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Space: The Final Frontier
- Thread starter Windu
- Start date
PjotrStroganov
Member
Holy crapola! I grew up with pictures of Mars being a still and static planet and now we are seeing dust devils and bleedin' avalanches.
BTW, don't forget to check out Horizon on BBC2 tonight. It's about the discovery of a planet in another solar system that might be inhabitable. It begins at 21:00 UK time.
BTW, don't forget to check out Horizon on BBC2 tonight. It's about the discovery of a planet in another solar system that might be inhabitable. It begins at 21:00 UK time.
I have not kept updated but I do know that it is expensive as hell to launch the space shuttle.
It uses the big ass rocket + 2 of those smaller white ones and then dumps em. (money wasted there)
I've read a few years back they wanted that Lockheed Martin one or something that did not need the booster rockets to get into space, but that was when I was still young,
I wonder what happened to it.
It uses the big ass rocket + 2 of those smaller white ones and then dumps em. (money wasted there)
I've read a few years back they wanted that Lockheed Martin one or something that did not need the booster rockets to get into space, but that was when I was still young,
I wonder what happened to it.
TylerPwnsYou1986
Banned
Lost Fragment said:
Seriously, what the fucking hell. That is fucking insane.
sleeping_dragon
Banned
why are stars and planets have the most perfect roundshape?
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Botolf said:
I don't know the problems specifically, but it really comes down to the Shuttle is still in service and it was never intended to be used this long. It was meant to be retired years ago, and it's age is showing. Also capsule designs were much more reliable overall.
It's still using technology built and designed in the mid to late 70s, which has led to some pretty major upkeep. Hell, I have a hard time finding good RAM for a computer a decade old. It was designed as a low-cost reusable spacecraft, which it sort of functions as, but for the actual cost and the fact that it can only make low-earth orbits, it does seem like they're not getting the best bang for the buck, so to speak. And then one of the compounding issues is the fact that it's had to continue its role for so long, due to the failures surrounding a replacement for the shuttle.Botolf said:
I dunno, there's a long sordid history to the whole thing (especially the design) and I can't even be sure what's true and what's not.
Heh. I've told this story before I think, but it's worth repeating here.speedpop said:
Last year, sometime in the May, 24 heads of consular posts in Toronto took a tour of York University. The observatory was part of the tour and being one of the senior observers at the time, I got to talk astronomy to the well dressed diplomats above (I'm the shaggy dude in the Pink Floyd shirt, my supervisor is in the blue). When one of the groups passed through, one of the diplomats and I had a conversation that went like this:
Her: I don't like these places.
Me: What ... kind of places? Heights? It's perfectly safe (there's a platform that people are occasionally afraid of).
Her: No, no. Observatories. They just make me feel so small and insignificant.
Me: Oh, uh. Well, that's one of the reasons why I work here!
Her: *funny look*
Antimatter said:Image looking in towards the center of the Milky Way, and it's that's only a fraction of the stars in it.
Click for 1916x1967
I'll keep searching around to see if I can find this in a higher resolution.
...How many....stars....in that one infintessimal part of space....absolutely MINDBLOWING. Holy shit.
Well, there's estimates in the range of 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.Hootie said:
There's billions of galaxies.
Yeah....
Oh, and all the stars we know of are in our own galaxy.
Imagine what else lies out there.
GaimeGuy said:Well, there's estimates in the range of 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.
There's billions of galaxies.
Yeah....
Oh, and all the stars we know of are in our own galaxy.
Imagine what else lies out there.
Wouldn't it blow your mind even more if you found out....
we are the only ones?
trilobyte said:
At this point, that notion just sounds absurd. I know we haven't found any other life yet, but just factoring in the idea that there are trillions upon trillions star which each could hold an entire solar system with 10 or more planets, I can't see that being possible that Earth harbors the only life in the ENTIRE universe.
sleeping_dragon
Banned
so how many universe are there ?
sleeping_dragon said:
That we know of? 1. How many galaxies is a better question. That = Billions.
Is it possible that there is more than one universe? Sure.
Antimatter said:Image looking in towards the center of the Milky Way, and that's only a fraction of the stars in it.
Click for 1916x1967
I'll keep searching around to see if I can find this in a higher resolution.
I think my face just vaporized.
trilobyte said:Absurd, sure. But how mind blowing would it be if we were
Yeah, I'm pretty sure my and the heads of all astronomers would simultaneously implode if we conclusively found that we were indeed the only living beings in the galaxy.
That would be pretty scary too, knowing that if something happens to Earth....that's about it.
The Pale Blue DotTeknoman said:
Earth, as photographed by Voyager 1 a distance of 6.4 billion kilometers away.
Astronomer Carl Sagan said:
MrTroubleMaker
Member
this is a cool thread
Hootie said:
What we need is a good ol alien invasion to bring everyone back together :lol Seriously though...in those disaster movies everyone comes together regardless of ethnicity, religion, financial status, whatever. But if you really think about it...everything most likely went back to the way things were about a year or so after the events and things returned to normal.
GaimeGuy said:
Thats just as unfathomable as the other shot. Thats why I like this topic, it helps put things into perspective.
Teknoman said:
But if you REALLY think about...if an alien civilization was advanced enough to reach our planet, I'm pretty sure they have no trouble wiping us out without lifting an arm, so to speak.
On the bright side physicist/author Michio Kaku claims that an alien species that does find us would be so advanced that they would have virtually no need for war or strife. Which would be ideal for us in all respects. :lol
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
A few questions for you space buffs...
Correct me if I am wrong...but aren't a lot of the images from Nasa colored after the fact? I seem to remember reading that a few years back. Maybe that is old stuff though, not now.
With all the technology for imagery we have...how come we can't take current photos of the moon landing site, or for that matter...when we gonan go back to the damn moon lol?
And finally just a comment...to the person that said that how could anyone NOT believe in a creationist type scenario after seeing some of the stuff in this thread...I would have to argue the opposite. How could anyone think a single being created all this wonder with the universe being so infinitely large and we so infinitely small within it.
Correct me if I am wrong...but aren't a lot of the images from Nasa colored after the fact? I seem to remember reading that a few years back. Maybe that is old stuff though, not now.
With all the technology for imagery we have...how come we can't take current photos of the moon landing site, or for that matter...when we gonan go back to the damn moon lol?
And finally just a comment...to the person that said that how could anyone NOT believe in a creationist type scenario after seeing some of the stuff in this thread...I would have to argue the opposite. How could anyone think a single being created all this wonder with the universe being so infinitely large and we so infinitely small within it.
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
Yeah I didn't mean to imply that the coloring made them any less authentic...just that it is a common practice. Personally I love the colors.
Well, images you see from NASA are taken through different filters. What you see of space with the naked eye isn't nearly as spectacular as what you see with cameras simply because our eyes are kind of shitty like that. The idea of those images is that you can see what's "out there".Mr Pockets said:
Even the Hubble Space Telescope can't resolve the moon landing sites. One thing about telescopes, is that magnification is cheap, but resolution is expensive. Magnification simply can be changed on a very large scale with an eyepiece, but to get better resolution, you actually have to increase the size of the mirror. You could magnify the biggest telescope you could find to look at the moon landing sites, but I guarantee that it would just like a blurry mess.
And yes, as Windu said, we're going back. The thing about going to the moon is that it's pretty fucking expensive and we haven't found many ways to bring down the cost. You need a lot of thrust and a lot of fuel, not to mention a bunch of specialized equipment. Now, if NASA had a military sized budget, this wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately (and understandably), people care more about saving our asses from bombs than going to space.
I think both are equally believable, until you get into the deeper realms of cosmology.
I have no doubt that there is life out there. I have to wonder how advanced it is. I mean look at how close we are to killing ourselves off. Never mind a catastrophe completely beyond our own control.
Life is probably abundant among the stars. But what really gets me is how many advanced civilizations have vanished without a trace into the blackness. It seems like we are pretty damn lucky the earth has remained relatively stable for as long as it has. One good asteroid hit and no one out there will never even know we existed.
Life is probably abundant among the stars. But what really gets me is how many advanced civilizations have vanished without a trace into the blackness. It seems like we are pretty damn lucky the earth has remained relatively stable for as long as it has. One good asteroid hit and no one out there will never even know we existed.
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
Ideas of superior intellects that can do things I would never begin to understand is not beyond me. The idea that a single all powerfull being created this earth, and all of the universe we discover more and more of...that is beyond me.fallout said:
AndersTheSwede
Member
Botolf said:
It is not necessarily the design itself, but more the role it was envisioned it would fill.
Nixon (all bad decisions seem to lead back to him), thought (as well as some NASA advisor's) that the Shuttle would be able to make hundreds of launches per year by virtue of it being reusable, and completely take over all American satellite launches. The rate of launches would bring down costs, and lower expenses.
The problem is that lifting mass into space is extremely expensive (in order to reach orbit you have at accelerate to Mach 20) because of this spacecraft are typically highly specialized in particular tasks to reduce weight. The Shuttle, on the other hand, is not only a space craft, but also an atmospheric glider with a large crew. Doing both at the at the same time required trade-off's in weight and design. This led to a craft that was immensely complicated in design with a huge number of parts, to fulfill its role yet still be light enough to get to orbit. And this led to enormous maintenance costs and turnaround times that prevented the Shuttle from ever reaching the launch numbers that would bring costs down.
In addition, because it had to do two things at the same time, once it got in orbit it didn't have any fuel left over to actually go anywhere.
That NASA's engineers where able to get a design so flawed from the beginning flying at all is amazing. The two failures that have happened where actually not failures of the Shuttle itself, but one of its boosters failing and detaching pulling the Shuttle out of its slipstream and causing it to disintegrate instantly (Challenger wasn't an explosion), and the other was a peace of foam from its external tank falling and punching a hole in the wing.
The Shuttle itself, as a single vehicle, has never failed.
But because of the immense costs of maintenance NASA has not be able to do much else but run it in circles round the Earth (and with what money they had left over, probes and the ISS, again all amazing engineering accomplishments, but not really equaling Apollo.) Thankfully, its swan song is approaching in 2010, and Ares will (hopefully, if it gets enough funding) lead us back to the Moon.
Yes its old, but that isn't the reason for its upkeep. Its the initial design thats at fault. Russia Soyuz has been going for damn near 50 years and it is one of the cheapest ways to get humans into space (its been continually upgraded of course.)
All space rockets jettison their first boosters. It costs to much energy to carry all that mass into space.
The X-33 is what your thinking about. Its cancellation is still highly controversial. It's costs where ballooning, and so was its weight (weight is king in space travel) but there was some management problems that some engineers say doomed the project, when it really could have worked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-33
X-33 "What Really Happened" (warning: super engineering talk! This site is basically the GAF of NASA)
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4180
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
BTW...that Celestia program is overloaded with awesomeness
TY for the link!
TY for the link!
Umm...guys?
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1878
Excerpts:
"SYDNEY: A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays and Earth may be right in the line of fire."
"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral. It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system," said Tuthill.
This means we are peering down the barrel of the gun, as when binary supernovae go off, all their energy is focussed into a narrow beam of wildly destructive gamma ray radiation that emanates (both up and down) from the poles of the system."
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1878
Excerpts:
"SYDNEY: A spectacular, rotating binary star system is a ticking time bomb, ready to throw out a searing beam of high-energy gamma rays and Earth may be right in the line of fire."
"Viewed from Earth, the rotating tail appears to be laid out on the sky in an almost perfect spiral. It could only appear like that if we are looking nearly exactly down on the axis of the binary system," said Tuthill.
This means we are peering down the barrel of the gun, as when binary supernovae go off, all their energy is focussed into a narrow beam of wildly destructive gamma ray radiation that emanates (both up and down) from the poles of the system."
AndersTheSwede
Member
Teknoman said:
/Toasts Earths magnetic field (the only terrestrial planet other than Mercury to have one.)