Comments | eric_hinkle: This is out of Space Opera!

eric_hinkle

This is out of Space Opera!

Aug 29, 2011 22:10

A planet literally made out of diamonds has been discovered. I am not kidding.

I do know someone who'd be pleased by this:

( Read more... )

science, astronomy, space opera, science fiction

Comments 4

polaris93 August 30 2011, 02:58:40 UTC

Ah . . . the perfect friend for the 50-astronomical unit woman! XD

What else exists out there; and why are we still sitting on our dumpers on Earth?

Yes! Yes! Yes! Time to get rid of Obama and all the other idiot politicians who decided to trash our entry into space and destroy its fruits! Time for the stars:

Gully Foyle is my name,
Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place --
The stars, my destination.*

From Alfred Bester's magnificent 1956 mega-potboiler The Stars, My Destination (needless to say, I love great potboilers -- of course, with the understanding that that "great" is in every sense of the word).

eric_hinkle August 30 2011, 15:49:53 UTC

Oh, we can't go out into space, we'll be wasting money better spent on government bureaucrats. And besides, there's nothing there of any value!

No, seriously, I keep hearing that argument from self-styled "intellectuals". Sometimes I think the main requisite for being an intellectual is a complete lack of any intelligence!

polaris93 August 30 2011, 16:26:27 UTC

I agree. These days, those who style themselves intellectuals have just enough education to know who to sneer at, and that's about it. What they mean by "intellectual" is "knowing which team to side with, knowing the game songs, knowing how to do what the cheerleaders want, and never, ever switching sides until you're told to do so by Big Brother's media minions." Pitiful.

Fine. Let them stay here and rot. The rest of us will head for the stars. XD

anonymous August 30 2011, 21:29:47 UTC

The National Space Society, the leading space advocacy group as well as several of the moon astronauts, has endorsed Obama's plan as the best way forward, better than the Bush plan it replaces. Let's remember that the shuttle uses 1970s technology and should have been replaced a decade ago. We could have continued to pour money into an ancient (by aerospace standards) system that would grow more and more costly as time went on and had only limited capability or we could use the money to develop a new, more capable system(s). And let's remember we lost two shuttles and their crews. The shuttles would only get more dangerous as they got even older ( ... )