covers much more than a single Mars to stay mission, and is currently looking at serious proposals for generational ships that could carry humans to distant stars:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/02/8603075-reality-check-for-starships

edited 3rd Nov '11 12:27:43 AM by MyGodItsFullofStars

I can't wait for the aliens to kick your asses back to earth.

That would honestly be a great scenario, so long as all they manage to do is kick us back to Earth. If we encountered aliens with advanced technology and somehow managed to not get wiped out entirely, I can totally see us stealing some of said tech and using it to our advantage.

Or at the very least studying their concepts and applying them to our own stuff.

DARPA conquered Information by introducing the internet, they don't fuck around.

Yeah, but they also invented the ten million dollar cybernetic spy cat, which went on one mission then promptly got run over by a car: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty

There is something deliciously ironic in that.

Oh, I prefer aliens start kicking our ass, we steal their tech and then we kick their ass.

Why assume aliens would want to have anything to do with monkeys like us?

'It's gonna rain!'

Why assume they don't? Since we don't have any idea what aliens are like, we can't assume anything, and are left to our own imagination. Which brings us back full circle.

Metal Gear? The Darpa Chief?

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

mars in 2030? lol my book Nightmare takes place on Mars in 2032 >.>

though it was settled in like '79 though in my work... but that's off topic, but thats creepy how the dates are similar

edited 3rd Nov '11 4:54:43 AM by jasonwill2

as of the 2nd of Nov. has 6 weeks for a broken collar bone to heal and types 1 handed and slowly

A one-way trip, when nothing's set up yet??

I don't see how you can conquer the solar system if most of the planets and semi-planets are inherently inhospitable. Mars is just a desert, but Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are unthinkable. Pluto and etc. are too far. The rest are just rocks.

edited 3rd Nov '11 8:01:01 AM by abstractematics

Now using Trivialis handle.

The one way trip idea has two points of appeal to it:

First, you don't have to spend the money on a return trip (a big cost, actually).

Second, it implies that you have robots establish a permanent base ahead of time. It's basically colonization right from the start. It wouldn't turn out like Apollo where funding cuts end the mission long before the bases get established.

Also, so far as colonizing the gas giants, Jupiter alone has 60+ moons, four of which are about the size of Mars and covered in frozen water. And mining gas giants isn't as far fetched as you'd think - we could use modified particle beams to suck up ions directly from the cloud layers (assuming, of course, we have the spare power to do so - one idea is to use tidal energy to power the orbiting mining stations). The atmospheres of the gas giants are rich in valuable nutrients that we could then use to terraform other planets, like Mars and Mercury. A job for the next generation, perhaps, but it doesn't hurt to start thinking about this kind of thing now.

edited 3rd Nov '11 8:07:30 AM by MyGodItsFullofStars

In 2100, we conquer the solar system. 2101 WAR WAS BEGINNING.

I'm baaaaaaack

If we find hive clusters on Pluto and end up disturbing them, I'm gonna be pissed.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

ZERG RUSH!!!

edited 3rd Nov '11 3:12:23 PM by Joesolo

I'm baaaaaaack

If there is one way humanity could go down, getting added to the swarm is not such a bad option.

'It's gonna rain!'

I'd rather Nuke 'em from orbit.Just to be sure...

I'm baaaaaaack

It's when we hit the edge of the Solar System and find that the end is just a painted-on background things will start to get interesting.

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

I'm fairly certain that a probe or two have already gone beyond the solar system and it's been proven space is not a back drop.

Maybe if we get past Pluto we'll find a Mass Relay

^^ The Voyager probes have gone beyond Pluto but they are not THAT far yet. (By my estimates Voyager 1 and 2 have completely exited the Sun's heliosphere but have not left the Oort Cloud nor the Sun's gravitational influence.)

Silly, the Mass Relay isn't past Pluto, it's Charon itself!

I am now known as Flyboy.

...am I in an intergalactic version of The Truman Show?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Yes, but only one of us is the star.

Everyone else is just brainwashed actors.

So who is it?

edited 3rd Nov '11 7:48:54 PM by MrDolomite

Fred Turks, evening manager of a Minnesota grocery store, who likes fishing and bowling.

Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.