7 February 2017 Gravitational wave detector prepares to peer into bizarre stars https://www.newscientist.com/articl...m_source=Facebook&utm_term=Autofeed&cmpid=SOC The LIGO detector site in Livingston, Louisiana LIGO experiment By Leah Crane Prepare for a big wave – a wave of gravitational waves. A mass of predictions from the latest meeting of the American Physical Society in Washington DC is shedding light on what’s next for the massive LIGO collaboration. With two sets of colliding black holes in its net and another possible pair in its second run, LIGO, the world’s first successful gravitational wave detector is finally ready to see the unexpected.
Why all the focus on distant stars? Why all the hoopla on exoplanets. We'll never be able to get to any of them. Why not spend all the money on figuring out FTL travel? Yeah, yeah, I get it. Can't go faster than c. But possibly can fold space, WARP, wormhole, etc. All this focus on space and it still takes us 6 months at the minimum to get to the next planet over, and 180,000 years to get to the nearest star. Talk about the cart before the horse.
As a layman, I actually don't know much about it. My guess is: 1st, the incremental cost/effort for searching distant starts could be marginally low, once the search is set-up and started. 2nd, our technology in order to physically reach (by robots) or closely observe some distant stars could be greatly improved very soon, in the next 10 years.
Scientists don't like the fact our universe appears to be so unnatural. (it appears our constants are extremely fine tuned - suggesting a Tuner) finding gravitational waves could support the idea that there are alternate universes. If there are almost infinite other universes then it may help explain why our universe appears so finely tuned. ---- Although it turns out these gravitational waves may have been the result of dust... (last I read.) This article can give you and idea of some of the reasons gravitational waves may be important. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/multiverse-controversy-inflation-gravitational-waves/ The multiverse is one of the most divisive topics in physics, and it just became more so. The major announcement last week of evidence for primordial ripples in spacetime has bolstered a cosmological theory called inflation, and with it, some say, the idea that our universe is one of many universes floating like bubbles in a glass of champagne. Critics of the multiverse hypothesis claim that the idea is untestable—barely even science. But with evidence for inflation theory building up, the multiverse debate is coming to a head. The big news last week came from the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization 2 (BICEP2) experiment at the South Pole, which saw imprints in the cosmic microwave background—the oldest light in the universe, dating from shortly after the big bang—that appear to have been caused by gravitational waves rippling through the fabric of spacetime in the early universe. The finding was heralded as a huge breakthrough, although physicists say confirmation from other experiments will be needed to corroborate the results. ... more at link
It is a worthwhile effort not because we can ever travel there, but because of all the fantastic things we stumble upon while studying and observing
There is actually plenty of research into modern engines for space ships that are pretty out there are as concepts.
Without FTL, the universe is a pretty thing to look at. I see these articles on exoplanet discovery..."New super earth found"...blah blah. Nice. I'm sure there are plenty of these out there for discovery. Focus effort on advanced propulsion.
There's a lot that we learn from observation. The real money pit it's the defense budget, let's be honest, it's minuscule compared to our public sciences budget.
In order to focus such efforts - and there are efforts already - they need to hammer out the math behind such projects. I am sure we can both imagine what a monumental task that is.