Keep you money safe....

[SlowButSteady]

...never bet against Einstein.

Clicky-clicky

Funny thing is, when I took freshman physics (a few decades ago when "pocket" calculators had red LED readouts, short-lived batteries, and didn't really fit in anyones pocket, personal computers had mono-chromatic screens and almost no one could afford them, and GPS was still on the drawing boards) we were given a somewhat similar hypothetical to solve (only the the "satellites" were manned capsules orbiting the sun and the question involved the speed of radio signals to and from the earth and between the capsules, as I recall). I guess someone either took a Physics 101 course with easier problem sets, or forgot that little twist on relativity.

[JedNeck]

Good thing sailboats are slow...realitvly, of course.

[SlowButSteady]

Actually, sailboats travel at close to the speed of light. That's why sailing keeps you young.

[killarney_sailor]

I feel much better now.

[jackdale]

When this first came out I had an image of Rags jumping for joy because Einstein was wrong, quantum physics was wrong.

Go sulk.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by SlowButSteady

Actually, sailboats travel at close to the speed of light. That's why sailing keeps you young.

Above my desk is a bronze plaque:

"God does not deduct from our allotted life-span the time span sailing."

[Capt Len]

Studying relativity led me to ponder the formula that indicates Hindsight is equal to the square root of deja vu over all over again. This knowledge has several applications as I actually write this in the summer of 2014. On the - side I get my tenses mixed. On the + side, watch this space for Lotto numbers to follow.

[hellosailor]

Calculators with red LEDs? Oh, you kid! In my day they had green fluorescent displays, the LEDs hadn't gotten to the market yet. Oh, no, wait...we had slide rules and Comptometers. orange nixie(?) tubes in electronic plug-in calculators, and the battery powered ones with the green displays were the real game changer, but those came long after the rest.

The problem with launching long duration slow-but-steady anythings, is that unless the world ends real soon, there will be a newer-faster-better-cheaper thing launched in five or ten years that will rapidly overtake the slower one, making it somewhat of a moot point to waste money on the first slow generations, unless you're really sure no faster drive will be built before they return.

[Capt Len]

A few years ago,long after I misplaced my sliderule I shared the Atlantic Ocean with one Donald Crowhurst. We never meet of course but I'm sure we shared the same shortwave programs. The news was full of the capture of the Pueblo in Korea and whether the yanks would push the big button. As time went on, the button wasn't pushed and since the ENEMY now had the captured technology anyway, SatNav was released to the boating public.Old news now but at the time Crowhurst had everything riding on his project, a handheld RDF compass. Apart from all his other problems he must have seen the future and stepped of the stern. Goes to show how depending on changing tech can really screw up your plans. I went on to be part of the first non military use of SatNav on the CSS Hudson to map the Mid Atlantic Ridge which became the definitive proof for plate tectonics .Still using windows 98 and my phogyphone until something better appears or I completely lose interest.

[SlowButSteady]

TA-DA!!!