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Space: The Final Frontier

V

Volimar

Member
Yep, successful capture by the Canada arm makes this the first private space venture to the ISS. I'm thrilled. After the defunding of NASA and the mothballing of the shuttles, I was kind of down about our prospects, but this is one hell of a pick me up. Watched it live.

Astronaut Don Pettit: "Houston, it looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail."

ZbIvT.jpg
 
R

RankoSD

Member
bKnTI.jpg




Explanation: How much of Jupiter's moon Europa is made of water? A lot, actually. Based on the Galileo probe data acquired during its exploration of the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003, Europa possesses a deep, global ocean of liquid water beneath a layer of surface ice. The subsurface ocean plus ice layer could range from 80 to 170 kilometers in average depth. Adopting an estimate of 100 kilometers depth, if all the water on Europa were gathered into a ball it would have a radius of 877 kilometers. To scale, this intriguing illustration compares that hypothetical ball of all the water on Europa to the size of Europa itself (left) - and similarly to all the water on planet Earth. With a volume 2-3 times the volume of water in Earth's oceans, the global ocean on Europa holds out a tantalizing destination in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
 
W

WeAreStarStuff

Member
Volimar said:
Yep, successful capture by the Canada arm makes this the first private space venture to the ISS. I'm thrilled. After the defunding of NASA and the mothballing of the shuttles, I was kind of down about our prospects, but this is one hell of a pick me up. Watched it live.

Astronaut Don Pettit: "Houston, it looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail."
Click to expand...

I smiled when he said that.
 
Insane Metal

Insane Metal

Member
RankoSD said:
bKnTI.jpg




Explanation: How much of Jupiter's moon Europa is made of water? A lot, actually. Based on the Galileo probe data acquired during its exploration of the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003, Europa possesses a deep, global ocean of liquid water beneath a layer of surface ice. The subsurface ocean plus ice layer could range from 80 to 170 kilometers in average depth. Adopting an estimate of 100 kilometers depth, if all the water on Europa were gathered into a ball it would have a radius of 877 kilometers. To scale, this intriguing illustration compares that hypothetical ball of all the water on Europa to the size of Europa itself (left) - and similarly to all the water on planet Earth. With a volume 2-3 times the volume of water in Earth's oceans, the global ocean on Europa holds out a tantalizing destination in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
Click to expand...

Damn that's awesome.

And I missed the SpaceX thing. :/
 
W

witness

Member
Watched it live all morning at work, just a fantastic achievement and really inspirational.

And really James Doohan's ashes are on board dragon, so you know Scotty wouldn't let the mission fail.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
ThaneKrios said:
Neil dGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1): http://youtu.be/Fl07UfRkPas
Click to expand...

This says to me that we NEED China to advance in the space race in a major way over the next 10-20 years.

They are the only country on the planet that can and will galvanize enough Americans to push Congress and a President to fund 10s of Billions of dollars per year in NASA. I'm rooting for China in a big way for the first time in my life. :)
 
T

Tideas

Banned
mckmas8808 said:
This says to me that we NEED China to advance in the space race in a major way over the next 10-20 years.

They are the only country on the planet that can and will galvanize enough Americans to push Congress and a President to fund 10s of Billions of dollars per year in NASA. I'm rooting for China in a big way for the first time in my life. :)
Click to expand...

you want china to get stronger so that it can subjugate its neighbors like the way it's doing to tibet?
 
S

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
mckmas8808 said:
This says to me that we NEED China to advance in the space race in a major way over the next 10-20 years.

They are the only country on the planet that can and will galvanize enough Americans to push Congress and a President to fund 10s of Billions of dollars per year in NASA. I'm rooting for China in a big way for the first time in my life. :)
Click to expand...
times have changed.

these days a bigger motivator than political pressure will be commercial opportunity.

the new "gold" rush.
 
L

Log4Girlz

Member
RankoSD said:
bKnTI.jpg




Explanation: How much of Jupiter's moon Europa is made of water? A lot, actually. Based on the Galileo probe data acquired during its exploration of the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003, Europa possesses a deep, global ocean of liquid water beneath a layer of surface ice. The subsurface ocean plus ice layer could range from 80 to 170 kilometers in average depth. Adopting an estimate of 100 kilometers depth, if all the water on Europa were gathered into a ball it would have a radius of 877 kilometers. To scale, this intriguing illustration compares that hypothetical ball of all the water on Europa to the size of Europa itself (left) - and similarly to all the water on planet Earth. With a volume 2-3 times the volume of water in Earth's oceans, the global ocean on Europa holds out a tantalizing destination in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
Click to expand...

You know what would be cool? If there was a bubble of water floating like that above a dry planet and it is released. I can't imagine how that would look.
 
Cuban Legend

Cuban Legend

Member
oh god it's like the 2010 defense force, just make a thread about the movie and get it over with. Keep it out of real space threads, for the love of all that it pure and untainted.
 
M

MYE

Member
Log4Girlz said:
You know what would be cool? If there was a bubble of water floating like that above a dry planet and it is released. I can't imagine how that would look.
Click to expand...

I actually made a school project about a made-up planet surrounded by bubble oceans once :D

Good times
 
W

WeAreStarStuff

Member
Orion is having a cell phone capture contest if you use one of their telescopes.

Calling all Smartphone Shutterbugs!

We are inviting anyone with a smartphone and an Orion-brand telescope or mount, or the Orion SteadyPix Telescope Photo Adapter for iPhone to join in the fun! Whether you get your shot by holding your phone up to your telescope eyepiece, or use our handy SteadyPix Photo Adapter, we encourage you to enter for your chance to win one of three great gift certificate prizes. Submit your smartphone photo by June 30, 2012 for a chance to win a $250 gift certificate for 1st place, a $150 gift certificate for 2nd place, or a $75 gift certificate for 3rd place.

http://www.telescope.com/content.js..._medium=email&utm_campaign=Smartphone_Contest!

I have an Orion telescope so I'm going to give this a try. Took a few shots tonight with my Droid Thunderbolt, and will try again later. Need to download that app to take away the shaking.

90x
IMAG0391.jpg


300x
IMAG0401.jpg

image.jpg
 
W

WeAreStarStuff

Member
Woorloog said:
Not everyone has a smart phone, quite many people still have normal cell phone with a camera... why wouldn't be that allowed in a contest?
Click to expand...

Hey I don't know. Plenty of people do have smartphones, and if you do here is a chance to win some free money. If you don't, then you don't, it's not like there has to be a contest at all in the first place...
 
I

Izayoi

Banned
I would like to think that this will get the US Government thinking about space again, but I know it won't. Good luck, rest of the world. It seems my hopes lie with you. :(
 
E

Elfforkusu

Member
Izayoi said:
I would like to think that this will get the US Government thinking about space again, but I know it won't. Good luck, rest of the world. It seems my hopes lie with you. :(
Click to expand...
The problem isn't the government (not really, no more than it ever is), it's that people in general don't care about going into space. Why spend public money when private enterprise something something pixie dust.

Some solid scare tactics could maybe help change that. Woo nationalism!
Not counting on it.
 
T

ThaneKrios

Banned
Astrophile: The outermost ocean in the solar system

Object: Triton's subsurface ocean
Temperature: About -90 °C

A new day dawns on Triton. It's going to be a cold one, much like the last. And the one before that… and every day since the moon settled into its present orbit around Neptune. Even the volcanoes here spew out cold gases and liquid water rather than hot magma. But below the frigid surface, which registers a temperature of -235 °C, there's something more clement: a liquid ocean.

At first glance, Triton seems to be just another icy moon – a featureless, barren world spinning around Neptune, the outermost planet of our solar system. But Triton is different.

For one thing, it orbits Neptune backwards, moving in the opposite direction to Neptune's rotation. It's the only large moon in the solar system to do so. Satellites can't form in these "retrograde" orbits, so Triton must have begun life elsewhere before being captured by the gas giant. It looks a lot like Pluto, and probably came from the same place – the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt, close to Neptune.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Triton in 1989, sending back images of the moon's frozen surface. They revealed signs of cryovolcanism – the eruption of subsurface liquids which quickly freeze when exposed to the cold of the outer solar system. As such, Triton joins a short list of worlds in the solar system known to be geologically active.

Its surface ice is unique, too: largely composed of nitrogen, with some cantaloupe-textured terrain, and a polar cap of frozen methane.

But with a name like Triton – the messenger of the big sea in Greek mythology – this moon should really carry one more feature: is there an ocean hiding beneath its icy veneer? A new model suggests there could be. Understanding why requires a quick look at Triton's unique history.

We know that Triton was captured by Neptune. Such captured bodies start in highly elongated orbits, but as they interact with their associated planet, Triton-sized worlds are quickly dragged into more circular orbits. The process releases energy, which heats up the moon. The temperature rise would have melted not just the icy outer layers of Triton, but also its 1900-kilometre-wide core. Then it would have cooled to its current frigid state.

Earlier models had suggested an ocean exists on Triton, but they were quite simplistic. Saswata Hier-Majumder of the University of Maryland in College Park, and his student Jodi Gaeman, have now developed a more detailed model that considers both radioactive decay of core minerals and the orbital interactions that would have heated the moon.

Although heating from radioactive decay is orders of magnitude larger than heating from tidal effects, heat from the core alone could not keep the outer layer from freezing over the 4.5 billion-year life of the solar system, they say.

However, Hier-Majumder and Gaeman have found that even a small amount of heating from orbital forces makes a huge difference because it is applied to the base of the ice covering the subsurface ocean. "It puts a warm blanket on top of the cooling ocean," says Hier-Majumder. As long as the orbit is so circular that its 350,000-kilometre-radius varies by only a few kilometres, Triton should still have a substantial ocean beneath its icy surface.

That watery ocean contains a strong dose of ammonia, which keeps the liquid from freezing unless the temperature drops below about -90 °C. So, while it may be the outermost ocean in the solar system, it is not as cold as the -180 °C hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn's moon Titan.
Click to expand...
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
Afternoon all. Dragon is due to splash down in 45 minutes. I know NASA has got the live coverage, but does anyone know if there's a landing blog? I'm at work and cant risk the video.. :)
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
That would be great Minecraft (or eventually Notch's new space game) music.



Also, this thread is making me sad, actually. I worry that all the coolest innovations in space travel will happen after my death. :( I guess I should start getting the kid excited about space now to take up my legacy, so he can be excited for me. :*/
 
K

KarmaCow

Member
Since the OT might (will?) be taken down for E3, anyone want to make a thread for the transit of Venus? I suck at making threads.
 
E

endre

Member
Insane Metal said:
I'm happy for the success of SpaceX. Let's hope it gets things going.
Click to expand...

Me to. Unfortunately I don't see it happening. In best case scenario it will "just" replace the space shuttle. The "worst" (yes, it is another quote) thing is that its designers said that there is nothing new about it, they just went through NASA's documents when designing it. But here is my cup raised that they will not stop at the ISS.
 
K

KarmaCow

Member
Bah no one wants to make a thread of about the Venus transit? :(

Does anyone have any good sites to link to for more info about it? I just using http://www.transitofvenus.org/ because that's the first thing that popped up in google. I was just planning of just linking to that and a countdown to the start of the transit.
 
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