Space is big - How far we are from interplanetary travel

[Seshmeister]

I knew it was bad but...

The Apollo missions took 3 days to get to the moon.

The fastest one we have ever sent out is the Pluto New Horizons probe which took just 6 hours.

At that speed to get to the nearest star would take 30 000 years.

To get to the nearest planet which may possibly have a chance of being habitable is 70 000 years.

I'm not Mr Green but that does seem to indicate that we should try and be careful with this fucking rock we are clinging to...

[Zing!]

Strapping ourselves to giant fuel tanks and lighting the fuse is the modern equivalent of the coyote strapping on bat wings and jumping off a cliff. We have advanced with technology in every other aspect but not with propulsion?

[sadaist]

Strapping ourselves to giant fuel tanks and lighting the fuse is the modern equivalent of the coyote strapping on bat wings and jumping off a cliff. We have advanced with technology in every other aspect but not with propulsion?



I heard a story about a subway like system being either designed or built right now where it's like 6-8 people per car and it's basically a small tube that moves by magnets. No friction, no touching, no derailing. And as fast as you want to make it go since it touches nothing. Could travel from New York To Los Angeles in under an hour. Can you imagine? No exhaust, no crashes, no congestion.

[vandeleur]

I like the idea of travelling to the stars and I believe it's in our nature to explore , but seriously why fuck up somewhere else like we're fucking up here .
May be it's a good thing we are not smart enough to shit all over somewhere else .

Maybe it's a cosmic constant you can't have Another planet until you go up stairs and tidy the one you already have .

[Zing!]

http://youtu.be/4HHJv8lPERQ

[private parts]

I'm not Mr Green but that does seem to indicate that we should try and be careful with this fucking rock we are clinging to...

Your avatar says differently! :nono:

[FORD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIOiwg2iHio

[Seshmeister]

I like the idea of travelling to the stars and I believe it's in our nature to explore , but seriously why fuck up somewhere else like we're fucking up here .
May be it's a good thing we are not smart enough to shit all over somewhere else .



This is very true. Mars is what Earth will look like if/when it is totally fucked up.

If we ever have the Total Recall/Star Trek style terraforming technology then it would be a hell of a lot easier to fix Earth instead.

Most astronauts seem to come back with the message that fuck it's bleak out there, we better look after this rock. And those people are astronauts - most of whom are chosen from the kind of people that don't usually worry about shit like that as they are zooming about as a test pilot or whatever...

[vandeleur]

Yeah think it was Apollo 8 ?? That took the pic earth rise .
Which is kinda the first pic of our little blue planet .

[jhale667]

May be it's a good thing we are not smart enough to shit all over somewhere else .




That's also been suggested as the reason as to why no other more advanced civilization that's already mastered space travel will have anything to do with us (other than use us as lab rats, if you're into the X-files type of thing). We can't stop fighting amongst ourselves; even if we're only being observed - what would be any other society's motivation to reach out to us?

[Hardrock69]

According to Ben Rich, former head of Lockheed's Skunkworks back in the day, we already have faster than light capabilities.

[vandeleur]

Am not a physicist , my qualifications are watching the big bang theory once in a while to watch penny's tits.
My junior school understanding of the basics is that light speed will never be possible , relativity and all the einstein gubbins.
But I watched a discovery show discussing folds in space ,worm holes etc , seemingly the rapid expansion of the universe post big bang is giving scientists headaches .
Even some of these new particles at quantum level seem to be moving at impossible speeds ( as well as doing other bat shit stuff)

[Kristy]

my qualifications are watching the big bang theory once in a while to watch penny's tits.

Big Bang Theory is on in the UK? My condolences.

[vandeleur]

Big Bang Theory is on in the UK? My condolences.

We've discussed this I like it you don't , Tomato, tomato . Potato potato lets call the whole thing off :D

[Kristy]

Oh, so sorry Mr. Know-It-All.

[vandeleur]

Am messing chill :)

[DONNIEP]

You guys should read up on what HR was talking about. The guy he mentioned, Ben Rich, dropped the bomb on his death bed. Really interesting.

[Hardrock69]

He said several things.....definitely as he was getting closer to kicking the bucket. What the fuck was the government going to do to him for speaking out....kill him??





Quotes from Benjamin R. (Ben) Rich

The U. S. Air Force has just given us a contract to take E. T. back home.”

“We also know how to travel to the stars.”

“Anything you can imagine we already know how to do.”

“If you’ve seen it in Star Trek or Star Wars, we’ve been there and done that.”

“We have things in the Nevada desert that are alien to your way of thinking far beyond anything you see on Star Trek.”

About Ben Rich

Benjamin R. (Ben) Rich graduated from Berkley with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1949 at the age of 25. Rich originally wanted to become a doctor. In 1949 Rich decided to get a master’s degree from UCLA specializing in both “aeronautical engineering and dateing soriety girls.” Rich came to Lockheed in 1950 after recieveing a degree aeronautical engineering. In December 1954 he was summoned to the Skunk Works by Kelly Johnson as a 29 year old thermodynamisist earning $87 dollars a week. Kelly had requested to borrow from the main plant “a thermodynamicist, preferably a smart one” to solve an unspecified problem. Ben Rich’s first assignment with the Skunk Works was the intake on the XF-104 Starfighter. Rich would soon work on the U-2, the A-12, YF-12, Sr-71, and D-21 programs. He joined the SR-71 program in it’s inital stages in 1958, and as a thermodynamicist, personally suggested that the Blackbird family of aircraft be painted black to reduce surface temperatures.

In 1975 Rich succeeded Johnson as the head of Skunk Works and as a Lockheed vice president in 1977. Rich during this period focused the Skunk Works on the creating the F-117A. In 1977 when the XST made it’s first flight, retired Kelly Johnson slapped Rich on the back and yelled “Well, Ben, you got your first airplane.” In 1984-86 he served as interm president of Lockheed’s Advanced Aeronautical Company, after which he promptly returned to head up Skunk Works once again. In May 1990 when the Skunk Works became a independent company, Ben Rich was named the company’s first president and “Chief Skunk.” In December 1990 while the first deployment of F-117A’s were heading to Saudi Arabia for DESERT SHEILD, Rich retired from Skunk Works. ……at Wright-Patterson AFB back in 1993. He gave a slide presentation there and also at the UCLA School of Engineering Alumni speech – he gave on March 23, 1993. At the very end of his presentation, in both of these venues, he completed his slides with the following quote: `The U. S. Air Force has just given us a contract to take E. T. back home.’

He also mentioned, "We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity… ...anything you can imagine we already know how to do."

And he also mentioned at the UCLA speech, `It is time to end all secrecy on this as it no longer poses a national security threat and to make the technology available for use in the private sector.' That's exactly what we're talking about here.

He was telling us about a whole level of aircraft, of spacecraft, of advanced propulsion systems that are so far advanced. He even mentioned technologies that are 50 years beyond even what we could possibly dream of. Now, when you hear that coming from the Director of the Skunk Works, I think it is important to really take that to heart. This gentleman knew something and he was trying to tell us something. And I think this is the space program that none of us have a clue about in the civilian sector. This is what Ben Rich was trying to tell us about.

Ben Rich "father of stealth technology" and former vice-president of the Lockheed corporation made a few statements to Jim Goodall. He said "we have things out in the desert that are 50 years beyond what you can comprehend" "and wont be made public for another 50 years" "If you've seen it in Star Trek or Star Wars, we've been there and done that.

In another interview Jim Godall said this: "Ben Rich told me twice before he died: 'We have things at Area 51 that you and the best minds in the world won't even be able to conceive that we have for 30 or 40 years, and won't be made public for another 50." A friend of mine at Lockheed told me: "We have things in the Nevada desert that are alien to your way of thinking far beyond anything you see on Star Trek."

One time I interviewed a retired senior master sergeant who had been at Groom Lake three different times as an Air Force safety specialist. ... At first he was real nervous, but when he warmed up he told me: 'We have things that would make George Lucas envious.' I know one retired guy who worked at Lockheed for 30 years, most of the time at Area 51 ; he's very proud of what he's done, and he wants the story of the place to be told so that his grandchildren will have some idea of what he was involved in. In the summer of '86 I asked him if he believes in UFOs. He said, 'They absolutely, positively do exist !' I said, 'Can you expand on that?' And he said, 'No, I've said too much as it is.' "

Of course this technology could only come from UFOs. But those statements lead me to another question. What about teleportation (beam me up scotty!) If Ben Rich said anything you see on Star Trek, we've already done, that leads me to believe that teleportation is possible. To a small degree we already know its possible because Scientists did it in a lab with protons. No wonder the ancients thought extraterestrials were gods.

Ben Rich (and the entire F-117A team) won the 1989 Collier Trophy, was a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), recieved the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) national aircraft design award in 1972, was selected the 1988 Wright Brothers annual lecturer by both the AIAA and the British Royal Aeronautical Society, and in 1991 was elected an honorary fellow of the AIAA. In 1994, Ben Rich published his memoirs "Skunk Works."....

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message848282/pg1

picture of Ben Rich
http://www.f-117a.com/images/Ben/Brich.jpg

[Seshmeister]

Some sort of evidence would be nice rather than just the second and third hand reports of what a dying man may or may not have said.

[vandeleur]

I've never understood this and I might be over simplifying stuff .
But if we can do half the shit he says why arnt the people involved doing it .
I know it's easy to go with the whole we drip feed it , every new thing becomes involved stealth iPhones plasma tv etc .
But fuck it Obama could just come out and go yeah we're in debt up to our tits , china is now our land lord and We are struggling with foreign policy but have you seen our new Death Star :D

[DONNIEP]

The second Obama announces that we have a Death Star, I'm signing up to be a Storm Trooper!!

Ben Rich isn't the only person who would have been in the know to tell the kind of stuff he let out of the bag. There have been other people who have told similar stories. Are the stories true? I kinda doubt it, but who knows. It is interesting to read about though.

[vandeleur]

"Arnt you a little short to be a storm trooper "

:biggrin:

[DONNIEP]

"Arnt you a little short to be a storm trooper "

:biggrin:

That cuts deep, man. Deep.

:biggrin:

[vandeleur]

That was my Princess Leia man , did the two bread buns in My hair not give it away ::D

[DONNIEP]

That was my Princess Leia man , did the two bread buns in My hair not give it away ::D

Yeah, but the 5 o'clock shadow kinda ruins it lol!

[vandeleur]

:lol:

[Nickdfresh]

Some sort of evidence would be nice rather than just the second and third hand reports of what a dying man may or may not have said.

Yeah, I agree. It seems to be, "well, he told me that we have warp technology right before he died!" Yeah, so...

I think our best bet is the possibilities exist for "wormholes"...

[Seshmeister]

If you know you are dying of cancer and some kook comes to you asking about aliens are you not quite likely to have some fun by bullshitting him?

Or if you are writing a book about aliens would it not be quite tempting to embellish or invent what a dead guy said to you?

Are these more or less likely scenarios than a massive cover up of amazing alien technology by generations of staff going back decades?

[Hardrock69]

Too many former Air Force officers and other government officials have come forward with similar information for it to be bullshit.

Sure, there is a possibility that it is, but then, there is just as much possibility that Ben Rich figured he had nothing left to lose by spilling the beans....

[Coyote]

One never knows, do one?

[Seshmeister]

Too many former Air Force officers and other government officials have come forward with similar information for it to be bullshit.

Sure, there is a possibility that it is, but then, there is just as much possibility that Ben Rich figured he had nothing left to lose by spilling the beans....

The alien thing is an industry that pays a lot of peoples bills each month through books, t-shirts and whatever. The thing about science is that it is really not good at secrets, the whole way it works through the scientific method is through spreading information and it's pretty hard to believe they could keep something like that secret even if they wished to.

How long did it take for knowledge of how to make a nuclear bomb to spread from the US?

[vandeleur]

It was leaked out over Japan seemingly :biggrin:

[DONNIEP]

It was leaked out over Japan seemingly :biggrin:

Hey now! That's...that's...that's actually pretty funny :biggrin:

[Nickdfresh]

It was leaked out over Japan seemingly :biggrin:

Today is the anniversary...

[ODShowtime]

It's nice that we got to win one war with that technology before everyone stole it.

[Seshmeister]

The war had already been won, that's not why the bombs were used.

[ODShowtime]

The war had already been won, that's not why the bombs were used.

I don't subscribe to that theory. I have no problem vaporizing a few million royal subjects to limit the violent deaths of a hundred thousand GIs. The Japanese were like ants back then. Fuck 'em.

Interesting that the Scotsman judges and then the Canadian chimes in. You're both complicit. Your grandparents hands were dirty too.

And yes I'm aware of the show of force that was the atom bomb. It stopped Stalin in his tracks.

[vandeleur]

I don't buy that , what about exploding out to sea and going look Tokyo next if you don't surrender or even a small island uninhibited and going look what we can do . I don't think dropping the bomb ended the war as much as improved the horse trading for after the war . IMO

[vandeleur]

As for technology and theft it was mainly German blokes who worked out the physics and you stole them before the Russians could :D

[jhale667]

The Japanese were like ants back then. Fuck 'em.



... Wow.

[Angel]

... Wow.

Yeah...ants like this

http://www.moviebeta.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/children-of-hiroshima-1952-the-bomb-drops_std.original.jpg

Those kids were a huge threat...

http://palestineatheart.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/hiroshima.jpg

[Angel]

I don't subscribe to that theory. I have no problem vaporizing a few million royal subjects to limit the violent deaths of a hundred thousand GIs. The Japanese were like ants back then. Fuck 'em.

Interesting that the Scotsman judges and then the Canadian chimes in. You're both complicit. Your grandparents hands were dirty too.

And yes I'm aware of the show of force that was the atom bomb. It stopped Stalin in his tracks.

I've seen disgusting shit on here, but this takes the cake...and how the hell are we complicit?

[vandeleur]

Can I say the irony of arguing about dropping atom bombs on cities in a thread about why it's best we can't visit other planets isn't lost on me :-)

[Seshmeister]

I don't buy that , what about exploding out to sea and going look Tokyo next if you don't surrender or even a small island uninhibited and going look what we can do . I don't think dropping the bomb ended the war as much as improved the horse trading for after the war . IMO


Tokyo had already been flattened by conventional bombing - they needed a nice fresh target to scare the Russians with.

The Japanese had already said for weeks that they would surrender if they could keep their emperor. They had to surrender because the Russians had invaded them opening up another front.

The bombs were dropped and then those same conditions were accepted. The US government used saving GI lives as a justification but it was fake PR.

[Seshmeister]

I've seen disgusting shit on here, but this takes the cake...and how the hell are we complicit?

Maybe not in nukes but the British and Canadians were involved in carpet bombing German cities deliberately starting firestorms killing three hundred thousand civilians.

[vandeleur]

Am guessing your referring to the bombing of Dresden and the ensuing fire storm.
Which in a race to the bottom was in itself a horrendous act .

[Anonymous]

I don't subscribe to that theory. I have no problem vaporizing a few million royal subjects to limit the violent deaths of a hundred thousand GIs. The Japanese were like ants back then. Fuck 'em.

Interesting that the Scotsman judges and then the Canadian chimes in. You're both complicit. Your grandparents hands were dirty too.

And yes I'm aware of the show of force that was the atom bomb. It stopped Stalin in his tracks.

Ants like you.

Hope someone steps on you sooner than later.

Or better yet, remove your legs & then burn you with a magnifier.

Oh, and YOU didn't win anything. Someone else did. You weren't there, & even if you were, you could easily be a Japanese. And watch your children/parents die and/or get maimed right in front of you.

What the fuck kind of mentality is this? And they say humans are smarter now than ever? This retard proves otherwise.

WE. Bullshit.

Cheers! :beers:

[Angel]

Maybe not in nukes but the British and Canadians were involved in carpet bombing German cities deliberately starting firestorms killing three hundred thousand civilians.

Yes, and Canadian soldiers were feared because they were ruthless, but that still doesn't make you or I complicit.

[FORD]

I don't subscribe to that theory. I have no problem vaporizing a few million royal subjects to limit the violent deaths of a hundred thousand GIs. The Japanese were like ants back then. Fuck 'em.




God damn..... somebody laced your weed with angel dust this week? :headlights:

[Seshmeister]

Yes, and Canadian soldiers were feared because they were ruthless, but that still doesn't make you or I complicit.

Absolutely.

I got accused of raping Ghana by someone a few weeks back, 'YOU RAPED GHANA', she said. I replied it was nothing to do with me.

I had to Google it to find out some British were cunts there 150 years ago, I'm not taking the blame for that. They were probably being cunts to my ancestors too any way as I'm not aware of any of my lot ever being in the ruling classes.

I'm getting less and less nationalistic as i get older and if you aren't willing to take responsibility for the crimes then you can't take credit for the victories either.

Doug Stanhope puts it well here...

[Angel]

Absolutely.

I got accused of raping Ghana by someone a few weeks back, 'YOU RAPED GHANA', she said. I replied it was nothing to do with me.

I had to Google it to find out some British were cunts there 150 years ago, I'm not taking the blame for that. They were probably being cunts to my ancestors too any way as I'm not aware of any of my lot ever being in the ruling classes.

I'm getting less and less nationalistic as i get older and if you aren't willing to take responsibility for the crimes then you can't take credit for the victories either.

Doug Stanhope puts it well here...



No Wi-Fi where I am right now, so can't watch the vid, but I've had accusations like that from First Nations. Last I checked, my ancestry is French, and seeing how most Voyageurs had Native spouses, and nobody in my family has been in politics, I just don't see how I'm responsible for the establishment of the Reserve System...

[vandeleur]

Am a Geordie were brought up to be conflicted about our nationality , were so removed from the capital we resent being English but slag off everyone else .
I don't feel any guilt for the fact the English were pretty much cunts for most of history , every nation that gets its chance then usually behaves the same way .
I think it's more a class thing than a national thing .
The industrial revolution that fired the empire basically created an even poorer under class in our country in my mind .

[Anonymous]

if you aren't willing to take responsibility for the crimes then you can't take credit for the victories either.

That's more or less what I've always said, except it's completely retarded to take credits for a victory when you weren't even born, much less there, anyway.

"We won." Who's "we"? Most of these retards never even left their neighbourhood. And they'd probably be the first to run away. Or kill themselves out of pure fear.

Cheers! :beers:

[Nickdfresh]

I don't subscribe to that theory. I have no problem vaporizing a few million royal subjects to limit the violent deaths of a hundred thousand GIs.

A hundred thousand? Some casualty projections ran upwards to a million. I'm not sure, but I'd say at least 100K dead. Not too mention the millions of Japanese...


The Japanese were like ants back then. Fuck 'em.

As one who generally agrees with the bombings (but not the targets), that's a pretty fucking inhuman and awful statement to make. You could just as easily been a Nazi talking about Jews. The Japanese people were people - albeit a people led by one of the most cunt bastard bunch of spineless scum fucks ever...


Interesting that the Scotsman judges and then the Canadian chimes in. You're both complicit. Your grandparents hands were dirty too.

And yes I'm aware of the show of force that was the atom bomb. It stopped Stalin in his tracks.

It didn't really stop Stalin, but together with the crushing defeats the weakened Imperial Japanese Army suffered in Manchuria from Stalin's forces, the bomb did end the war. It may have also saved hundreds of thousands or even millions of Japanese from starvation and plagues as Japan could have been blockaded. I do agree that Canadians and Scots both killed with the best of them, though. The British gov't and Bomber cunt Harris was actually far more ruthless (by intention if not necessarily comparative results) when area bombing and attempting to start firestorms inevitably killing large segments of the civil German population. The USAAF (Air Force) at least had the pretension of using aimed, precision attacks - at least initially. Over Japan, this was all but impossible due to the jet stream and the vulnerable Japanese tinderbox cities...

[Nickdfresh]

As for technology and theft it was mainly German blokes who worked out the physics and you stole them before the Russians could :D

The bombs? Um, no. The Germans couldn't find their sphincter despite their heads being firmly up their asses when it came to nukes. Their theories were all wrong...

[Nickdfresh]

I don't buy that , what about exploding out to sea and going look Tokyo next if you don't surrender or even a small island uninhibited and going look what we can do . I don't think dropping the bomb ended the war as much as improved the horse trading for after the war . IMO

The fears were that the Japanese wouldn't have even noticed nor understood the true power of the atom bombs without a significant demonstration on a large city target. And these massively expensive firecrackers would have been wasted...

[Nickdfresh]

I've seen disgusting shit on here, but this takes the cake...and how the hell are we complicit?

The royal "we" or "you" weren't complacent in the atomic bombings. But plenty of German women, old people, were burned and blasted to death by Canadian bomber pilots. It goes both ways. The U.S. and Canada actually had a joint commando force called "The Black Devils" or Special Service Force. They specialized in cutting unfortunate German sentries throats, then putting stickers on their heads say "the worst is yet to come" in Deutsch....

[Seshmeister]

The bombs? Um, no. The Germans couldn't find their sphincter despite their heads being firmly up their asses when it came to nukes. Their theories were all wrong...



Their best ones were Jewish and ran off to the US before the war.

There are stories that the ones that remained were deliberately poor as they didn't want the Nazi's to get the bomb - not sure if that was just the way they spun it after the war.

[Nickdfresh]

Tokyo had already been flattened by conventional bombing - they needed a nice fresh target to scare the Russians with.

It's very simple. Go and read about "Operation Downfall" and the frightening death tolls that would have come about. We might have used the bombs and probably chemical weapons to dislodged entrenched, fanatical Japanese soldiers at the very obvious invasion beaches and even their civil population was being armed and trained for suicide attacks. The fact that the Japanese were telling their civilians to kill themselves on Okinawa during the U.S. invasion was probably as big a factor as any. It was hard for the U.S. gov't to weigh the morality of slaughtering tens of thousands of Japanese when their very own Emperor and cunt Army command were very willing to fight to the last child...


The Japanese had already said for weeks that they would surrender if they could keep their emperor. They had to surrender because the Russians had invaded them opening up another front.

I think I call bullshit on this. There was really no way to tell us anyways as the Japanese had hoped the Soviets would chair some sort of peace talks before the "August Storm" Soviet invasion of China. And the emperor was a fuckhead we should have thrown in the ocean anyways...


The bombs were dropped and then those same conditions were accepted. The US government used saving GI lives as a justification but it was fake PR.

Complete leftist Euro 80's hindsight bullshit that leaves out how the Japanese Army was instructing the Japanese Okinawans to kill themselves lest they be raped and eaten by the savage American monkey men. These largely pithy, empty, unsupported and self-serving notions also go a long way to foster the Japanese agenda to be the stoic, peace loving victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to never own up to doing things like fucking Chinese and Korean girls to death and mass murdering nearly an entire city in an orgy of violence so vile that even NAZI'S WERE OFFENDED!! To this day the Gov't of Japan continues to act like the moral equivalent of a modern day German gov't denying the Holocaust because Hamburg was firebombed by the Allies.....

[Nickdfresh]

Their best ones were Jewish and ran off to the US before the war.

There's some truth to this but it is very overstated. Many of the best scientists were American, like Oppenheimer..


There are stories that the ones that remained were deliberately poor as they didn't want the Nazi's to get the bomb - not sure if that was just the way they spun it after the war.

It very much was. Some of the German scientists --who may not have been diehard Nazis-- were very embarrassed about their epic failings and they were never very close to a bomb and many didn't think it was theoretically possible...

[ODShowtime]

I kicked a lot of sand in a lot of vaginas in here today!

First of all fuck you angel you sanctimonious idiot.

Next, fuck imperial japan circa 1945. Those cocksuckers sneak attacked us and killed thousands. A day that will live in infamy. They committed horrible atrocities against the people of southeast Asia. What they did in China is truly barbaric. We vaped one of their cities and said "hey bitches we have another on deck we can do this all week" and the Japanese hesitated. So we dropped another. Then they surrendered and millions of lives were saved. These are all facts.

I have no hatred for japan or japanese people. But if I lived in 1945 I sure as fuck would! They betrayed us and attacked us. They murdered millions of people and wanted to subjugate the world. And it's my understanding that their civilians would resist to the last woman and child.

Now if a Japanese city got nuked now I'd weep for it. I'm not an animal. People need to chill the fuck out.

[Seshmeister]

I know how horrible the Japanese were in the period, I'm just not sure the bombs made them surrender saving millions of lives as it's always spun.

The timeline looks a lot more like the Russian invasion is what caused it.

[ODShowtime]

Ants like you.

Hope someone steps on you sooner than later.

Or better yet, remove your legs & then burn you with a magnifier.



And you can just kiss my ass.

[ODShowtime]

I know how horrible the Japanese were in the period, I'm just not sure the bombs made them surrender saving millions of lives as it's always spun.

The timeline looks a lot more like the Russian invasion is what caused it.

Hey man I respect your opinion. We read different history books.

[ODShowtime]

It's very simple. Go and read about "Operation Downfall" and the frightening death tolls that would have come about. We might have used the bombs and probably chemical weapons to dislodged entrenched, fanatical Japanese soldiers at the very obvious invasion beaches and even their civil population was being armed and trained for suicide attacks. The fact that the Japanese were telling their civilians to kill themselves on Okinawa during the U.S. invasion was probably as big a factor as any. It was hard for the U.S. gov't to weigh the morality of slaughtering tens of thousands of Japanese when their very own Emperor and cunt Army command were very willing to fight to the last child...

I was half expecting you to come and make this point thank you.

[Nickdfresh]

Am guessing your referring to the bombing of Dresden and the ensuing fire storm.
Which in a race to the bottom was in itself a horrendous act .

It was horrendous, but also seriously exaggerated with fantasy death tolls far higher than what actually occurred. Though that made it no less horrible for those caught in the maelstrom...

[Nickdfresh]

I know how horrible the Japanese were in the period, I'm just not sure the bombs made them surrender saving millions of lives as it's always spun.

The timeline looks a lot more like the Russian invasion is what caused it.

It was a combination of the two. Remember, even after the bombings and the complete Japanese collapse in China, some Imperial Japanese Army officers were so psychotic and vain that they actually tried to take control of Japan through a coup to prolong the war. It should also be noted that while the Red Army spanked the weakened Japanese Manchurian Army, the Soviets still lacked amphibious warfare capability. They also performed some "marine" style landings on Japanese home-islands and suffered initial defeats, spirited fanatical resistance, and heavy casualties as there was a very big difference from fighting the static Japanese devoid or tanks or serious antitank weapons on open planes to digging them out of invisible fortifications on islands with awful terrain. It's one of the reasons that Stalin was even willing to call it all off...

[Seshmeister]

Here is a summary of the 'Russian invasion' argument.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=1

[Seshmeister]

Wow this has gone a bit off topic... :)

[Nickdfresh]

Here is a summary of the 'Russian invasion' argument.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender/?page=1

I find Hasegawa interesting and he raises some excellent points. But I agree with Bernstein (pg. 4 of the article) that it is difficult to exactly calculate which cause had exactly which effect. In any case, the Soviets would have had a difficult time making significant landings on the Japanese home islands as they were not much of a naval power and there was only one real place to land and set up staging areas for a final push, and the Japanese knew it...

[vandeleur]

The bombs? Um, no. The Germans couldn't find their sphincter despite their heads being firmly up their asses when it came to nukes. Their theories were all wrong...

I was referring to Einstein and bohr but found out Bohr wasn't German just Jewish . You Learn something new every day :D

[Seshmeister]

Cool Pic


https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/154737_458819484181872_1333749932_n.jpg



Scale of Mars' moon Phobos.

"Since I've started being interested by Mars, I am fascinated by the scale of the planet and its features, and of course, there is Phobos, its largest moon (the other one being Deimos). What better way to give a scale than to compare with actual things on Earth ?
So, here is Phobos standing over my town Grenoble in the Alpes (eastern France). Phobos' dimensions are 26,8 x 18,4 km. If you carefully look at the center of the picture, you'll see 2 helicopters, still quite far from the "big rock"." ~ http://bit.ly/NkA7Gh

[Seshmeister]

https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/523002_462210563842764_64155238_n.jpg

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[Seshmeister]

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/555142_501237999940020_1286566148_n.jpg