Voyager55

That's the plan. You aren't going to be able to launch a robust enough transfer vehicle in one 130 ton launch.

The only way that scene could make sense, would be if they were in low orbit around a neutron star or something, and the tidal forces were that strong, but if you're orbiting a neutron star you've got a whole plethora of other problems.

Turns out of you have a telescope with one of those "Stupidly large" apertures, say several AU's in diameter you could make reasonable visible light images. This wouldn't be well out of technological range for a race that races across the galaxy using a device that warps space-time, consuming more energy than all of earths expenditure combined.

Ah, I understood the whole golden record part. Just not the need to display our location, as they could probably figure that out in a heartbeat. But I suppose it could be a nice symbolic gesture, kind of, "Here we are, come on in."

Oh yes, true. Any galaxy is a giant N-body soup. But I still think using physics and calculations would be the easiest way to find the origin of departure.

Why was it necessary? If any species advanced enough to be retrieving alien artifacts drifting through space, also be able to calculate its trajectory backwards across millions or even billions of years? Based on the crafts velocity, and where stars were at specific points of time, and their effects on the crafts trajectory, shouldn't it be somewhat of an easy task for a team of alien astrophysicists to calculate where Voyager 1 set off from?

I imagine something like a ballistic missile that is lift to a high altitude by balloons, where it can be launched to avoid the brunt of the thick atmosphere.

Congressmen are a bunch of old troglodytes. With no vision for the destiny of humankind and our expansion into space, they just care about money. Why do people have to be such dreadful beings?

"NASA *WANTS* to send humans to Jupiter in the 2040's" Just like I *want* to be a secret lost child of Bill Gates and destined to inherit his entire fortune upon death.

I would pay $80 for KSP... Screw AAA's.

So basically when we see a funny light we're supposed to be spooked and call it a UFO? While it's indeed unidentified, there's no reason to believe it's anything but a natural phenomenon. Centuries ago when we saw lightning we were horrified and thought it to be the doing of the gods, same for earthquakes and all sorts of spectacular phenomenon. If aliens are flitting about our solar system, they probably have better things to do that reveal themselves to us as tiny sky dots, and i'm sure with their technology that they wouldn't be spotted so often if they were actually trying to remain hidden. All i'm saying is, stay skeptical.

Seeing as it's very possible that we won't even land humans on Mars this century (If you're severely pessimistic), i'm going to say no unfortunately

That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen... Watched it twice, will watch again.

Europa for sure, seeing Jupiter so close in the sky would be amazing. And I hear radiation baths are all the rage these days!

International collaboration is most likely in my opinion. I'm only 15, so i'm fairly confident i'll see a Mars landing in my lifetime, but by the looks of things I'll be 45 by then.