fierrotlepou
Member
You're welcome.
Yeah, it would suck if they had the same problem like they did with the Hubble telescope.
But if everything goes well, we have some good times ahead!
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Space: The Final Frontier
- Thread starter Windu
- Start date
You're welcome.
Yeah, it would suck if they had the same problem like they did with the Hubble telescope.
But if everything goes well, we have some good times ahead!
Isn't that an impossible task? The best they could do is have the telescope at the same distance as Hubble for a year and then when everything works they can send it to its destination.
I'm not sure that I fully understand the question. Ensuring that something works 100% is basically impossible, but you can be pretty damn sure that it will work with enough effort.
Yeah, this would be ideal, but I don't know if its currently doable. It's pretty dicey, given that you need to reach escape velocity in order to reach its destination.
Kind of paradox. They securer they are making it, the more it costs, but the more it costs, the more are they risking to lose tons of money so it needs to be made securer.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
That would probably be a lot harder. You'd have to have some means of attaching something that could provide enough thrust to nudge a fully deployed telescope in orbit up to escape velocity without damaging any of it.
Not possible.
You can watch the launch of the Curiosity Mars Rover here:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/launch/watchonline/
Launches in about 50 minutes
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/launch/watchonline/
Launches in about 50 minutes
Maklershed
Member
Space GAF - I was just questioning something to myself and I was hoping someone here could answer. Since the moon landing, has there been any other time in human history when we landed something on extraterrestrial terrain and launched it again?
yeah but when it comes to mars, we kick russia's ass.a LITTLE early to be celebrating yet. Shit tends to go wrong in flight
now watch it fuck up on landing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudlaGh1A0o
Watch this animation of the whole launch + landing process.
There's quite a number of ways that can go wrong.
yeah i have seen the videos before, it will be quite a feat of engineering if they can successfully land the thing.
Escape Goat
Member
It amazes me we can shoot a delicate piece of machinery across thousands of miles, have it pass through an alien atmosphere and land without blowing up, all from the comfort of our planet.
It hurts my head to think of all the possible things that could go wrong from a mechanical standpoint as well as the set of calculations to get the probe to its destination.
It hurts my head to think of all the possible things that could go wrong from a mechanical standpoint as well as the set of calculations to get the probe to its destination.
Ah, this is called a sample return mission. After the Apollos the Soviets did several robotic lunar sample returns. Since then I believe the only one has been the Japanese returning dust from an asteroid last year.
Edit: The Russian/Chinese mission that just died in low Earth orbit was an attempted sample return from the Martian moon of Phobos.
With these type of missions and anything that involves space, anything that can go wrong will be accounted for. (unless something very bad like software failure resulting in a explosion or a non accounted space debris hitting the craft, that is highly unlikely though because space is very big)
It's pretty mind blowing when you realise that every step for the landing is pre-programmed.
It can't be remotely controlled because of the massive time gap/lag.
It's pretty mind blowing when you realise that every step for the landing is pre-programmed.
It can't be remotely controlled because of the massive time gap/lag.
Chittagong
Gold Member
This must be technically the most impressive feat of humankind. The complexity of hurling a laboratory across space so far away and then having it land in an extraordinarily soohisticated way - and all on autopilot.
Everyone should see that video.
By the way, what's the mechanism they are thinking for bringing men back from Mars? The panet is in a completely different size scale compared to Moon, and seeing the massive launch setup makes me wonder whether they need to send return ship and fuel in separately?
Probably.
NASA will come up with something awesome when we get to that time.
(Providing we don't all kill ourselves in the meantime)
Probably.
NASA will come up with something awesome when we get to that time.
(Providing we don't all kill ourselves in the meantime)
I was wondering that too.
I feel like we would send fuel and robots first. Build the launch capabilities there. And then send people. Would probably need a test launch too.
Sounds hella expensive unless someone can get a better system.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepscicon-briefing.html
Better than the Gilesie planets?
Better than the Gilesie planets?
Maklershed
Member
Now lets put together a generation ship and head out there and check it out!
That is some awesome news, 600 Light years!
Maklershed
Member
Based on our current technology, what is the fastest a manned space craft could travel and how long would it take to travel 600 light years?
Longer than civilization has been around. Maybe even longer than human beings have been around. idk, I just know its a long ass time. Those estimates seem kind of fast actually. Millions or Billions of years.
Its been 30 + years and the voyager probe is only now getting close to leaving our solar system. It travels at 38 thousand miles an hour and in the time it would take for it to simply reach 1 light year traveled, it would eclipse humanity as a civilization on the time scale and then some.
Hypothetically though? If we can some how harness the power of anti-matter and have a secure and very efficient way to use it in space we could get up to 'around' 1/4th the speed of light which means at minimum 2.4k years to get there and that isn't even current technology. 600 light years just isn't really feasible for current or even pseudo future technology for humanity.
about 11 million years at the speed voyager travels (61400 km/h)
might have missed a zero somehwere in the calculations but the answer is still many, many,many millions of years
And that's the reason I don't get what's the big deal about discovering all these exo-planets when we don't have a remote chance of reaching to even the closest one (was there any doubt there weren't these with trillions galaxies out there?). Forget about how much time it would take to get there, but think about the unknown conditions or what the state of that planet would be when you actually get there and the survival rate might be almost zero. But I guess its human nature to be always curious about the unknown. I am all for science and discovering stuff but lets first take care of MARS before we get all giddy about these exo-planets.
Doesn't hurt to know what's out there. People have been tracking and observing heavenly bodies for thousands of years and they will continue to do so.
wolfmat
Confirmed Asshole
Well, if there's an advanced civilization chilling out there and we can contact them, we really only have to go half of the way, we might learn new things from them and they from us, we might get introduced to the secret intergalactic highway everyone's been buzzing around, all that. Plus, and that's a big plus, as soon as we find other life in the universe, it changes EVERYTHING. So it sort of makes sense to figure this stuff out.
There is a couple reasons to do it. Part of it is just simple 'knowledge'. Even if we can't physically go there, the more we observe other stars and how they work, the better we might even be able to understand our own even from a comparison perspective. Second 600 light years might be too far, but one 20 light years or less might actually be possible in a generational colony ship (Something that is pseudo future, not now, but possible with the right tech advancement and economic 'will'). If a 'second earth' candidate can be found during these discoveries within that distance it could be possible to use it at a 'life boat' but that is for the future, but you only get to that future when you make these necessary steps. Until we find a way to go faster then light (whether by doing dimensional travel or whatever) space travel will never be remotely like what we consider travel on earth. It will become something closer to the mars exodus idea where you can't return home but you can say a human got there. Its a one way trip that will take so long that it will be your kids' kids that see the fruit of your labor, foresight that really hasn't been seen since the days of the large architecture projects during the renaissance (Some churches took 4 generations and the original person that started it never saw the completion before dying).
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
Anti-matter? Get your head out of your sci-fi books.
Ion technology, at it's current rate of development, could probably get there in a few thousand years.
Have a google and read up. And no, it's not feasible. Technology is going to need to jump several significant generations before any holidays are planned.
DOBERMAN INC
Member
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
There is a reason I said 'hypothetical' because its just not feasible with current technology understanding, but even then I wanted to point out with fastest 'hypothetical' speed humans could traverse the universe, its still far to long for a mission even if you take generations into place.
As for Ion thrusters, yes I too would love to see them experiment with them more
hopefully more international stuff is done in that field (Japanese have done some experiments with it, not a lot but something) since NASA seems to have a hard on for the conventional since they are so strapped for cash and need to show something feasible in the near term with that money.I wonder if it's reasonable to ever expect humans to be able to produce speeds at around 0.5C or more. I believe that improving technology can only get us so far, eventually we won't be able to do anything about the huge distances involved in travelling through space. (Unless we can transfer our brain into an artificial body or something, or some process where aging is not an issue)
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
Intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarding this earth with envious eyes.
Hmm... I might have an idea on how to rapidly increase our space tech, funding, missions etc.
But it comes at a price I think is too high.
If we got rid of that space peace treaty, the one that says we're not allowed to bring weapons up there... and allowed the military to develop technologies through NASA... we would make a lot of technological progress.
That's essentially all the 60's and 70's were. Achievements fueled by Cold War competition. We put satellites in orbit that are used for military intelligence. Rocket technology became ICBM technology.
But it seems to dangerous of a proposition. It would ruin the "sanctity" of space as well as further go on to prove we aren't capable of doing anything great without military or political agendas.
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Another proposition. Once in space, there are no national barriers. We all need to work together to survive. So why not support that down here? Why not pool resources together and create an International Space Agency.
But it comes at a price I think is too high.
If we got rid of that space peace treaty, the one that says we're not allowed to bring weapons up there... and allowed the military to develop technologies through NASA... we would make a lot of technological progress.
That's essentially all the 60's and 70's were. Achievements fueled by Cold War competition. We put satellites in orbit that are used for military intelligence. Rocket technology became ICBM technology.
But it seems to dangerous of a proposition. It would ruin the "sanctity" of space as well as further go on to prove we aren't capable of doing anything great without military or political agendas.
----------
Another proposition. Once in space, there are no national barriers. We all need to work together to survive. So why not support that down here? Why not pool resources together and create an International Space Agency.
AdventureRacing
Member
Maybe we should just concentrate on finding ways to increase our life span so we can survive the thousands of years required to make it .
.Or, in US case, cut all funding for military ppwer, just keep it at a minimum to be able to defend internally.
Give the budget to NASA.
Profit.
I already posted in this thread one thing that could create another space race.
Helium-3
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32645639&postcount=4278
We humans are addicted to energy. Once fusion is cracked, helium-3 could become the new fuel our civilisation is run on. Incredibly rare on Earth, incredibly abundant on our moon. It would be a profitable business... and that's what ultimately drives progress... greed.
But don't worry, you could still get your space wars as nations fight over resources in our solar system, like they already do here on Earth.
Helium-3
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=32645639&postcount=4278
We humans are addicted to energy. Once fusion is cracked, helium-3 could become the new fuel our civilisation is run on. Incredibly rare on Earth, incredibly abundant on our moon. It would be a profitable business... and that's what ultimately drives progress... greed.
But don't worry, you could still get your space wars as nations fight over resources in our solar system, like they already do here on Earth.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Yeah, but if we need to go to the moon to get helium, then that energy source won't any more cost effective than what we have now. And cost effective is what drives the energy industry. It's why coal is still used so incredibly much even today.
Now, space tourism, that's an angle that could really get business involved. Hotels on the moon. Orbital cruises around the Earth. Develop a cost effective way to get people into space and generate revenue and you will attract investors and monies. Energy still has too many cheap alternatives here on Earth, but tourism, well there just isn't an alternative for that. It will happen eventually, I just hope I live long enough to experience it.
We just needed better ways of getting into space. Maybe propulsion from Earth is really the best way to go. Even if it is, we need to make it safer and cheaper.
But I think there has to be better ways of getting into orbit than strapping ourselves to a controlled explosion.
Let's build that space elevator.
And I wonder if when we'll start BUILDING in space. Once getting up there is relatively cheap, and we get some new tech, we should start building ships up there. That way, they can launch from already zero g.
When are we going to have a big structures in orbit or floating somewhere in space. Like massive stations that will be spinning to create gravity, unless we somehow harness the power of gravity before then.
But I think there has to be better ways of getting into orbit than strapping ourselves to a controlled explosion.
Let's build that space elevator.
And I wonder if when we'll start BUILDING in space. Once getting up there is relatively cheap, and we get some new tech, we should start building ships up there. That way, they can launch from already zero g.
When are we going to have a big structures in orbit or floating somewhere in space. Like massive stations that will be spinning to create gravity, unless we somehow harness the power of gravity before then.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-nasa-vows-bn-space-telescope.html
We are 6 years away my friends. Should've been much sooner but I'll take it.
Please don't fuck this up NASA!
We are 6 years away my friends. Should've been much sooner but I'll take it.
Please don't fuck this up NASA!
but it IS cost effective. i single shuttle payload of helium-3 is enough to provide the USA with all the energy it needs for a YEAR.
the entire United States of America, for a year. one trip to the moon.