From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Thu Aug 14 2003 - 11:41:51 MDT
Well, NASA seems to have finally scheduled the launch
of SIRTF for August 23.
Last of Great Observatories Set For Launch
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/telescopes-03w.html
Now this will be something to watch. It is one of the
few telescopes we will have over the next few years
that has the capability of discovering advanced ET
civilizations (in the form of Jupiter Brains, Dyson spheres,
MBrains, small probes in our solar system, etc.).
Though it is not designed as a survey telescope as
the failed WIRE [1] mission was, there is still a chance
that it might detect something "unusual" in the
process of its normal observations.
If something "unusual" happens to the SIRTF mission
then it may be rational to move into an "X-files"
conspiracy mode (i.e. the "aliens" are acting in ways
to prevent us from discovering them). If it functions
as designed then we should still learn alot about the Universe.
Robert
1. WIRE (Wide-Field InfraRed Explorer):
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/wire/
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