[url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/29/earth-like-planet-gliese-581g ]Gliese 581g[/url]
Let's build spaceships! I guess there's not much point in trying to preserve our environment now we can go to Gliese 581g. It might need a better name, though.
I love the impression that when we have completely fed this planet up that we can all just jump in spaceships, leave our mess behind, and go and f up another planet.
Independence Day ring a bell?
[i]Independence Day ring a bell? [/i]
More like Colony by Rob Grant or Hitch Hikers guide.
Do we know if there's any decent singletrack?
Anyway, we should never trust a planet with numbers in it's name; LV-426 anyone!
Hitch Hikers guide.
Wasn't the story of Hitchhikers about the earth being demolished to make way for an intergalactic superhighway and Arthur Dent finding out that his best mate Ford Prefect was an alien and going on an adventure after hitching on a Gorgon's(?????) spaceship to avoid the explosion.
Nothing similar really!
You need to read the full trilogy, m_f.
The earth was originally populated by a colony spaceship containing all the useless members of society (marketers, phone cleaners etc, interior decorators) from a different planet who were encouraged to take the trip through the use of a story about a planet eating space goat.
What tyres for a 120 trillion mile ride to Gliese?
[i]I love the impression that when we have completely fed this planet up that we can all just jump in spaceships, leave our mess behind, and go and f up another planet.[/i]
Where do you get that idea from? I'm sure they are talking about habitable by another species.
For human beings, it might take a bit of getting to - 120 TRILLION miles away.
What size camelback for a 120 trillion mile ride?
You need to read the full trilogy, m_f.The earth was originally populated by a colony spaceship containing all the useless members of society (marketers, phone cleaners etc, interior decorators) from a different planet who were encouraged to take the trip through the use of a story about a planet eating space goat.
Fair enough.
I preferred his Dirk Gently books myself 😉
pffft its only 20 light years.
Vogons, they were. HHGTTG did indeed start that way but was very much a rambling saga made up by the author as he went along with little point other than being a vehicle for genius one-liners and general fun and games with the genre 🙂
It is, of course, a classic for this reason.
D'you suppose jesus has been there?
The earth was originally populated by a colony spaceship containing all the useless members of society (marketers, phone cleaners etc, interior decorators) from a different planet who were encouraged to take the trip through the use of a story about a planet eating space goat.
Oh dear oh dear.
Right, Earth was originally created as a computer designed by Deep Thought, a computer itself designed by a transdimensional race big into philosphy who wanted to find the ultimate answer to life, the universe and, well, everything. Deep thought itself was designed to find the answer and it turned out to be 42 however it pointed out that they hadn't really understood the question properly. DT could not tell them the question, but offered to design a computer that could, a computer so complex that life itself would form part of its operational matrix.
That computer was called Earth. The transdimensional philosophers monitored the computer in our dimension taking the form of mice (bonus points for their names).
However fairly early on in the program, Earth was colonised as you say by a ship full of all the middle managers, hairdressers, telephone sanitisers and other stupid useless people from the planet Golgafrincham, and thus corrupting the original program. Everyone else on Golgafrincham lived happy, fulfilled and productive lives until they were wiped out by a disease contracted from a dirty telephone. And they used lots of stories to get the stupid people to leave, not just the space goat.
So the Golgafrinchams were not the original inhabitants, they displaced them.
The average temperature on the planet is estimated to be between -31 to -12C, but the ground temperature would vary from blazing hot on the bright side and freezing on the dark side.
Sounds like a potentially great skiing destination 😀
Spot on Molgrips. An also neatly avoids mentioning books 4 and 5 which weren't as good and had Arthur Dent falling in love with someone called Fenchurch and learning to fly. Although there was a good bit with a lorry driver who turned out to be a rain god
Ah, another trilogy with 5 books, becoming successively worse with each new issue. Though I think Asimov's Foundation trilogy beats that? HHGTTG all went downhill after the radio series anyway.
Although there was a good bit with a lorry driver who turned out to be a rain god
Ahh yes - what book was that then? I remember that but memory conspired to have me think it was from a Dirk Gently book. On re-reading them a couple of years ago I couldn't find the reference.
I recall it going along the lines of 'It always rained for xxxxx. Not just most of the time, but all of it. He kept a diary. Monday - mizzle, Tuesday - rain, Wednesday - light mist'. I loved that passage.
duntmatter - MemberGliese 581g
Let's build spaceships! I guess there's not much point in trying to preserve our environment now we can go to Gliese 581g. It might need a better name, though.
Wonder if the occupants of Gliese having exactly the same idea about Earth 😉
m_f, that was from 'So long, and Thanks for all the Fish' Rob McKenna was the chaps name, and Rain God he was.
And I preferred '...and then it will blatter...'
I had to look up the names of the philosophers who spoke to Deep Thought, and kicked myself - Vroomfondel and Majikthise. The two mice were called Frankie and Benjy.
ScottChegg - Member
m_f, that was from 'So long, and Thanks for all the Fish' Rob McKenna was the chaps name, and Rain God he was.And I preferred '...and then it will blatter...'
Ahh, I shall have to dig it back out of the book mountain and read it sometime then 🙂
I've been listening to all 5 Radio series in the car over the last few weeks, too. Brilliant.
Not sure I fancy spending 20 years of my life (even if we could travel at the speed of light) stuck on a bus.
Gliese 581g. It might need a better name, though.
Isn't the entire system called Gliese 581? So presumably the planet is just called 'g'.
What tyres for Gliese 581g?
I had to look up the names of the philosophers who spoke to Deep Thought, and kicked myself
Your brain must be too highly trained.
Ah, another trilogy with 5 books
Six, if you count the godawful cash-in abomination that Eoin Colfer did.
I guess there's not much point in trying to preserve our environment now we can go to Gliese 581g. It might need a better name, though.
How about calling it Gliese 581h ?
pffft its only 20 light years.
aye, a mere pootle of a trip - in me granddads day they'd have rode there and back, all before breakfast, having gotten up at 3 am to lick the road clean first... 😉
Real men would do Gliese 581g double on rigid SS...
if its been found?
Does that mean it was lost at some stage?
How about calling it Gliese 581h ?
Catchy - I like it..
Real men would do Gliese 581g double on rigid SS...
With a 42er - thats the answer you are looking for
I liked book 4, shun me 😡
Book 5 - poor chap was ob pissed off at having to write the ****in thing, thats all. No-one was going to commission another ...
Ah, another trilogy with 5 booksSix, if you count the godawful cash-in abomination that Eoin Colfer did.
To be fair I though the god awful cash in was better than book number five where for some reason the guide had turned into an annoying bird, but yes it was still crap
[i]So the Golgafrinchams were not the original inhabitants, they displaced them. [/i]
You know very well what I meant you pedantic git! 😉
[i]Not sure I fancy spending 20 years of my life (even if we could travel at the speed of light) stuck on a bus. [/i]
If we invent light speed travel, then inventing stasis will be a cinch.
"Lawks henry, I've only gorn and invented a warp drive. Do me a favour old chum and knock together a stasis booth while I bolt it onto this cortina, we're off to Gliese 581g"
Not sure I fancy spending 20 years of my life (even if we could travel at the speed of light) stuck on a bus.
I think at the moment the top speed a manned space shuttle has travelled is 25000mph. So it would take roughly 500,000 years to reach this new planet?
The annoying thing is acceleration, because if you accelerate too hard, you kill everyone on board. But accelerate too slowly, and everyone goes crazy with boredom.
Your brain must be too highly trained.
Lol 🙂
If you could travel at very close to the speed of light you could manage 20 light years in a couple of days.
Its all relative innit?
[i]If you could travel at very close to the speed of light you could manage 20 light years in a couple of days.[/i]
eh? Is it on a conveyor belt?
Time dilation.
The closer you travel to the speed of light the slower time travels, so a journey of 20 light years at 99% the speed of light would take just over 20 years from the view of an external observer but for the occupants of the spaceship the time for them would be closer to 20 days.
Don't bother packing a camelback as some shipmates might accuse you of being overpacked for the 120 trillion mile journey 🙂
An inner tube taped to the saddle, a multitool and 500ml waterbottle should do it
(bonus points for their names).
Vroomfondel and Magicthighs IIRC.
EDIT - mol - Carried on reading the thread after I answered and saw you answered your own question, I spelt it wrong but promise it was from memory (as the spelling might indicate).
I meant the names of the mice. I don't think the mice were manifestatiosn of Vroomfondel and Majikthise themselves, actually.
Bonus points - who was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged?
Wowbagger was a dude who cruised around the universe buzzing everyone in the universe in alphabetical order?
oh, you wanna play?
Why did the bowl of petunias utter the words 'oh no, not again' before falling to the surface of Magrathea?
Come on mate, that's FAR too easy.
It was the reincarnation of a being that'd been killed by Dent every single time it'd been incarnated. I think we met him as a bunny on prehistoric Earth before they met the Golgafrinchams in Life the Universe and Everything (I think).
How did Arthur amuse himself whilst on said planet?
Wowbagger wanted to insult everyone in the universe, I believe.
What's the point of discovering new planets when they haven't even invented warp drive?
I'm getting old and I'm not even sure the Federation will accept new cadets past their 30's. Besides the entrance exams are tough so I need time to find the answers off the internet...look at the trouble Wesley Crusher had.
oooh, don't know. Chief sandwich maker?
[retreats from nerdfight]
Wowbagger wanted to insult everyone in the universe, I believe.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. Might have to have a reread before I start duelling again. 😆
Wowbagger would have loved the internet.
What's the point of discovering new planets when they haven't even invented warp drive?
Yeah, and Gene Roddenberry invented the transporter 50 years ago and those lazy ****in scientists haven't made it work yet - lightweights!
Arthur was chief sandwich maker somewhere else, I think that was in Mostly Harmless..?
He amused himself by jumping in and out of a lake pretending to be a lemon in a gin and tonic, iirc.
581g
pffff, . . . . . someone's scales are broke?