Sky_walker

There are many proofs of that, not just Sedna. Every year we discover an asteroid or comet with an orbit that indicates Oort Cloud origin.

Whatever something is a cloud or not got nothing to deal with blocking our view. Just like a real clouds don't block the sun (otherwise you'd have "night" during every cloudy day) - interstellar clouds don't do that either. Only interstellar clouds, even these in a very high density, are by far less dense than anything we can observe here on earth. In fact distance between rocks in oort cloud is measured in astronomical units, cause kilometres are impractical. And the fact that our cloud is made of rocks as opposite to hydrogen or other gases is nothing extraordinary - there are many clouds in the galaxies composed of hard matter, some speculate that dark nebulae are in fact regions of smaller and larger rocks much like our oort cloud only in higher density. General picture of oort cloud in public eye is that it's some kind of sphere of rocks evenly surrounding our star system (and no other - there are even theories on why Alpha Centauri is suppose not to have one) bombarding us with a comet or asteroid from time to time, but considering how limited our perception of a distant small rocks is along with existence of objects like Eris - nearly a planets with extremely elliptical orbits - seems to suggest that we're submerged in a larger molecular cloud that's mostly been "eaten" by our and neighbour star systems, but the remains are still there, everywhere around and in between nearby stars, with no reason to believe that solar system is the only one to have rocks around it.

Do I? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_plasma_thruster If you'll look up at the sources you'll see that articles discussing Quantum Thruster are very much interconnected with EM Drive and usually contain tons of pseudo-scientific gibberish illustrated with some nice images like:

Fun fact: It's speculated that our Oort cloud is in fact connected with the one of Alpha Centauri/Proxima Centauri system Another speculation is that Solar System is in fact submerged in an interstellar cloud called G-cloud together with Alpha Centauri and Altair.

It's a (an attempted) Belgian pronunciation. Anyway: Docking completed Flawless procedure, looks like new automated approach sensors worked beautifully, ATV will now take a long break until January deorbit. Some nice images:

Yea, go play KSP if you want explosions.

o_O /10char

French Stream - CNES (French Space Agency) offers 5 different cameras to choose from and the image quality is significantly better than in NASA stream. Sadly: Commentators are French only.

Shameless bump. ATV got nav lights too. Nasa TV is streaming docking right now: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html you can quite clearly see them blinking on approach. Here's an image from ESA:

1) Where did I compare Q.t. to the conventional electric propulsion? Or better yet: where did I mention electric propulsion at all? 2) So far quantum thrusters don't produce any thrust at all as far as we're concerned. There's been some non-conclusive tests in very... doubtful testing conditions. 3) Thrust per power invested isn't the only part of equation. Thrust to weight ratio is equally, if not more, important (and in case of Q.T. it also includes weight of power generation systems). We have engines necessary to produce enough delta V to send probe through the Alpha Centauri system. It's not about what we have - it's about what is feasible. And I did mention that.

NASA is streaming docking procedure live: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

I laughed. Anyway: good luck and show us some pictures

Manned mission is out of question. You never send manned ships into unknown territory. Real life is not KSP. Even unmanned mission is most likely too expensive to bother considering possible benefits from this mission. What you say makes no sense. Since when transmission delay has been a problem that we solve by sending humans?! Quantum thrusters would change very little. Even if you'd want to believe that they work - thrust produced is next to nothing for a high energy consumption - energy that cannot be supplied through the solar panels. So you'd need RTGs. RTGs that you cannot dump into space at any point (unlike regular propellant). And that adds considerably to the mass and with that TWR it would most likely mean that it's totally infeasible. Sedna is too far to get anything "cheap" there. Especially if you'd want to get into orbit (as opposite to New Horizons-style flyby mission) though IMHO chances of getting a spacecraft into the Sedna orbit are somewhere near zero, even solely due to the amount of Dv required. Real Life is not Mass Effect.

Long story short: Every object in real life "wobbles" to some degree. But no rocket wobbles as much as these in KSP do. You'd see catastrophic collapse long before any rocket would bend to the degree it happens in KSP.

ATV docks today at 15:30CEST Procedure already begun and it successfully crossed point S1. Here you can see detailed overview of a whole docking procedure. http://blogs.esa.int/atv/2014/08/12/time-line-charts-for-todays-rendezvous-and-docking/ (BTW: Look at the procedures at point S2 - seems like ATV got Nav Lights!)

ESA just released photographs from a near-approach of the ATV, right below the International Space Station. Stunning. Looks like if ATV would be flying between the clouds! It will be a video recorded in near-IR spectrum.

My first thought: http://www.technobuffalo.com/2014/06/15/nasa-unveils-incredible-design-for-warp-drive-spacecraft/

Night-day cycles are important not only because of solar panels, but also because of sublimation - you don't want to land somewhere just to be ejected by out-gassing ice near comet perihelion. And then there's also a matter of communication with the orbiter - Philae doesn't have an antenna capable of communicating with the Earth on it's own, so it needs to have a contact with Rosetta spacecraft. In general - it's quite complex matter. ESA should select landing side in October. Well, that's why surveying surface is so important before the landing - so that your slope in a size of a car wouldn't come out to be a solid rock in a size of a car But they already took that into account - that's why spacecraft will spend 2 months orbiting comet looking for a right spot to approach it and deliver Philae. BTW:

ESA has no desire to make a moon landing in any foreseeable future. If anything - at a very best case (and an extremely unlikely one) they might send an astronaut onboard Orion with US crew to do the landing - but they certainly won't be pushing for that on their own. ESA is focused on robotics, not a manned space flight, even if that's slowly changing (DC4EU).

Type of surface though is very important. Rough terrain might suggest rocks, and these could cause a serious trouble to the harpoon. Besides - we'll see. I don't know exactly what Philae is capable of and what are the scientific objectives for it. Cause it's all really a calculation of risks vs scientific value.

Well, concept is a first stage of planning, so it still qualifies against the "nobody is planning a lunar base"

Kryten - you need to update your info. Whatever any of the plans is realistic tough... that's another matter.

Oh yea, Giotto probe... glad someone still remembers that. One of the missions proving ESA got balls:

Hehehe, nice Though it can't beat procedural fairings