why did we not have the useful idiots in the various militaries of the world tell us that there are enemies in space so we can go look for them
I've always wondered how birds would do in microgravity.Wonder no longer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sZ3qe6PiI)
That's in a tumbling aircraft.I've always wondered how birds would do in microgravity.Wonder no longer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sZ3qe6PiI)
It's microgravity all the same.That's in a tumbling aircraft.I've always wondered how birds would do in microgravity.Wonder no longer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sZ3qe6PiI)
It's microgravity all the same.That's in a tumbling aircraft.I've always wondered how birds would do in microgravity.Wonder no longer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sZ3qe6PiI)
That's in a tumbling aircraft.It's microgravity all the same.
First 3 comments are people from B12. Yeeeeep.I've always wondered how birds would do in microgravity.Wonder no longer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sZ3qe6PiI)
The stage ended up spinning to a degree that was greater than we could control with the gas thrusters on board and ultimately we hit the water relatively hard.So expect reusable rockets pretty soon.
However, SpaceX recovered portions of the stage and now, along with the Grasshopper tests, we believe we have all the pieces to achieve a full recovery of the boost stage.
I personally would like to visit space; and since I'm a bachelor with a pretty good future career lined up, it may well happen. Even with Virgin Galactic, going to space is still about the same cost as raising a single child to the age of 18. Which kind of gives a whole new interpretation to the name Virgin Galactic. ;DMeh, Virgin Galactics "space" flights aren't really worth the name. They barely get there, after all.
However, I don't really want to go to space on any long-term basis. Space sucks. Space sucks so hard that your blood boils as it freezes, knocking you unconscious within about 10 seconds, and starting permanent brain damage in 30.
Another thing they though about was making a station which has a small part that rotates that can be used by the inhabitants a certain amount of time each day to stop muscle/bone atrophy.Which would be what I said six posts ago.
It's significantly easier to build a small station with a long tether and a counterweight than a torus big enough to avoid unbearable Coriolis effect.Sadly, it's not very easy to move such a station, or dock with it. The tether, is after all, a nonrigid object, and the gyroscopic effect isn't helping. You'd need powerfull and properly synchronized bursts on both objects to be able to move in a meaningful fashion.
Headlines tomorrow:
RUSSIA DROPS SATELLITE ON BEST KOREA. BEST KOREA RETALIATES WITH TOTAL NUCLEAR WAR.
and then...
BEST KOREA ANNEXED BY SOUTH KOREA. BEST KOREANS CHEER.
Well, on a large scale you'll probably need a few highly skilled people working a control station/processing near the mining sites, since there's a several minute signal delay between Earth and the asteroid belt. Those robots will be much busier and need more supervision than a rover.
It would take FAR less energy to just send the processed materials back than to drag the asteroid all the way. That and you risk slamming it into the Earth.
Well, on a large scale you'll probably need a few highly skilled people working a control station/processing near the mining sites, since there's a several minute signal delay between Earth and the asteroid belt. Those robots will be much busier and need more supervision than a rover.
It would take FAR less energy to just send the processed materials back than to drag the asteroid all the way. That and you risk slamming it into the Earth.
Well, on a large scale you'll probably need a few highly skilled people working a control station/processing near the mining sites, since there's a several minute signal delay between Earth and the asteroid belt. Those robots will be much busier and need more supervision than a rover.Nope, you don't need more supervision. The robots have the benefit of operating in zero-g (or close enough to make almost no difference), making maneuvering much easier. Additionally, their task is also easier. The robot doesn't have to look for interesting areas, danger avoidance or any of that. It just needs to break up the asteroid, and throw the pieces in a refining installation*. Easy.
It would take FAR less energy to just send the processed materials back than to drag the asteroid all the way. That and you risk slamming it into the Earth.
Sure, that makes sense, but it depends how big the processing plant is. For any given asteroid, we're probably talking about a human-controlled drone operation, bringing what's necessary to set up a factory and then expanding the facility with in-situ materials.That means you'd have to get the right materials on site. Some asteroids might have those, but the majority 90% + is rather metal poor. Also, humans are more of a problem than an aid to an operation that far out. For comparison, each person/day on the ISS costs 7.5 million dollars. For psychological reasons, you need to send at least 3. Also remember that costs increase exponentially as time and distance increases, so I honestly doubt your operation will be profitable.
Yup, it depends on the asteroid. Some contain quite a lot of ice, which can easily be transformed into quality rocket fuel. If you run that through a high specific impulse engine, you can get quite a long way.Well, on a large scale you'll probably need a few highly skilled people working a control station/processing near the mining sites, since there's a several minute signal delay between Earth and the asteroid belt. Those robots will be much busier and need more supervision than a rover.
It would take FAR less energy to just send the processed materials back than to drag the asteroid all the way. That and you risk slamming it into the Earth.
Most of the proposals I have read about involve using a small object with a very low delta-v as a source of water or oxygen for an earth orbiter. In that context, bringing the whole thing back with a fully automated craft could make a lot more sense because the fuel spent on the excess materials would be less than the fuel spent on sending mining equipment that far.
Robots need supervision because they'll be doing a lot more work than mere probes. They'll need to be repaired and maintained, and people will need to make quick corrections if they start doing something wrong.Sure you might be able to do some overall monitoring, but the simple fact of distance communication delay makes what we think of as "normal" supervision virtually impossible. Assuming you are at the asteroid belt and earth the amount of time it takes to send a signal is between 8.3-19.2 minutes. Assuming you wait for confirmation after each command doubles this time, meaning you need to wait 30 minutes to an hour after every command you send. At that amount of delay it's basically impossible to "monitor" anything more then basic diagnostic checks. I mean sure you might be able to note a robot doing something wrong, but even if you send the signal the instant the warning appear to fix the problem it's going to be at least 30 minutes before the robot receives the command to stop or do anything.
That's why I've been saying you need to send an astronaut with them on some kind of control station.Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen. It's simply way too expensive.
Robots need supervision because they'll be doing a lot more work than mere probes. They'll need to be repaired and maintained, and people will need to make quick corrections if they start doing something wrong.Probes execute quite a lot of tasks, and generally traverse much more dangerous/unexplored terrain than a standard mining robot will. Importance of repair and maintenance are overstated. (Besides, the ability of humans to repair things in space is very limited*, and can be entirely replaced by a robotic hand, a 3d printer and a high bandwith connection.) After all, almost all probes that didn't fail immediately or short after launch lasted way longer than expected.
Bringing back Asteroids is risky. Not to mention it would take a massive amount of delta-v to move a "relatively small" (1 km) asteroid, and smaller, boulder-sized asteroids are hardly worth the trouble of tracking down and bringing back. Better to just latch onto a decent-sized one and send back the stuff you want. You don't even need to go to the asteroid belt, there's plenty of huge, convenient NEO's.
Pretty much this. Keeping a human at any sort of mining station (well, several humans, since you need to have multiple for psychological stability) ends up costing a huge amount more then throwing a few extra redundant robots up there, not even accounting for the fact that you now need to maintain a breathable atmosphere/food/water supplies.That's why I've been saying you need to send an astronaut with them on some kind of control station.Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen. It's simply way too expensive.
Assuming you are at the asteroid belt and earth the amount of time it takes to send a signal is between 8.3-19.2 minutes.
I think we need to figure out mining the Mun before we go on tangents about NEO [let alone actual celestial objects] mining, honestly.
I think we need to figure out mining the Mun before we go on tangents about NEO [let alone actual celestial objects] mining, honestly.
but a little gravity is surely better than none.
It's highly unlikely that we'll run into any sapient aliens in the next few thousand years, much less 42.I like to be optimistic as that helps me to not cut myself knowing that I have nothing to live for.
It's highly unlikely that we'll run into any sapient aliens in the next few thousand years, much less 42.Yep. Won't happen. Though I suspect it's fairly likely that we will discover extraterrestrial life in that time period. Which would be seen as an unusual collection of spectrum in a space telescope looking at an exoplanet...
Now that 3d printing has advanced, we could potentially print replacement parts to requirements when we need them at the location. A Moon colony would allow easy refuelling and launching, so so would a colony on one of Mar's moons. I remember reading about one of them being highly porous: underground caves provide both a location for a base and radiation shielding for any inhabitants. I wonder how much gravity mar's moons have? You'd have to supplement them with centrifuges, of course, but a little gravity is surely better than none.Not really, the moon has significantly more gravity than a NEO, and a comparatively lower water content. (Ie, less avaible fuel).
Water can be mined and used to both refuel spacecraft, restock the Mars/Moon base and send it back to earth as pure water. We're going to need more water soon, and desalination isn't going to cut it.
Ores as well, of course.
The thing is, with enough investment, these things become cheaper enough they become worthwhile. With all the resources of space for us to take... what couldn't mankind accomplish?
Humans need supervision because they'll be doing a lot more work than mere robots. They'll need to be repaired and maintained*, and robots will need to make quick corrections if humans start doing something wrong**.*You can't just bring spare parts or a 3D printer to fix a broken human.
And sending back water to earth is not going to happen. Especially not from the moon. I'm pretty sure that you'd end up wasting more energy on sending it up (and down again) than you'd get from desalination here. I mean, even the most energy expensive desalination installation uses a mere 25 Kwh/m³. => 9*107 Joules
I'm not the silly one. Not always, anyway.Water can be mined and used to both refuel spacecraft, restock the Mars/Moon base and send it back to earth as pure water. We're going to need more water soon, and desalination isn't going to cut it.
...in the UK. Damn :(Actually, it should be decently visible on the entire Northern Hemisphere.
Curiosity suffers electrical trouble, operations suspended for the time being. (http://www.ibtimes.com/operations-mars-rover-curiosity-temporarily-suspended-nasa-fix-electrical-issue-1479736)
I hope they put a camera on it. I would love some high-quality color footage from the moon. Everything from NASA is either ancient or low quality.Absolutely.
I hope they put a camera on it. I would love some high-quality color footage from the moon. Everything from NASA is either ancient or low quality.Absolutely.
I'm also hoping that this could kick the west's butt into returning to Lunar missions.
It's sort of tiring to hear everyone at NASA explain that going to the moon costs too much for the benefits it would bring, all the while they're planning distant future missions to Mars. ::)
First 3 comments are people from B12. Yeeeeep.I've always wondered how birds would do in microgravity.Wonder no longer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sZ3qe6PiI)
So this means the pigeons can crap in a spherical mode instead of straight line. Where are the space cats when we need them?
Well, compare what new things we could learn from the moon opposed to new things we could learn from Mars.To make this more accurate, we would first need a list of things we can learn from Mars.
"It seems the comet could become a naked eye object with several degrees of scattered tail by Dec 2nd or 3rd," he predicts. "It's not the comet of the century for sure, and fainter than the Lovejoy sungrazer in Dec. 2011, but an interesting imaging target is just a few nights away!"
$400,000 seems a little bit low.Just about anyone could get a mortgage to Mars.
The colonists are expected to spend the rest of their natural lives there, right? It makes for an interesting choice: on the one hand, being among the first to live on another planet. On the other, you'd never see Earth again.
Did spaceX ever launch that geostationary mission?Yup, it's nothing special though.
Hey, do you know another country that can send payload into orbit with a GDP of less than 500$ per capita?Well, the only country I could find with a GDP lower than 500$ per capita is the DRC. So, nope.
It's not as if they'll be breeding there. The plans don't seem to include either the facilities for the medical process nor the room for a growing population. Nor child-sized suits, and the alternative seems quite appalling, to confine someone to a tiny habitation can for their entire childhood. Plus, said child would pose grave risks unless severely restrained.
I assume that either decades later, when costs have come down, they'll send in a return option, or they'll be studying the effects of decomposition in a space capsule. Interring people on Mars, even in a sealed container, seems irresponsible in this early stage of the study of the planet, as the potential for forward contamination is quite high.
We've no doubt contaminated Mars already. Our landers and probes still carry terrestrial bacteria, despite out best efforts.Though significantly less, and in fact, almost none.
We've no doubt contaminated Mars already. Our landers and probes still carry terrestrial bacteria, despite out best efforts.Those aren't our "best" efforts anymore: since discovering the mistake, we've been working on better ways to sterilize. Colonists can take precautions and follow procedures while alive to avoid it, and since they'll have to their waste and wear suits outside, the risks are further minimized. I realize now they will probably have some method for disposing of or storing bodies for when people pass away, too.
The real issue with sending help to Mars is that it would take a minimum of 6-8 months to get there, assuming the orbits were perfectly aligned. Otherwise you might have to wait a year or two for the right launch window, and it might take 3 years overall to get the ship there in a worst-case scenario. They'd have to tough it out until then.This is one of the reasons Buzz Aldrin suggests we set up bases on Phobos and/or in Martian orbit before having a human presence on the ground. Much easier to send help that way.
Also, the operators of the launch pad in question (NASA, ESA, etc.) would be perfectly within their rights to deny launch clearance to a launch that they consider to be unsafe. I personally doubt that Mars One will ever get launch clearance in its current state.
That assumes that they can have kids. .3G may well be too low for successful human fetal development.
Most of what we know about fetal development suggests that the only kids they could have would be malformed stillbirths.
It seems unrealistic to me to send people and assume that no procreation is going to happen, unless you either send all males or make sure everyone is sterile. Otherwise, you kind of have to assume that at some point someone is going to have kids.
SPACE SPERM.In zero gravity that could make one hell of a mess. You don't want your oxygen generator to shut down a month from lil' old Earth because you got a little frisky.
Chinese spacecraft "Jade Rabbit" has successfully landed on the Moon. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25356603)
The Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics (GAIA) will use it 1 gigapixel camera (largest in the solar system) to photograph the universe in never before seen Full-Ultra-High 3D Definition.Man....that's going to make one hell of a wallpaper.
Emergency repairs needed on ISS. No need to panic. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25425662)
Emergency repairs needed on ISS. No need to panic. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25425662)
Each spacewalk is scheduled to last six-and-a-half hours and will be broadcast on Nasa TV.How did I not know this existed? My life is a hollow sham.
That was a pretty borked link.Quadropost:Fixed your heavily borked link.
ESA to deepfry stuff in space (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/french-fries-jupiter-european-space-agency_n_4531906.html)
Manned missions to Mars aren't that usefull either. Besides the massive PR stunt, you end up destroying more than you'd recover.But... butt...
It's not even that dangerous. Merely an X class flare.
That doesn't resemble a human hand at all.Well then it's a good thing it's a god hand. :y
Meh, with enough imagination you can see 3 fingers. Honestly, it isn't that spectacular.
aliums crashing.They got shot down by X-COM.
Everybody dies eventually. But 4 people get to die in a very unique way.
Everybody dies eventually. But 4 people get to die in a very unique way.
You're far too cynical. Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, they want to be the first people to live on another planet? That some people would give their lives to achieve that kind of historical milestone? And did you not read about the actual project, and see that they're sending trained professionals (including doctors) alongside the ordinary people?No, they're going to try and pick some doctors from their volunteers. Still going to end in disaster.
Why would they be useful on the moon?
P.S. And no cosmonauts died on the moon.
And no, the fastest route isn't to first construct a moon colony first. The fastest route is to send them directly to Mars, as is to be expected. The Safest and most reliable route is the moon hop thingy though.
The moon is geologically death, and doesn't have any volcanic fissures.
There's a slight problem with that. The lunar surface is only rich in iron in some parts. In others, it's more aluminum.Why would they be useful on the moon?
P.S. And no cosmonauts died on the moon.
It's much, much cheaper and faster to ship equipment to the moon so for less then the price of four people on mars we can have 4 people on the moon plus some equipment for them to expand their settlement. They can process moon dust into oxygen and silicon for future lunar settlement. They can mine a volcanic fissure for iron to be used in constructing future facilities. They can do a geological survey to find the best places for future development. Heck they can even just die horribly and give us more knowledge about living on the moon so a better equipped wave of settlers in the future has an easier time at it.
There's a slight problem with that. The lunar surface is only rich in iron in some parts. In others, it's more aluminum.Why would they be useful on the moon?
P.S. And no cosmonauts died on the moon.
It's much, much cheaper and faster to ship equipment to the moon so for less then the price of four people on mars we can have 4 people on the moon plus some equipment for them to expand their settlement. They can process moon dust into oxygen and silicon for future lunar settlement. They can mine a volcanic fissure for iron to be used in constructing future facilities. They can do a geological survey to find the best places for future development. Heck they can even just die horribly and give us more knowledge about living on the moon so a better equipped wave of settlers in the future has an easier time at it.
The oxygen's more bound up in the aluminum than the iron, but then again mining oxygen from rocks is probably not the best way to obtain it. If you're not recycling your atmosphere (and other volatiles), you're not doing it right.
The thing is, you only need to mine for oxygen if you're building large scale, too large to make supplies from Earth cost-effective. If you're bringing in modules, they (should) come with their own air, and the initial resupply modules ought to bring extra compressed gas stores as well.
Also, bear in mind that nitrogen is an important, if inert, component. Breathing pure, or even high-saturation, oxygen can actually be poisonous (to say nothing of the fire danger). Ideally you'd want a 20-21% oxygen atmosphere.
CO2 is dangerous. It can take the place of oxygen in the lung's alveoli, preventing actual O2 from getting respirated even if its in abundance, and thus causing suffocation. It's not toxic per se, but it does stop oxygen from reaching your blood if there's too much of it, and by too much I mean 7% or more. A concentration of just 1% will make people constantly sluggish. It's best to stick with as close to Earth's atmosphere as possible, since that's what we're adapted for.Yep, and further, CO2 in the blood is actually what triggers the feeling of being unable to breathe, not a lack of O2 in the blood. Between that and the effects mentioned above, you would basically drown in the air, complete with the gasping for breath and everything. So yeah, generally not all that useful an environment for humans.
Electrolysis might take a lot of energy but energy is much easier to get in space then most materials. Plunk down some solar cells and go to town. Even if it takes a year or two to produce enough electricity for oxygen to return on your investment, that's a big savings long term. It's a really simple process, extract the oxygen then dump the rock in a heap outside, not efficient but something that would be viable on the small scale.
Regarding the nitrogen thing, why would you just lower the atmospheric pressure to 25% so you don't need much nitrogen to get by? It would be a slight problem for plants but one that could be overcome with fertilizers and the right strains of bacteria. It wouldn't cause lung collapse because the change would be the same inside and outside the body.
Because low pressure over long periods of time has effects on people
The lower the pressure, the thinner the air, the less O2 delivered to the blood with every breath. See Altitude Sickness. 25% of normal pressure is roughly equivalent to 11,000 meters in altitude, well within the zone where people have trouble breathing and must limit their activity. How exactly does lowering the pressure reduce the need for Nitrogen, anyway? What does that have to do with the relative concentration of gasses in the air?
Because low pressure over long periods of time has effects on people
Such as..?
The lower the pressure, the thinner the air, the less O2 delivered to the blood with every breath. See Altitude Sickness. 25% of normal pressure is roughly equivalent to 11,000 meters in altitude, well within the zone where people have trouble breathing and must limit their activity. How exactly does lowering the pressure reduce the need for Nitrogen, anyway? What does that have to do with the relative concentration of gasses in the air?
The lower the pressure, the thinner the air, the less O2 delivered to the blood with every breath. See Altitude Sickness. 25% of normal pressure is roughly equivalent to 11,000 meters in altitude, well within the zone where people have trouble breathing and must limit their activity. How exactly does lowering the pressure reduce the need for Nitrogen, anyway? What does that have to do with the relative concentration of gasses in the air?
How exactly does lowering the pressure reduce the need for Nitrogen, anyway? What does that have to do with the relative concentration of gasses in the air?
How exactly does lowering the pressure reduce the need for Nitrogen, anyway? What does that have to do with the relative concentration of gasses in the air?
Imagine a room that has 36 kilograms of air in it. We are going to simplify and say that air is 25% oxygen and 75% nitrogen. Now we are going to remove 66% of the nitrogen and leave all the oxygen in. Now we have a room which has 18 kilograms of air in it but has half the air pressure as before. However the amount of oxygen in the room is the same so there is no additional fuel for fires, nor is it any more difficult to breath.
The partial pressure of oxygen is the same ~.25 atm before and after we removed the nitrogen. Only the partial pressure of nitrogen has changed.
Why would that matter?
When we breathe in air at sea level, the atmospheric pressure of about 14.7 pounds per square inch (1.04 kg. per cm.2) causes oxygen to easily pass through selectively permeable lung membranes into the blood. At high altitudes, the lower air pressure makes it more difficult for oxygen to enter our vascular systems. The result is hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation. Hypoxia usually begins with the inability to do normal physical activities, such as climbing a short flight of stairs without fatigue. Other early symptoms of "high altitude sickness" include a lack of appetite, vomiting, headache, distorted vision, fatigue, and difficulty with memorizing and thinking clearly. In serious cases, pneumonia-like symptoms (pulmonary edema) due to hemorrhaging in the lungs and an abnormal accumulation of fluid around the brain (cerebral edema) develop. Pulmonary and cerebral edema usually results in death within a few days if there is not a return to normal air pressure levels. There is also an increased risk of heart failure due to the added stress placed on the lungs, heart, and arteries at high altitudes.
In February 2014, Musk stated that Mars Colonial Transporter will be "100 times the size of an SUV", and capable of taking 100 people at a time to Mars.[8] Also, SpaceX engine development head Tom Mueller said SpaceX would use nine Raptor engines on a single rocket, similar to the use of nine Merlin 1s engines on each Falcon 9 booster core. He said "It's going to put over 100 tons of cargo on Mars."[9] The large rocket core that will be used for the booster to be used with MCT will be 10 metres (33 ft) in diameter, nearly three times the diameter and over seven times the cross-sectional area of the Falcon 9 booster cores.[1]
NSA will send a robot to investigate suspected life on Europe (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246832/NASA_will_send_a_robot_to_investigate_suspected_life_on_Europa)French confirmed as aliens. Existence touted as government conspiracy.
NASA will send a robot to investigate suspected life on Europa (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246832/NASA_will_send_a_robot_to_investigate_suspected_life_on_Europa)FTFY. I hope.
Today in your Legit Space News:I'm not sure if this is satire or is actually serious.
Best Korea lands a man on the sun. They went during the cover of darkness so he wouldn't be at risk from the sun's heat. (http://www.weirdasianews.com/2014/03/01/north-korea-claims-landed-man-sun/)
Hung Il Dong, 17, is reported to have been the first man to land on the sun, according to North Korean Central news.
Hung Il Dong
Hung Dong
Damn. Is it still a success if it sank?Yeah; though suborbital rocket-boats is something they should look into.
Nope, they don't. It's a completely different series of suits.As a note, that IS NOT the potential suit.Last I checked, training missions used... y'know, the actual suits because they care more about training than PR.
It isn't even a spacesuit. It's a ground suit. This is what NASA is going to use in the future for conventions and stuff, and for training missions and other nice pictures.
Another SpaceX F9R 1km flight test video. It now has small deployable fins for increased control (looks like mostly for roll control).It was really cool seeing the fins pop out like that, I thought the bottom ones were the ones referred to. Also, they keep cows that close to the pad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgLBIdVg3EM
Another SpaceX F9R 1km flight test video. It now has small deployable fins for increased control (looks like mostly for roll control).It was really cool seeing the fins pop out like that, I thought the bottom ones were the ones referred to. Also, they keep cows that close to the pad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgLBIdVg3EM
Use rocketfuel for the fire?Another SpaceX F9R 1km flight test video. It now has small deployable fins for increased control (looks like mostly for roll control).It was really cool seeing the fins pop out like that, I thought the bottom ones were the ones referred to. Also, they keep cows that close to the pad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgLBIdVg3EM
Wow that was the coolest rocket video I have ever soon. Mostly because it means that we really -are- going to get reusable rockets and man that thing landed so perfectly.
Wouldn't you want BBQ after your first successful reusable rocket test flight?
As far as the soft landing of the boost phase, it was interesting, when we got the corrupted video back, because we really actually had a real difficult time getting the telemetry. In fact, I'll tell you a funny thing. We actually had to - because normally we get the bulk of the telemetry from a boat. We also have a backup, an AP3 that was going to go up, and the P3 got iced up, the boats couldn't go out, so I sent my plane up with my pilots, and... we had to design and fabricate an antenna that exactly fit in the window of the plane. We started off with a pizza dish and we were able to do a double loop antenna with a pizza dish and point it out the window to get the link. The data came through really well but the video was corrupted because unfortunately when you compress video, it's hard to uncorrupt a compressed video because you actually have to figure out the compression algorithms and all these things, so we weren't able to get very far, but we put the video up online and then we crowd sourced the cleanup of the video and people did a really great job of fixing it. "I actually tweeted out a link to the latest thing. Mostly the people on the NASA Spaceflight forum were able to fix the video."
Well, SpaceX published some video from that landing over the ocean.
"raw" version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m8H8OlJ3o8
"cleaned up" version (it's really not much better): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er66BActC4E
As far as I can tell, it's showing the last few seconds, as it fires up the engines for the final time as it landed on the ocean. Don't get your hopes up for any better quality; the craft itself wasn't able to be recovered (it sank long before the recovery craft was able to get there), so any onboard memory of the video is gone.
Rosetta is the name of the probe though
Shouldn't work based on the current model of physics. I think we're about due for a nice big breakthrough like this, similar to general relativity. I'm excited, but as anyone should be with scientific matters, a little skeptical. I'd love to build the drive for myself.
They should mount it on a near-frictionless cart and see if it pushes it. That would be so cool to see.
Well, from my limited understanding of things, we can generate electricity from two sources. Either chemical energy as certain atoms/molecules react and electrons are shuffled around, or kinetic energy by spinning things through a magnetic field. I'm probably missing out on a couple alternative sources, but those are the two major ones. So converting thermal energy directly to electricity is (most likely) impossible. After all, thermal energy is just atoms/molecules being highly energetic but without any unified direction or force. So we can't convert it to electricity without going through another step using the two methods we have. To convert thermal energy directly, we'd need some kind of substance that shuffles around electrons when it heats up. Which I'm pretty sure is impossible, or we don't have a substance like that. Or it converts the thermal energy into chemical energy before turning it into electricity.I may be understanding incorrectly, but don't thermocouples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocouple) make electricity directly from heat?
Am I kinda making sense here?
A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG) is an electrical generator that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity by the Seebeck effect.
In 1821, Thomas Johann Seebeck discovered that a thermal gradient formed between two dissimilar conductors produces a voltage.[1] At the heart of the thermoelectric effect is the fact that a temperature gradient in a conducting material results in heat flow; this results in the diffusion of charge carriers. The flow of charge carriers between the hot and cold regions in turn creates a voltage difference. In 1834, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier discovered the reverse effect, that running an electric current through the junction of two dissimilar conductors could, depending on the direction of the current, cause it to act as a heater or cooler
In KSP .23 eccentricity and 5 degrees off from target is what I call "within normal parameters."Yeah, well on Earth we call it 1km/s delta v change (because earth is bigger and has a much higher orbital velocity). :P
India mission to Orbit Mars a success! (http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/world/asia/mars-india-orbiter/index.html)False. ESA also successfully reached Mars on the first attempt.
Kudos to India, not only for being one of the only countries to get something out that far, but for being the first to manage it on the first try!
And for doing it on such a low budget, too. I didn't know space programs could spend that little money ($74m) and even launch (Arianne 5s cost $100-137m)!To be fair, with a scientific payload of just 25 kg, it's not the most interesting mission either.
Someone pointed out that it's 25% less budget than gravity. A film about space was significantly pricier than actually sending a mission to Mars. Think about that for a second.
Someone pointed out that it's 25% less budget than gravity. A film about space was significantly pricier than actually sending a mission to Mars. Think about that for a second.
I'd rather not focus on humanity's absolute lack of prioritization on things that matter..
Historic Comet landing due for Wednesday 12 November (http://news.google.be/news/url?sr=1&ct2=http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29380448)Not found, 404 error. Nesting links is bad.
Solved.Historic Comet landing due for Wednesday 12 November (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29380448)Not found, 404 error. Nesting links is bad.
Pogo sticks, ebbor.Indeed, if ypur rocket starta behaving like one, bad things will happen.
Considering the physics of KSP, you just might.Only if Jeb is piloting, though.
Turn on, release, bail.According to legend (if it's true or not, I don't know) this actually occurred once in WW2. A pilot fighting in the Blitz over London ejected and his parachute failed. His life was saved by the explosion of a bomb hitting the train station below.
The shock from the explosions might launch you!
Yeah, pretty sure that is a myth. If the fall doesn't kill you, the bomb going off just below you would.Turn on, release, bail.According to legend (if it's true or not, I don't know) this actually occurred once in WW2. A pilot fighting in the Blitz over London ejected and his parachute failed. His life was saved by the explosion of a bomb hitting the train station below.
The shock from the explosions might launch you!
pretty sure it was one big accident :PSpoiler: look at how they got it there (click to show/hide)
Space Ship Two crash might have been a wing problem. (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26493-spaceshiptwo-crash-wings-were-unlocked-too-soon.html)I live in Mojave. So this was local news for me.
We still don’t know the exact location of Philae. Ingenious Esa engineers are planning to use the radar instrument CONSERT to triangulate its position. The instrument on Rosetta is designed to probe the comet’s subsurface using radio waves, which are pinged back to the orbiter by a transponder in the Philae lander.
During the descent, CONSERT showed that the lander was just 50 metres adrift from the targeted landing spot. Esa had planned for the error in position being up to 500 metres.
Of course, that was before those two slow-motion bounces. Magnetic field data from Philae’s ROMAT instrument revealed three “landings”. The first was almost exactly on the expected arrival time of 15:33 GMT. But the anchoring harpoons did not fire and Philae rebounded.
In the weak gravity of the comet it took about two hours for the lander to return to the surface. It touched down for a second time at 17:26 GMT, then bounced again before finally coming to rest at 17:33.
ESA, not NASA. Although, given our current crop of politicians, that might not matter so much...NASA, most likely. The ESA's budget structure doesn't lend itself well to making cuts.
I love of XKCD said "U.S. scientists" for most of the comic, and then switched to "scientists" at some point, likely when the author remembered it was an ESA project. :pDoesn't seem like Randal Monroe to forget something like that. He worked at Nasa, after all.
ESA, not NASA. Although, given our current crop of politicians, that might not matter so much...Doesn't matter, they'd look for any excuse.
EDIT:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Don't think of it as a loss, think of it as a time capsule. Some time in the future it might get enough sunlight to power back on.It might power on between now and August next year, but it's unlikely to survive passing by the sun.
You guys trying to start a betting pool?
Astrophysicist Elizabeth Pearson: "Philae is not dead it's just sleeping"
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30058176
lol, that scientist quote:QuoteAstrophysicist Elizabeth Pearson: "Philae is not dead it's just sleeping"
Apparently they got back a big batch of scientific data just before it stops transmitting though, so that's good.
The harpoons didn't fire, it's suspected to be because the propellant isn't reliable in a vacuum. (https://translate.google.dk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fing.dk%2Fartikel%2Fesa-skrev-til-danske-raketbyggere-om-eksplosiv-problem-paa-philae-172274&edit-text=)
They didn't know. That's why they used it.The harpoons didn't fire, it's suspected to be because the propellant isn't reliable in a vacuum. (https://translate.google.dk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fing.dk%2Fartikel%2Fesa-skrev-til-danske-raketbyggere-om-eksplosiv-problem-paa-philae-172274&edit-text=)
*facepalm* Why did they use something that they knew wasn't reliable in a vacuum? Oh I know, maybe to cut down costs.
In other space news, in about 2 weeks, NASA will be launching the first test flight of the Orion crew module.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_Flight_Test_1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)#Crew_ModuleIt's a fairly large capsule, about 50% larger than Apollo capsules, with 4-6 crew and intended for deep space missions.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The European Space Agency and Airbus have signed a contract that will see the aerospace giant build the "back end" of America's new manned spaceship.
...
The vehicle needs a propulsion unit to push it through space and to carry the humans' air and water.
Also, this may not come as news to everyone else, but as I just found out, China has their own space station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiangongYeah, they've also got a moon program going on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program
Well, an orbital lab with plans to expand it into a 60 tonne space station. I don't know why I only found out about this now, it's been up since 2011. I blame the media's americentrism.
Will allow refuel & rocket flyback in future.Now I'm not entirely certain, but that sounds almost as if they were planning to automatically refuel the returning stages, then have them fly back to land or something.... Which I suppose makes some sense, if you want an extremely rapid turnaround. Quite the juggling act implied there.
The Orion test flight is going to be launched in a couple hours and NASA has started its live coverage.
Link: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.VIAoK8nYOUk
The weather system over the launch site that is producing the wind gusts that have scrubbed the first two tries this morning is forecast to break in the next 45 minutes to an hour, reports Kathy Winters, weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron. Our launch window this morning extends to 9:44 a.m. EST.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft woke up on Saturday for its Pluto flyby!Excellent! I've been eagerly awaiting the pluto pictures!
http://io9.com/nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-awakes-to-begin-pluto-mis-1667729735
Close-ups of Pluto and probably Charon as well are due in about six weeks, apparently. Then onward to the Kuiper Belt!
So apparently quite some interesting stuff coming from the Curiosity rover:Also excellent! Can't wait to see what they find!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS99yR1cooE
Seems they happened to put it down in an ancient lakebed, eroded away by wind over time to reveal tons of layers. So they're basically in absolutely the best possible location in which one could hope to do geology. Doubly so if you're interested in studying the hydrogeology of Mars.
SpaceX also conducted a static fire test on December 17 and while the test accomplished nearly all goals, it did not run the full duration.So basically, they did a test burn a couple days ago, it shut down early for some reason, so they turned the launch into another static fire test (which operated successfully), opting to do the actual launch after reviewing the data.
From what I can tell, the Protons are something like $100m. So it probably is somewhat close, as the Falcon launches are currently around $61m today, with Falcon Heavy launches expected for $85m. The A5 seems to have a payload capacity right in the middle of those two, so if it's around $70m-$80m it would currently compete pretty well. Similarly, their PPTS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospective_Piloted_Transport_System) would likely be a competitor for the human rated version of the Dragon capsule when those start going up.If the cost of two extra first stages is $12 million, that's the most you could expect to save from a normal falcon 9 then, in fact probably less as you'd still need to clean/refurbish and reful the recovered stage, and the stage would still probably have a limited number of flights. There's probably also going to be issues recovering the core stage from falcon 9 Heavies also as i imagine that they will be going higher.
Of course, the big thing to watch on SpaceX launch costs is whether they can pull off re-usability of a significant portion of the rocket. Currently, they're cheap, but well within the realm of plausible competition with other well managed, similarly spec'd rockets. If SpaceX can pull off reusing some of the expensive bits, the cost could go well below that of similar launch vehicles.
A careful study of images taken by the NASA rover Curiosity has revealed intriguing similarities between ancient sedimentary rocks on Mars and structures shaped by microbes on Earth. The findings suggest, but do not prove, that life may have existed earlier on the Red Planet.
On Earth, carpet-like colonies of microbes trap and rearrange sediments in shallow bodies of water such as lakes and coastal areas, forming distinctive features that fossilize over time.
The distribution patterns of the microbial structures on Earth vary depending on where they are found. Different types of structures are found together in different types of environments. For instance, microbial mats that grow in rivers will create a different set of associations than those that grow in seasonally flooded environments.
The patterns found in the Gillespie Lake outcrop are consistent with the microbial structures found in similar environments on Earth.
What’s more, the terrestrial structures change in a specific way over time. As the microbial mats form, grow, dry up, crack and re-grow, specific structures become associated with them. Here again, Noffke found that the distribution pattern in Martian rocks correspond with microbial structures on Earth that have changed over time. Taken together, these clues strengthen her argument beyond simply pointing out the similarities in shape.
"But if the Martian structures aren’t of biological origin," Noffke says, "then the similarities in morphology, but also in distribution patterns with regards to MISS on Earth would be an extraordinary coincidence."
They aren't illegal.Kinetic Bombardment would probably do irreparable damage to the Earth/the tectonic plates/whatever
They are tungsten rods with no explosives or anything.
They are entirly legal and follow those Cold War weapons agreements
For those who don't know what they are
It is an orbiting space station with several heavy metal non nuclear rods with no warheads that can be dropped from orbit onto stationary targets on ground with the possible ability to level an entire city or bust through quite a bit of ground and take out a heavily 'armored' bunker with ease
They aren't illegal.
They are tungsten rods with no explosives or anything.
They are entirly legal and follow those Cold War weapons agreements
Check the wiki
And about anything else
Most things say you just have to drop it and it's good, or drop it with little effort
And ya it'll take a lot of energy to get it up there but it's just as effective as a tactical nuke and much less nuclear aftermathy
I would much rather kinetic bombardment be the weapon of world war three rather than nukes, much less if any fallout at all.
States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth anyAny Weapon of Mass destruction is illegal.
objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass
destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in
outer space in any other manner.
Also, we're not talking city destroyer. My rod would have a tenth of the yield of the Hiroshima bomb..
Dropped in the middle of a big city and your take out quite a bit of it plus you just have the. The problem of a giant hole in the city and a 90 ton tungsten rod
Dropped in the middle of a big city and your take out quite a bit of it plus you just have the. The problem of a giant hole in the city and a 90 ton tungsten rodDepends. Chances are a significant part of the energy is lost penetrating into the ground/evaporating the rod, making the blast less effective.
No he said it wasn't a city destroyed
We already established it's not cost effective at all
Wouldn't the impact itself shake the earth?Dropped in the middle of a big city and your take out quite a bit of it plus you just have the. The problem of a giant hole in the city and a 90 ton tungsten rodDepends. Chances are a significant part of the energy is lost penetrating into the ground/evaporating the rod, making the blast less effective.
In the case of the system mentioned in the 2003 Air Force report above, a 6.1 m × 0.3 m tungsten cylinder impacting at Mach 10 has a kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 11.5 tons of TNT (or 7.2 tons of dynamite). The mass of such a cylinder is itself greater than 9 tons,
And it's super expensive. I ran the math on this- the cost of 1 tungsten rod and the mass to get it to orbit- not counting the platform to launch it, would cost as much as 10 kilotons (roughly) of GPS-guided JDAM bombs. Thor, by the way, has optimally around 60 tons of TNT equivalent, if I remember.
COURTESY EDIT- Seems I mis-remembered my figures. Assuming $10,000 dollars per JDAM for delivery and pound-for-pound blast equivalence with TNT (Which is not true, I just couldn't find figures, it's probably a lot higher), you could fire off 800 JDAMs for a total of 363 tons of TNT. Thirty times as much as the 10 tons of the Thor, and that's a really conservative estimate.
*If anybody can find me figures for the total cost of a JDAM, including fuel used to transport and deliver the munition, and also the power of the explosive in the JDAM compared to TNT so I can make these figures really accurate, I'd be most appreciative.
Dropped in the middle of a big city and your take out quite a bit of it plus you just have the. The problem of a giant hole in the city and a 90 ton tungsten rod
No he said it wasn't a city destroyed
We already established it's not cost effective at all
In that case you just increase the mass until you get destruction needed.
A higher mass exponentially increases the cost involved, due to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. Then it'd become even less cost effective the bigger you make it. Getting things into space - to stay - isn't easy.
So what would happen if something went faster than the speed of light?As far as we know you can't (or at least not locally).
I say something because it would have to be a very special 'thing' to pull that off
So, you'd essentially break physics, DF style?So what would happen if something went faster than the speed of light?As far as we know you can't (or at least not locally).
I say something because it would have to be a very special 'thing' to pull that off
If you worked around it some way (such as through wormhole) it would look like the universe was two unconnected bubbles, one large one centered on you and one smaller one on the other end of the wormhole.
As for what would happen to you if you actually did go faster then light, you actually end up arriving at your destination before you leave (as a weird version of time travel), which is one of the reasons we don't think it could happen, since it plays hell with causality. It would also seem like the universe had "moved", in the sense that things on one side (the one you were traveling away from) would disappear and things on the side you were traveling towards would suddenly appear from nothingness.
Ya I'd heard that before but I meant just a particleThen let's hope one doesn't hit the Earth.
Worm holes don't realy found because you're taking a short cut and not actualy reaching the speed.
What if faster than light things exist but we just can't observe them?
What if faster than light things exist but we just can't observe them?They've already been theorized in the form of Tachyons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon), but so far no experiments we've done to try to detect them have shown anything. That said the biggest reason why we don't think they exist is:
Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics. If such particles did exist, they could be used to build a tachyonic antitelephone and send signals faster than light, which (according to special relativity) would lead to violations of causality.
AhThey've got imaginary mass, so AFAIK it would just shoot straight through it. Lots of things (like gravity, and crashing into things, etc.) wouldn't really apply to a theoretical tachyon AFAIK.
Well...
What would happen if a theoretical tachyon struck a black hole?
In a similar vein are things like Dark Matter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter). So far as we can tell, dark matter doesn't really interact with things; and is observed only by its gravitational pull. It makes up a large majority of the matter in the universe, and is thus largely responsible for the shapes and distribution of galaxies.
Is there a special name for normals matter? I mean the stuff you me and this phone are made ofThere's actually a bunch of stuff; the general thing it all falls under is The Standard Model of particle physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
I wonder how much money we put into making the colliders used to find most of those? I wonder if it would have been better spent on something more.... Practical... I guess I just have a hard time being ok with throwing our money into seeing what everything is made of when of could be spent on research for cures to diseases, lessening world hunger, using a hadron collider as a WMD, keeping out environment from going to hell, finding a replacement for fossils fuels, giving those developing nations a push into the modern world, etc etc
I wonder how much money we put into making the colliders used to find most of those? I wonder if it would have been better spent on something more.... Practical... I guess I just have a hard time being ok with throwing our money into seeing what everything is made of when of could be spent on research for cures to diseases, lessening world hunger, using a hadron collider as a WMD, keeping out environment from going to hell, finding a replacement for fossils fuels, giving those developing nations a push into the modern world, etc etc
Or gosh, you now, the entertainment industry. A significant part of it doesn't do anything useful, and has no positive side effects whatsoever.
At least military spending stimulates innovation.
I wonder how much money we put into making the colliders used to find most of those? I wonder if it would have been better spent on something more.... Practical... I guess I just have a hard time being ok with throwing our money into seeing what everything is made of when of could be spent on research for cures to diseases, lessening world hunger, using a hadron collider as a WMD, keeping out environment from going to hell, finding a replacement for fossils fuels, giving those developing nations a push into the modern world, etc etc
I was being sarcastic....
I have no problem with this program and I thought people would notice the joke or two inside of that...
The Navy has 2,274 aircraft total. The USAF has 5,638 aircraft total.Is it possible that those USAF planes are on Navy ships?
Of course, the LHC was built from 998 to 2008, I think, so that's spread over 1010 years, so 0.0075 billion dollars a year, say.
I don't know: those are just the figures I found.ok...
I don't know: those are just the figures I found.ok...
Ya I've got several navy relatives and they say the some thing.. One of them is also an avionics electrician so ya..
Of course, the LHC was built from 998 to 2008, I think, so that's spread over 1010 years, so 0.0075 billion dollars a year, say.
Found that typo specially funny, the blue letters "my corrections". Pictured people building a wooden LHC, kind of like the tower in the intro video of civIII
I'll ask around but even if its not right your stats showed that they have roughly half the aircraft that the USAF has which is quite a bit considering they aren't an air based branch, or at least not thought of as one.I don't know: those are just the figures I found.ok...
Ya I've got several navy relatives and they say the some thing.. One of them is also an avionics electrician so ya..
Well, if you can find some hard figures, post them.
But that would mean the Navy would run more planes, and the huge quantity of ships, including carriers that cost ~400 million dollars a day to run, with approximately the same rough funding. If yo ucan show proof beyond ancedotes, show them, and I will stand corrected.Of course, the LHC was built from 998 to 2008, I think, so that's spread over 1010 years, so 0.0075 billion dollars a year, say.
Found that typo specially funny, the blue letters "my corrections". Pictured people building a wooden LHC, kind of like the tower in the intro video of civIIISpoiler: What did you think jousting tournaments were? (click to show/hide)
I always had good faith in magnets being able to deflect most things (or at least most metal things).Then the enemy would just make tungsten bullets, or the like. (any non-magnetic metal would work)
I actually have a snazzy book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_the_Impossible) that covers things like this (got it signed by the author too!). I'm working from memory here, but IIRC the basic outline for a "shield" like the kind you see on spaceships in science fiction would be a combination of a few different things, notably a sphere-esque shape of carbon nanotubes to deflect solid objects combined with a fast-transition lens type of thing that would nigh-instantly opaque on contact with a focused light beam (i.e. laser weapon).
Clearly you have to shoot their lasers with your lasers, and by the law of bad science fiction they'll cancel out.
I actually have a snazzy book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_the_Impossible) that covers things like this (got it signed by the author too!). I'm working from memory here, but IIRC the basic outline for a "shield" like the kind you see on spaceships in science fiction would be a combination of a few different things, notably a sphere-esque shape of carbon nanotubes to deflect solid objects combined with a fast-transition lens type of thing that would nigh-instantly opaque on contact with a focused light beam (i.e. laser weapon).
I actually have a snazzy book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_of_the_Impossible) that covers things like this (got it signed by the author too!). I'm working from memory here, but IIRC the basic outline for a "shield" like the kind you see on spaceships in science fiction would be a combination of a few different things, notably a sphere-esque shape of carbon nanotubes to deflect solid objects combined with a fast-transition lens type of thing that would nigh-instantly opaque on contact with a focused light beam (i.e. laser weapon).Is...Is that a TARDIS on the cover?
This works by laws of actual science as well. It's no more and no less than applying interference.Clearly you have to shoot their lasers with your lasers, and by the law of bad science fiction they'll cancel out.
Oh no they crossed the beams! :P
Is...Is that a TARDIS on the cover?Maybe...
But if it does that, wouldn't all of the laser's heat go to that lens?Yeah, but it could work the same as armor does for bullets. If we know what is gonna take the hit then we could hypothetically engineer that particular material to be highly resistant to that kind of hit (having good thermal resistance and fast diffusion rates, for example). It's not the best, but it's about the best you can get in reality. (Checking the book now it also suggests a plasma window on top of the other two layers to keep oxygen/vacuum from passing through the force field. (It even suggests using argon gas so that you get the same blue-colored glow as they do in Star Trek. :P)
Terraforming Mars.
Who thinks it's a good idea?
Who thinks it's a bad idea?
Who's undecided?
Terraforming Mars.
Who thinks it's a good idea?
Who thinks it's a bad idea?
Who's undecided?
Also it has no magnetic field in place that prevents the scouring of the planet's atmosphere from solar winds.
So we'd have to create our own, artificial, giant magnetosphere.
You can't really have industry pumping out CO2 in Mars like it does on Earth, because you don't oxygen to burn fossil fuel (and it's unlikely there as fossil fuel in the first place).There's plenty of oxidizing agents, the thing is they are stuck in the rocks in the form of iron oxide (aka rust), I do not know which alchemy secrets could be used to unlock it from there, but I'm sure there's some way. I read somewhere that huge greenhouses (possible to do with few/light materials because the reduced gravity) could unlock gases from the soil, dunno if oxygen would be among those.
On a side note, I've always found our current methods of traversing space rather depressing. They're very clever, and orbital maneuvers have a beautiful elegance to them, but the rocket equation... That thing is always what gets me. The fact that we have no quick way of propelling ourselves in a vacuum that doesn't rely on chemical fuel seems so limiting.This gets on my nerves too. Sadly our current technology doesn't really offer more options. Space elevators won't be a thing here unless a huge breakthrough is made on material technology. The only really other option is nuclear propulsion and the UN and a bunch of smelly grass-smoking hippies took care we didn't take that way. Beyond the clear danger of radioactive showers if the ship exploded at the right altitude, there's no thing as "contaminate the space" which seems a far too recurrent and ignorant phrase spewed by after mentioned, waste of organic matter, stinky tree huggers.
Oh, well. I guess we all need to try and do our bit for science (and !!SCIENCE!!) to help develop better ways of getting around.
Would that mess up the comets path?Depends on the relative mass of the comet and the probe.
Adding an extra weight to it, or would it just slow it down but not mess with it too much?
However the question is, what could be imported from there?
So, can anyone else think of a good reason as to why we could not or should not "cheat" by letting craft "surf" along with comets to get things to the outer solar system? Yeah it may take a while, but there would be a lot less in terms of fuel requirements...
Radioactive showers are a big problem if you launch on or near the planet. The ship doesn't need to structurally fail to produce the consequences of explosions, because said explosions are its means of propulsion. The vast amount of nuclear detonations would still produce all the ionizing radiation and irradiated gas that nuclear bombs normally produce, not to mention constant EMPs. Your best bet would be getting craploads of nukes into space and then assembling the thing in lunar orbit or further, which isn't going to happen until people can trust each other not to throw said nukes back at Earth.On a side note, I've always found our current methods of traversing space rather depressing. They're very clever, and orbital maneuvers have a beautiful elegance to them, but the rocket equation... That thing is always what gets me. The fact that we have no quick way of propelling ourselves in a vacuum that doesn't rely on chemical fuel seems so limiting.This gets on my nerves too. Sadly our current technology doesn't really offer more options. Space elevators won't be a thing here unless a huge breakthrough is made on material technology. The only really other option is nuclear propulsion and the UN and a bunch of smelly grass-smoking hippies took care we didn't take that way. Beyond the clear danger of radioactive showers if the ship exploded at the right altitude, there's no thing as "contaminate the space" which seems a far too recurrent and ignorant phrase spewed by after mentioned, waste of organic matter, stinky tree huggers.
Oh, well. I guess we all need to try and do our bit for science (and !!SCIENCE!!) to help develop better ways of getting around.
No colony can last if it relies on food shipped from interplanetary distances. We need to learn to grow food in space, in which case the chemicals needed to set up a farm ecosystem would be good exports.However the question is, what could be imported from there?
Food probably. Sounds a bit daft to fly all the way to Mars to grow rice but Mars would be useful to export to places that aren't Earth. You have the CO2 and H2O that are the bulk of the atomic mass of what you need there. The Thing atmosphere, lighter gravity and greater distance from the sun means that it's less work to deliver a payload to somewhere in the solar system. So if there is some viable industry in space in the future like space based solar power systems getting built with non-earth materials you could use mars to supply that industry with food.
So, can anyone else think of a good reason as to why we could not or should not "cheat" by letting craft "surf" along with comets to get things to the outer solar system? Yeah it may take a while, but there would be a lot less in terms of fuel requirements...
As others have said, that wouldn't work because you still need to provide all the energy required to put you on the same orbit as the comet. You wouldn't gain anything unless you were to mine the comet en-route. But I have heard of a rather brilliant idea similar to this. Essentially, you would send up a habitation module with all the bulky life support, radiation shielding, etc. needed for interplanetary travel and put it into an orbit that crosses between Earth and wherever you want to go. Then you just need a craft that can carry crew to rendezvous with the habitat and break away and get into orbit at their destination. By reusing the habitat, successive missions would cost only a fraction of more "conventional" manned interplanetary missions. It has a few drawbacks of course, but there aren't many more efficient methods we can feasibly use in the near future.
Pretty sure he wasn't talking about Orion drives, but a nuclear thermal engine.Radioactive showers are a big problem if you launch on or near the planet. The ship doesn't need to structurally fail to produce the consequences of explosions, because said explosions are its means of propulsion. The vast amount of nuclear detonations would still produce all the ionizing radiation and irradiated gas that nuclear bombs normally produce, not to mention constant EMPs. Your best bet would be getting craploads of nukes into space and then assembling the thing in lunar orbit or further, which isn't going to happen until people can trust each other not to throw said nukes back at Earth.On a side note, I've always found our current methods of traversing space rather depressing. They're very clever, and orbital maneuvers have a beautiful elegance to them, but the rocket equation... That thing is always what gets me. The fact that we have no quick way of propelling ourselves in a vacuum that doesn't rely on chemical fuel seems so limiting.This gets on my nerves too. Sadly our current technology doesn't really offer more options. Space elevators won't be a thing here unless a huge breakthrough is made on material technology. The only really other option is nuclear propulsion and the UN and a bunch of smelly grass-smoking hippies took care we didn't take that way. Beyond the clear danger of radioactive showers if the ship exploded at the right altitude, there's no thing as "contaminate the space" which seems a far too recurrent and ignorant phrase spewed by after mentioned, waste of organic matter, stinky tree huggers.
Oh, well. I guess we all need to try and do our bit for science (and !!SCIENCE!!) to help develop better ways of getting around.
Food probably. Sounds a bit daft to fly all the way to Mars to grow rice but Mars would be useful to export to places that aren't Earth. You have the CO2 and H2O that are the bulk of the atomic mass of what you need there. The Thing atmosphere, lighter gravity and greater distance from the sun means that it's less work to deliver a payload to somewhere in the solar system. So if there is some viable industry in space in the future like space based solar power systems getting built with non-earth materials you could use mars to supply that industry with food.
You dont need to terraform mars, you need to build greenhouses. And mars has atmospheric nitrogen which could be harvested for the small amount of nitrogen needed. We dont add nitrogen fertilizers because we need vast quantities of nitrogen, we add them because most of the nitrogen in the world is in the wrong chemical formula. So you just collect atmospheric nitrogen on mars, use solar energy to process it and make your fertilizers.
Surface pressure on mars is 0.087 psi. That's 61 million kilograms per square kilometer. Surface area of mars is 56 million square kilometers. That's 3.4*10^15 kilograms of martian atmosphere. Of that 2% is nitrogen. That's 69 billion metric tons of atmospheric nitrogen on mars. The earth used about 190 million metric tons of agricultural nutrients of all forms last year (page 12 (http://ftp://ftp.fao.org/ag/agp/docs/cwfto16.pdf)). Unless you are envisioning a population of many hundreds of billions that's a lot of nitrogen. If you want to teraform the planet you'd need a lot more and you'd have to hope there are rocky deposits of the stuff. But for greenhouses that's plenty to sustain centuries of exports.
I don't know about anybody else, but I think that the earth is by far the most beautiful planet. So I don't want to be separated from it for a long time. Anybody else feel that way?Pretty much. Especially since if we lived in space, we would effectively be confined to the equivalent of a small apartment building, with the exception of the occasional bothersome trip outside to wander around the wasteland (or nothingness) for a while. And with internet latency of 90 minutes to earth, you're isolated to the point where you're practically sending letters to communicate.
Theoretically they could just build a really big apartment building.
More interested in the Pluto flyby, TBH.Still got about 5-6 months on that. So in the meantime, yay for dwarf planets!
In the second panel, it looks a little like the death star.
Theoretically they could just build a really big apartment building.
http://rt.com/news/225367-radio-waves-deep-space/It says it could be from 5.5 billion light years away but only observed a decade after the even happened...
Nothing spectacular.
http://rt.com/news/225367-radio-waves-deep-space/It says it could be from 5.5 billion light years away but only observed a decade after the even happened...
Nothing spectacular.
How?!?
Wouldn't it be observed 5.5 billion years after it happened?
http://rt.com/news/225367-radio-waves-deep-space/It says it could be from 5.5 billion light years away but only observed a decade after the even happened...
Nothing spectacular.
How?!?
Wouldn't it be observed 5.5 billion years after it happened?
It is badly worded. What they mean is 5.5bn light years distant, and at least a 10 year duration - we did not catch the beginning.
Or from a less daily-mail style source: http://www.space.com/28339-gamma-ray-signals-beyond-milky-way.htmlAre you certain that this is the same thing? RT talks about radiowaves, your article is gamms rays.
Re: Rez and Radio Controlled. That article has no references, no peer review, and without them, no validity. Do not attempt to use a 'freelance writer' as a source in a discussion regarding hard fact, so I'm going to NASA. Point 1: Diffraction is by no means a property of radiation, it is a property of medium and the reflector, improving either the 'purity' of the medium or the 'perfection' of the reflector will decrease loss. Point 2: Right now small aperture lasers can maintain tight coherency over a range of some millions of miles. I just verified these points with this helpful article http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19880014441
We've made up diffraction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction).
That site annoys me, the dude running it seems to think that the ability to spot the lazier mistakes in science fiction confers the ability to know all right and wrong. It's like a giant forum argument against a strawman. And the sheer lack of imagination makes me wonder what kind of perverse impulses drives the man to study science fiction.
I mean reactionless drives are supposed to be impossible without completely screwing physics? Okay, well what happens when you take mirror flywheels across your center of mass, spin them one way at one part of the orbit and spin them back at another part? Well shucks, you've just changed your orbital trajectory without a quark of propellant. I'll grant you it's hardly a powerful method given the technology we have today but it's clearly not something that's impossible. Some know it all nerds from a civilization that's only every built spacecraft around launches from earth can't tell us what engineers with completely different priorities are going to work out.
Okay, well what happens when you take mirror flywheels across your center of mass, spin them one way at one part of the orbit and spin them back at another part?Can you restate the set-up? I don't see what you're trying to do with it. Where are the flywheels? Can you draw it in paint maybe?
but not within the vehicle itselfThat's the most important part, though. No matter what you do within the closed system of the vehicle, its centre of mass will keep on its trajectory as if nothing happened. To propose a different outcome goes against as fundamental physics as Newton's 1st law of motion.
Solar sails provide thrust by placing "sails" against the flow of particles of the solar wind and transfer its momentum to the spacecraft. Therefore, the solar sail does not carry reaction mass but is not reactionless.
Well yes, but you don't need to pack a sun onboard a rocket leaving the atmosphere, and so that point is moot aside from pedantic reasons.
Could a space "ark" be built that has foliage and an entire ecosystem inside of it? Could it gain energy from the cosmic radiation throughout the galaxy?What that looks like depends on the intended payload and destination and such, but on basically every variation, the answers are most certainly and sorta.
Humans should be compared to lightbulbs as often as possible in your daily life.Don't see why not? They are inefficient, produce heat, pollute, and every once in a while they simply blow out or up.
In which case, the term to search for is Dyson Tree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_tree
Could a space "ark" be built that has foliage and an entire ecosystem inside of it? Could it gain energy from the cosmic radiation throughout the galaxy?Hypothetically, yes, but the problem is that radiation is such a small value unless you are very close to a star that you would probably be losing more energy through heat loss and other leakages then you were taking in in radiation. That said if you could lower shields or something to stop energy escaping except when you were close enough to a star to gain more then you lost, it would certainly be a viable option (as others have pointed out).
This particular launch is headed to the L1 point, between the earth and the sun. To maximize the boost from the earth's rotation, (I think) they would want to be burning straight eastward into space. This would make any point of launch on earth the most northerly or southerly point on the trajectory. It would also make 90 degrees east of the launch point the first point where it crosses the equator, and thus about where you would want to do your burn to expand the orbit out to the L1 point such that you aren't being flung into space out of line with the sun.That's not how launches to L1 and L2 are made. The spacecraft use Lissajous orbits. You're not aiming for a stationary target, but for an 'orbit' around the Lagrangian point in a plane perpendicular to the ecliptic (simplified). The transfer orbit is not meant to be coplanar with the ecliptic.
Since your highest point is opposite your lowest point in an orbit, and the lowest point would be this second burn location, and the intended highest point has a local time of noon (between earth and the sun), your burn position is roughly midnight local time and your launch time is roughly 6 PM local time, available most days. (though I think this would be affected by the location and time of the year, due to the axial tilt and the fact that you're aiming for the equator of the earth-sun system, rather than the earth's rotational equator, making it plus or minus ~2 hours)
Essentially, a launch to a stationary target as opposed to things like the ISS, where it's a very dynamic target.
SpaceX’s plan calls for constructing a 60-meter by 60-meter square concrete landing pad surrounded by four additional 45-meter diameter “contingency” pads, according to a 2014 environmental impact statement prepared for SpaceX and the Air Force.
“The contingency pads would only be utilized in order to enable the safe landing of a single vehicle should last-second navigation and landing diversion be required. There are no plans to utilize the contingency pads in order to enable landing multiple stages”
The Swiss - or rather, Swiss Space Systems and the EPFL - are developing the CleanSpace series of drones. CleanSpace One will latch onto a defunct satellite and bomb it into the atmosphere so they both burn up. It's a good idea, though seems like it'd be expensive.I've always wondered about inflating huge masses of aerogel or similar in eccentric orbits to absorb debris in a way that doesn't produce more (something less friable than aerogel maybe?). It seems like a losing battle to do it all robotically, especially if you have to drop the drone back into the atmosphere afterwards. Also that seems like a bad idea when you could maybe just change its orbit to reentry, let go, and change it back sans debris. Maybe laser a bit of the debris for more propellant? :D I dunno I have bad ideas about space sometimes.
Link. (http://space.epfl.ch/CleanSpaceOne)
It's not a country funded effort by the looks of it (as far as universities aren't country funded) but I like the idea.
Kessler Syndrome is a definite threat. There's what, 17000 hazardous objects being tracked in Earth orbit? So something trying to reduce that is welcome.
You can't really change the orbit of spent stages from rocketsI was getting at the drone ionizing a portion of the debris' mass, very gradually using a laser pumped by solar-charged capacitors, and using that as propellant in an ion thruster. You'd have to adapt it to use lots of different materials, which I'm not sure is feasible because I'm not an engineer, but you wouldn't be wasting the drone (or at least until the storage media gets eaten through by vaporized metals), and you could keep hold of the debris long enough to adjust orbit to the next target. Of course, releasing satellites that are predators for other satellites may be worse than a kessler syndrome, but maybe they could just aggregate stuff together instead. That's useful, if annoying when the ISS gets dragged into a space-dustpile by little space-janitors.
Doing it robotically would be expensive and time consuming but it would be a guarantee of the junk being gone.
Lasers might work for smaller debris if you can get lasers onto already orbiting stations specifically for that purpose but larger objects would take forever to destroy that way, but I could be wrong because I don't know much about lasers
You can't really change the orbit of spent stages from rockets
Doing it robotically would be expensive and time consuming but it would be a guarantee of the junk being gone.
Lasers might work for smaller debris if you can get lasers onto already orbiting stations specifically for that purpose but larger objects would take forever to destroy that way, but I could be wrong because I don't know much about lasers
Oh thank god I wasn't the only one who thought they would be addorableThey would have to be sufficiently adorable to charm Putin, at least, because all of his tacticians would be screaming at him that they pose a threat to their satellites. So little dog-tongues hanging out the side and bugged-out eyes, at bare minimum.
Are there engineers/scholars/entrepreneurs suggesting orbiting debris lasing satellites? What I have read has suggested this technique would be Earth-based and focused on slowing things down, not vaporizing them entirely. That also has the bonus of not needing to be in orbit to get debris out of orbit. Sure, it's inefficient, but inefficiency isn't such a large problem on Earth where heat-sinking is comparatively trivial and there aren't nearly so many constraints on power generation.There's the legal problem there of essentially developing an anti-sat laser. Not to mention the engineering problems of lasing through that much atmosphere while still retaining the power to vaporize.
I suspect a capture-type system would end up being more energy expensive, because it needs lots of fuel at all stages of the mission. You need fuel to launch the systems, the capture mechanism needs fuel to intercept debris and push it out of orbit.
How would you slow something down that is in or it with lasers? Wouldn't they just speed up again because they are orbiting? Or do I just not know anything?When you strike something with a sufficiently powerful laser, the surface is vaporized and ablated. Striking the side of an object against the direction of its orbit would cause the resulting vaporized debris to propel it the other way.
((I'm not very well educated on this stuff, I'm a guy that wants to be a nuclear or aerospace engineer so zero g stuff is not my forte))
Ninja'd!More than that, you can speed it up and still achieve a decaying orbit. Push it along the current vector, you accelerate it, and it reaches a higher orbit along one lobe. But push it against any other vector, and some part of the orbit will dip even if it's going faster, because the orbital path is -turning-, and if any part of that path hits the atmosphere, you've achieved a decaying orbit. It's counterintuitive, but you can actually fall out of orbit by going faster the wrong way :D
You can get KSP directly from their website (https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/), no steam involved.
Think of an orbit kind of like a battery for kinetic energy. The more energy, the more speed, and the higher the orbit. If you slow down an object, its orbit dips lower, and slow it down enough, it will start brushing against the atmosphere, which will slow it down further due to drag and eventually cause it to deorbit.
Basically, objects try to fall straight down, but orbit is what happens when they're moving sideways fast enough to miss the planet when they do. They keep falling on this "miss," until gravity slingshots them back towards what they're orbiting around and they miss again.
Yes, direction is important, as is where on the orbit you apply the acceleration.Ninja'd!More than that, you can speed it up and still achieve a decaying orbit. Push it along the current vector, you accelerate it, and it reaches a higher orbit along one lobe. But push it against any other vector, and some part of the orbit will dip even if it's going faster, because the orbital path is -turning-, and if any part of that path hits the atmosphere, you've achieved a decaying orbit. It's counterintuitive, but you can actually fall out of orbit by going faster the wrong way :D
You can get KSP directly from their website (https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/), no steam involved.
Think of an orbit kind of like a battery for kinetic energy. The more energy, the more speed, and the higher the orbit. If you slow down an object, its orbit dips lower, and slow it down enough, it will start brushing against the atmosphere, which will slow it down further due to drag and eventually cause it to deorbit.
Basically, objects try to fall straight down, but orbit is what happens when they're moving sideways fast enough to miss the planet when they do. They keep falling on this "miss," until gravity slingshots them back towards what they're orbiting around and they miss again.
Hypotheticaly speaking, for space debris just have drones fly in orbit with onboard automated computing systems that angles themselves to shoot the debris away from the earth, or at least towards it and into much smaller fragmented pieces. however, I wonder if over a long period of time it would mess with the atmosphere? That's just a conjecture however.You'd need a lot more space junk than we currently have to create a noticeable effect if you burn it all up. Much larger volumes of rock disintegrate in the atmosphere all the time.
There's the legal problem there of essentially developing an anti-sat laser. Not to mention the engineering problems of lasing through that much atmosphere while still retaining the power to vaporize.
Has anyone seen the news about the very high plumes over Mars?I do wonder what it is.
Neat.
The Moon Nazis colonized Mars back in the 70's to build a vast space armada in order to re-take Earth once and for all, and now they've finally finished. Invasion fleet in 30 minutes.Has anyone seen the news about the very high plumes over Mars?I do wonder what it is.
Neat.
'Tis a mystery.
Towards midnight onWar of the Worlds, Chapter 1.
12 August, one astronomer noticed a great cloud of hot gas on
the surface of the planet.
...
Thick clouds of smoke or dust, which looked like little grey,
moving spots through a powerful telescope on Earth, spread
through the clearness of the planet's atmosphere and hid its more
familiar features
I seem to remember a film that was very similar except about the moon, lets see if I can find it... ah, here it is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky)!The Moon Nazis colonized Mars back in the 70's to build a vast space armada in order to re-take Earth once and for all, and now they've finally finished. Invasion fleet in 30 minutes.Has anyone seen the news about the very high plumes over Mars?I do wonder what it is.
Neat.
'Tis a mystery.
/shitposting
War of the Worlds, Chapter 1.If this wasn't your first thought then you lose.
:P
There's the legal problem there of essentially developing an anti-sat laser. Not to mention the engineering problems of lasing through that much atmosphere while still retaining the power to vaporize.Unless you push your laser into space and give it a bunch of radiators! Solar power FTW.
Yup. Laser-powered engines have been theorized. Since all an engine does is burn reaction mass which is exhausted from the rear of the ship, propelling it forward, all you do is aim a big dumb laser at the solid remass on the back of the ship and it flies away at speed.How would you slow something down that is in or it with lasers? Wouldn't they just speed up again because they are orbiting? Or do I just not know anything?When you strike something with a sufficiently powerful laser, the surface is vaporized and ablated. Striking the side of an object against the direction of its orbit would cause the resulting vaporized debris to propel it the other way.
((I'm not very well educated on this stuff, I'm a guy that wants to be a nuclear or aerospace engineer so zero g stuff is not my forte))
what was today's chance?
Perhaps we're just looking for the wrong things? They could be using different wavelengths to us, for example.
Perhaps we're just looking for the wrong things? They could be using different wavelengths to us, for example.Or there's no proper way of transmitting stuff in the EM spectrum over such a large distance without it appearing as natural or being undetectable due to blooming or some other effect?
Or the great filter.
Or Reapers.
Why would it? They'd have no cultural context to even know anything about the Nazis. As far as an unaware observer would be concerned it's just a series of competitions of physical prowess, presided over by a state comprised of people who are long-dead.
To be honest they didn't look for emissions, but for what would be the results of some kind of galaxy-wide dyson sphere: the waste heat signature of a civilization that manage to harvest and use a significant portion of their galaxy's power output. I'm actually glad they didn't, that kind of power would scare me shitless.Yeah okay I'm going to go have nightmares about that now, thanks.
To be honest they didn't look for radio emissions, but for what would be the results of some kind of galaxy-wide dyson sphere: the waste heat signature of a civilization that manage to harvest and use a significant portion of their galaxy's power output. I'm actually glad they didn't, that kind of power would scare me shitless.
Why would it? They'd have no cultural context to even know anything about the Nazis. As far as an unaware observer would be concerned it's just a series of competitions of physical prowess, presided over by a state comprised of people who are long-dead.We also have no context for what alien culture and politics would be like. For all we know, they could look down upon democracy on principle, and would be best buddies with the Nazis. We just don't know.
Why would it? They'd have no cultural context to even know anything about the Nazis. As far as an unaware observer would be concerned it's just a series of competitions of physical prowess, presided over by a state comprised of people who are long-dead.We also have no context for what alien culture and politics would be like. For all we know, they could look down upon democracy on principle, and would be best buddies with the Nazis. We just don't know.
Even in our own galaxy, a spacegoing civilization's messages could take over a hundred thousand years to reach us.
Worse, unless they're specifically broadcasting in all directions at an immensely high power, we might not even get their signal anyway - as the signal spreads out, it weakens. Our broadcast 'leakage' from the 20th century (Now largely gone with the fall of high-power radio transmitters as a communications technology) won't reach all that far either.
Worse, if aliens do pick up our signals by a miraculous chance, there's a damn good chance that the first broadcast they'd recieve is that 1936 Olympic Games.
That could get a little socially awkward later on.
Couldn't be a training montage. Eye of the Tiger hadn't been recorded yet.Why would it? They'd have no cultural context to even know anything about the Nazis. As far as an unaware observer would be concerned it's just a series of competitions of physical prowess, presided over by a state comprised of people who are long-dead.Or they could think it is a training montage sent as a threat.
Warp Drive (http://sputniknews.com/us/20150425/1021360503.html)
That is all
yes i realize it probably won't pan out. i don't care
On topic, yeah, I completely and dully expect this to be another hoax or jump from the gun the media has us used to. Most likely when they repeat the experiment on vacuum they'll discover that it was the air after all or that it's a error on the measurement or something along those lines.
It would be awesome however if true AND really applicable in a practical way to space travel. It could open up a whole new level of resources to the human race to exploit. We could really lay the foundations for a unified human empire across the stars.
Anyway Progress is currently spinning out of control.I took this sentence at face value before I clicked the link, not noticing the capital 'P'. Now it reads like an ironic newspaper headline. On a similarly spinning newspaper, cartoon style with drumroll.
Since you're here, what do you think about the Em-drive concept?
You called?
Short answer - not much, without using several metric shit tons of electricity which you would be better off using to run some more efficient mechanism. Like lasers. Or motors. Or an ion engine.
Longer answer - the mean magnetic field strength of the Earth at its surface is about 4.5*10^-5 Tesla - several orders of magnitude weaker than a fridge magnet. This means to generate even a modest thrust you need a fewhundredthousandmillion coulombs of charge moving around (via good old F = Bqv or F = BIL). That sort of current will do bad things, like ionize the air around you, melt your vehicle and so on. Sounds a good idea for a weapon though, or defensive system - literally melting ferrous projectiles via inducing huge currents, or some such. Interestingly, while doing some reading for this answer, I discovered that it takes 16 Tesla to levitate a frog... (http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2000). We could use the strongest magnets we have ever made (33ish Tesla, superconducting cryo electromagnets used in the LHC) to lift 2 frogs.
I discovered that it takes 16 Tesla to levitate a frog... (http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2000).
I discovered that it takes 16 Tesla to levitate a frog... We could use the strongest magnets we have ever made (33ish Tesla, superconducting cryo electromagnets used in the LHC) to lift 2 frogs.What, you need twice as dense a flux to lift twice the mass against constant force? Shouldn't 33T propel as many frogs as you like at ~1g upwards?
It seems to be passing muster though. Though at the same time, it also seems to be violating the conversation of energy.Since you're here, what do you think about the Em-drive concept?
I am sceptical of the proposed mechanism of force production claimed in EMDrive proposals. I am also sceptical of the claimed results - such forces as claimed are so small as to be well within the bounds of errors or other propulsive effects of EM radiation. Though this is a form of scepticism that I hope is wrong, as I often do with "revolutionary" physics.
Momentum is a measure of kinetic energyMind telling us more about it? Because it looks like some new physics to me.
I discovered that it takes 16 Tesla to levitate a frog... We could use the strongest magnets we have ever made (33ish Tesla, superconducting cryo electromagnets used in the LHC) to lift 2 frogs.What, you need twice as dense a flux to lift twice the mass against constant force? Shouldn't 33T propel as many frogs as you like at ~1g upwards?
snipI don't get what you're saying there. What is 'ancient newtonian stuff'?
light prefers to exist as waves instead of particles. It only does the particle pattern when being watched very closely.
For momentum in general, you have a moving object that has mass. (scalar, we dont know what direction it is moving.)
snipwierd, look. I don't mean to offend here. What you wrote is just a confused word salad, don't you know? It looks like you've made your own definitions of well-defined quantities, with properties that they don't have.
Momentum is indeed a vector quantity.Then, doesn't the energy turn into matter and antimatter?
In regards to the momentum of light:
E=mc2. This is identical to E=pc (where p is momentum, equal to mc). This means that light has momentum by existing as the equivalent amount of energy.
The energy of light can be given by E=hf=hc/λ (where h is Planck's constant, f is frequency and λ is wavelength).
We can then equate the two together. E=hc/λ=pc. Thus, the momentum can be expressed as p=h/λ.
This is assuming that I haven't gone wrong somewhere.
Also, mass is not "created" within the LHC.
In the LHC, they accelerate protons to 99.99% c. This gives them huge amounts of energy (relative to the proton's rest mass). Ek=0.5mv2.
Let's multiply this by 2 because we are colliding two protons together. Therefore Ek=2(0.5mv2).
When a collision occurs, the two protons are converted to pure energy, E = 2(0.5mv2). This then converts into physical particles via pair production, satisfying the conditions of E=mc2.
snipwierd, look. I don't mean to offend here. What you wrote is just a confused word salad, don't you know? It looks like you've made your own definitions of well-defined quantities, with properties that they don't have.
These definitions are there to facilitate communication and remove ambiguity. As it stands I don't know what you mean when you say momentum or energy or any of the other terms and I'm not sure you know what I mean when I use them.
Word salad?That's not what I was talking about.
A vector quantity has a magnitude and a direction. (that's why it is a vector)
A scalar quantity just has a magnitude.
How does this differ from the established definitions?
The two kinds of energy must have some degree of interchangeabilityand you lost me there already. I don't know what two kinds of energy you mean.
The energy absorbed imparts a net vector away from the the flashlight's scalar field's point of origin in the form of light pressurewhich it doesn't. The energy doesn't 'do' anything. It's just a quantity conserved in the interaction. The thing that does affect the motion directly is the momentum.
For momentum in general, you have a moving object that has mass. (scalar, we dont know what direction it is moving.)While mass is a scalar, velocity is a vector, and the product of the two is still a vector. So when talking about momentum of an object, we do know (or must know) which direction it's moving.
(We treat the object as if it were standing still compared to the surrounding environment; we are approaching this from the object's reference frame. Much like you feel like you are sitting still sitting in your chair, when in fact you are moving bitching fast in several vectors of movement along with the earth, with the earth/sun system, and with the earth/sun/galaxy system. You feel like you are standing still, because you have your own reference frame. In reality you are carrying some absurd amount of kinetic energy along with you in your reference frame.)Which uses some confused terminology.
In reality you are carrying some absurd amount of kinetic energy along with you in your reference frameit's another case of confused terminology. It's incorrect to say that objects carry kinetic energy in their rest frame. They don't, that's why it's a rest frame. The correct thing to say is that kinetic energy (and momentum too) are frame-dependent. It doesn't mean that 'in reality' there's some energy somewhere out there - it means that kinetic energy has no absolute value and can be only discussed by first specifying a reference frame.
I am saying that the increase in energy needed to impart any new vector to this object, the total energy you are already carrying influences how much your vector changes based on a fixed input of energy. In this way, the energy imparted is indistinguishable from a mass term. It acts like you are heavier. This is true no matter what direction you try to alter the vector.suggests that your kinetic energy in some reference frame affects changes in motion in your rest frame. I don't know if that's what you mean. I hope not.
When you can conserve the vector to a null definition, it becomes scalar, because direction is meaningless after that.You can't change a vector to a scalar by taking a limit. Even an infinitesimally small vector is still a vector. A limit doesn't mean that something becomes zero - it approaches zero.
Another way to put this-- Shining a light beam into a black hole-- what changes, it's rotation or its mass?Why present only these two options there? Both mass and momentum change.
What is that?Something rather silly.
What is that?Something rather silly.
til it escapes the star or the star explodes.With advanced enough technology you could also hypothetically siphon out the built-up helium and replace it with harvested hydrogen, essentially allowing your Sun to keep burning for as long as you had access to the required amounts of hydrogen (or the energy needed to fission the siphoned helium back down to hydrogen).
I like that. A thing to keep in mind, too, is that if you were to observe the sun from 4 billion lightyears away, there would hardly be an earth. You'd have to get with in a few hundred million lightyears to even find any signs of life here, and we've only been here for 2,000 lightyears' worth of time-distance. We're seeing all those planets from hundreds of millions to billions of lightyears away. That's a lot of time for a civilization to grow, fall, grow again, fall again, and so on until it escapes the star or the star explodes.The problem is though, that's a huge amount of time. In a mere few thousand years, we went from building mud huts to building spacecraft. In a mere few decades, we went from mechanical computers to devices so capable and widespread that we now have raw computing power exceeding that of a human brain. (http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/02/adding-up-the-worlds-storage-and-computation-capacities/) A civilization like ours, left unchecked for a mere millenia? It would likely be solar-system spanning.
Hundred of billions of times throughout the distance of the galaxy.
As for roy's point 3, that becomes more and more like grasping at straws given recent information...Yeah, and personally I'd love for life to be common. My point is mainly the fact that right now we are essentially trying to guess at an entire trend line from a single point of data. We still haven't exactly figured out all the things required to get the whole evolution process going from raw chemicals (though we're getting closer, and there's plenty of top scientists working on different ideas as we speak), so it's mainly just me saying "at this point we don't have enough info to make a solid estimate, or even a wild one". There are scientists out there that have placed the values low enough that we are probably the only ones in our galaxy, and there are others who have said we should be one species out of billions, and both of them know plenty more than I ever will. :P
raw computing power exceeding that of a human brain. (http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/02/adding-up-the-worlds-storage-and-computation-capacities/)I find it funny that that seems like an amazing accomplishment. I find it more amazing that a single human brain could hold (nearly) all the data in the world. :P
Not quite. A single human brain could perform as many individual nerve firings as the number of computer operations as of 4 years ago, so a fair bit less than the amount now. To match our storage capacity then we would need to overwrite all of the DNA in your body (last line of the article).raw computing power exceeding that of a human brain. (http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/02/adding-up-the-worlds-storage-and-computation-capacities/)I find it funny that that seems like an amazing accomplishment. I find it more amazing that a single human brain could hold (nearly) all the data in the world. :P
still pretty cool though.Not quite. A single human brain could perform as many individual nerve firings as the number of computer operations as of 4 years ago, so a fair bit less than the amount now. To match our storage capacity then we would need to overwrite all of the DNA in your body (last line of the article).raw computing power exceeding that of a human brain. (http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/02/adding-up-the-worlds-storage-and-computation-capacities/)I find it funny that that seems like an amazing accomplishment. I find it more amazing that a single human brain could hold (nearly) all the data in the world. :P
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
7 x 10-5 kg m-3 during a dust devil
Just over a month! (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rendezvous-pluto)
In case anyone isn't already hyped for New Horizons's rendezvous.
To me it seems like the complex nature of the orbits results in some rather extreme tidal forces, hence the ovoid shapes. I await good data with enthusiasm.The actual shapes are not actually yet determined. There's pictures floating around that portray them as ellipsoids, but these are from shapes used in simulations/artist impressions. I wouldn't expect much regularity in the real thing.
The "Three body problem" has been a thorn in the side of complex orbital systems for many years.Oh, wierd. Why do you do this to me? :'(
Yay. Wait, "Philae shut down on 15 November 2015 at 1:15 CET"...I think there's a typo in there somewhere.Dammit, we told it to use the Red Phonebox, not the blue one.
snipI've got more issues with your response than with the original statement, but I'm not going to nitpick. I do get your main thrust - it's a system with interesting dynamics.
snipI've got more issues with your response than with the original statement, but I'm not going to nitpick. I do get your main thrust - it's a system with interesting dynamics.
I just wish you were more precise with your statements, and make sure you don't say things you are not certain about - as a self-proclaimed armchair scientist you should hold yourself to high standards of discourse, IMHO.
Or, do you want me to have to explain why a non-spheroid, or non-elliptical orbit in a 3 body system is outside the scope of the current model, as clarification for my original statement about how the 3-body problem has been a thorn in the side of science for years? (Last I checked, a problem that is over 400 years old, NOT BEING FULLY SOLVED, satisfies all of those conditions.)So, were you trying to say that the observation of Pluto's system might help solve this age-old problem? Is that about the gist of it?
Between this and the "pyramid" on Ceres, you start to wonder if Nature (or an alien race) is fucking around with us.I'd say we're fucking with nature by inventing shapes she already had created. Nature must be all: 'but how did you know I had a geographic feature on some far-away rock that looks just like that? What are you trying to tell me?'
Neat new item: Astronomers find first quintuple star system. (http://www.cnet.com/news/astronomers-make-first-five-star-find/)Wait until we go there (because we have to, having made a mess of Earth That Was) and terraform the many planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Firefly_planets_and_moons)...
It's a set of two binary pairs with a single star. If I read the diagram correctly, it's a contact binary on one side of the barycenter and then a detached binary on the other side with a single star orbiting that binary.
Gravity calculations must be hella fun in that system...
new Pluto picture
[...]
"A portrait of Pluto (right) and its moon Charon in a colorized, composite image made July 11 during the final approach of the New Horizons spacecraft. Astronomers are eager to get a much closer view of the icy world Tuesday."
It's a real shame they didn't bother to send a probe over there. Even a crash probe would have been fun to have a closer look of pluto. A rover would have been just fucking amazing but I imagine it would be really hard to land something there considering the speed of New Horizons and the lack of aero breaking.Yeah, they'd need a delta-V of at least 9000 m/s to match Pluto. And a rather different approach path.
Hmm....wonder if a nuclear pulse propulsion would work as an effective brake. Something like Project Orion or Medusa, but instead of using nuke pulses to accelerate the craft, you'd use something like New Horizons' ion engines to get the ship there, then use nuke pulses to slow it down rapidly once its in the vicinity.
Be one hell of an engineering challenge, and scary to have to control all this remotely from 9 light-hours away. And because nuclear propulsion has such a PR negative, you'd almost have to build it in space to start with, even if you're not using the nukes for main propulsion.
It might be unviable and crazy but it just occured to me that they could try something like physical braking. Like, get on as close an approach as possible to it, like, kilometers away from the surface. Then fire off a number of very long cables with drillheads or something to lodge somewhere in the landscape. They then use the elasticity of the cables to slow down the craft enough for it to get into an orbit of sorts before attempting to land.Let's perfect the extremely low speed grappling of comet cores, first (note: first ever attempt failed1). But also note all the practical problems mentioned in http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrapplingHookPistol (and then the problems of getting lost in TVTropes...) and work out how to scale this to get multiple-multiple-kilometres of (as also mentioned, impossibly-strong!) cable and workable grapple and sufficiently powerful launch mechanism and/or grapple-end thrusters to end up attaching and all the control mechanisms needed to ensure sufficiently clean trajectories without tangling and all without significantly reducing the science package you're trying to get there... and then work out what you do when you have swooped down to mere kilometres from the surface with your over-speed probe, and are now not just swooping over the surface, with more than enough relatively velocity to get slungshot back out into space, but are now attached to the planet by one or more tethers like an already pretty much fouled up swingball around its post...
(until we come up with something revolutionary, which isn't harpoons)...I've decided what it is. It's springs. Or, to be precise, one big spring. Under tremendous compression. A big weight at the front and the probe at the back. (You can do forward-looking science around the edges, or through a hole you leave in the middle. Or just be prepared to turn the craft around, at will, obviously.)
though I believe it's possible, breaking the sound barrier was impossible until it was doneWay, WAY, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY different barriers.
(until we come up with something revolutionary, which isn't harpoons)...I've decided what it is. It's springs. Or, to be precise, one big spring. Under tremendous compression. A big weight at the front and the probe at the back. (You can do forward-looking science around the edges, or through a hole you leave in the middle. Or just be prepared to turn the craft around, at will, obviously.)
On reaching Pluto (and reorientating, as necessary)... BOING! Weight bit flies forward at tremendous speed, and the probe bit significantly retards its velocity
Absolutely it'd work! And I see no problems at all with this design! No, siree!
I would not trust nuclear pulse propulsion to not totally ruin any sensitive science packages on a craft without the extra radiation shielding making the mass prohibitive.Not to mention irradiating Pluto. Poor plutonians! (Unless, as mentioned, they're Arachnids. In which case go ahead... Probably won't do any harm. Or good. You'd need to get really close to actually wipe them out, and not just make them angry.)
FAKE EDIT:Or, if you'd re-read the post in the tone I wrote it1, you'd realise that not only was I releasing the mass, but I was also utterly joking. ;)
I've just re-read your post, and it seems that you are releasing the spring before you hit the planet. If the mass remains attached to the spring, then there is no point, the spacecraft as a whole would continue as it was before. If you intend on releasing the mass, it would be easier and more efficient to use a more conventional rocket instead.
I'm still hoping for FTL travel. Physical travel past the speed of light has been disproven (though I believe it's possible, breaking the sound barrier was impossible until it was done), however the technology which is being researched which bends space looks promising. http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nasa-actually-working-on-faster-than-light-warp-drive/Bullets etc could already break the sound barrier before we did it with a plane. But nothing in the universe tops light speed. Totally different, to e.g. heavier than air flight which was "impossible" before the Wright Brothers. But birds have done it forever.
Given the exponential rate of technological advancement, I'd love to see this in my lifetime. I want to visit another star in my lifetime.
Hmm....wonder if a nuclear pulse propulsion would work as an effective brake.
That's... a stranger argument than I would have given.I'm still hoping for FTL travel. Physical travel past the speed of light has been disproven (though I believe it's possible, breaking the sound barrier was impossible until it was done), however the technology which is being researched which bends space looks promising. http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nasa-actually-working-on-faster-than-light-warp-drive/Bullets etc could already break the sound barrier before we did it with a plane. But nothing in the universe tops light speed. Totally different, to e.g. heavier than air flight which was "impossible" before the Wright Brothers. But birds have done it forever.
Given the exponential rate of technological advancement, I'd love to see this in my lifetime. I want to visit another star in my lifetime.
One problem with travel even near the speed of light is that stationary protons etc become waves relative to your travel. They become supercharged particles, so light speed travel is like sitting inside a particle collider. We need something that could withstand the direct beam of the LHC and not kill people with the radiation. Near light speed there is no time for the heavy particles to go around you, so they go through you, but blue shifted into high energy spectrum..
My money is on the idea that literally raising the dead will be scientifically more achievable than FTL travel.
Super-Fast Space Travel Would Kill You in Minutes
A paper published in Natural Science brings some boring common sense to the speed-of-light-travel table. In order to travel huge distances in next to no time, people need to travel close to the speed of light. In so doing, travelers cover extremely large distances very quickly and, thanks to the quirks of relativity, would feel like it took mere minutes because of an effect known as time dilation, which squashes perceived time.
Unfortunately, as spaceship velocities approach the speed of light, interstellar hydrogen H, although only present at a density of approximately 1.8 atoms/cm3, turns into intense radiation that would quickly kill passengers and destroy electronic instrumentation. In addition, the energy loss of ionizing radiation passing through the ship's hull represents an increasing heat load that necessitates large expenditures of energy to cool the ship.
In other words, travel close to the speed of light and you'll be bombarded with so much radiation that you kick the bucket. The knock-on effect is that even if it's possible to create a craft capable of traveling close the speed of light, it wouldn't be able to transport people.
But I wasn't talking about an argument for the light speed barrier.Well, I misread the nature of your objection, then.
Like nuking the solar system you drop out of warp in. (http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/)Seems like there is a pretty easy solution to that:
You assume that the massive amount of energy propelled in front of you ever stops. It doesn't. It's just a matter of what ends up being nuked; if you're lucky, you can aim it right at a black hole and never worry about it. If you're unlucky, you just wiped out an entire planet.
You assume that the massive amount of energy propelled in front of you ever stops. It doesn't. It's just a matter of what ends up being nuked; if you're lucky, you can aim it right at a black hole and never worry about it. If you're unlucky, you just wiped out an entire planet.Space is mostly empty. Black holes themselves send out massive gamma bursts all the time. We haven't been obliterated yet, at least.
Well, the "mostly empty" portion only works out if you're not considering infinite distance. If you draw a straight line, you're bound to hit something; it just might be... far, is all.
But it's going to disperse.
Well, the "mostly empty" portion only works out if you're not considering infinite distance. If you draw a straight line, you're bound to hit something; it just might be... far, is all.And it'll be something you don't care about long after you're dead.
The EM Drive crowd is starting to really remind me of Cold Fusion nuts.
It'll probably already be dead, too. Assuming it was alive in the first place, that is.Well, the "mostly empty" portion only works out if you're not considering infinite distance. If you draw a straight line, you're bound to hit something; it just might be... far, is all.And it'll be something you don't care about long after you're dead.
You assume that the massive amount of energy propelled in front of you ever stops. It doesn't. It's just a matter of what ends up being nuked; if you're lucky, you can aim it right at a black hole and never worry about it. If you're unlucky, you just wiped out an entire planet.Nobody's done a profile of what such an energy blast would look like, at great distance, and compared it to what we've seen of Gamma Ray Bursts, have they?
Official cause of SpaceX accident: not enough struts.
A strut holding a helium canister failed, it dumped extra helium into the 2nd stage tank, causing the overpressure event and subsequent disintegration of 2nd stage. They also mentioned changing suppliers since the strut was supposed to be rated for 5x the load it was under.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/07/20/support-strut-probable-cause-of-falcon-9-failure/
The EM Drive crowd is starting to really remind me of Cold Fusion nuts.
Eh, at least it has some experimental backing from reputable sources. IIRC all cold fusion had going for it were some unconfirmed claims of fusion products from one guy in a non peer reviewed study. Still, all the media attention and wild speculation doesn't help.
Official cause of SpaceX accident: not enough struts.
A strut holding a helium canister failed, it dumped extra helium into the 2nd stage tank, causing the overpressure event and subsequent disintegration of 2nd stage. They also mentioned changing suppliers since the strut was supposed to be rated for 5x the load it was under.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/07/20/support-strut-probable-cause-of-falcon-9-failure/
I'd be more worried that the support was under 5x the load it was supposed to be.
But they've probably already got hundreds of engineers to think about that.
“The strut that we believe failed was designed in material certified to handle 10,000 pounds of force, but actually failed at 2,000 pounds force, which is a five-fold difference,” Musk said in a conference call with reporters.
“We did some material analysis … and found there were problems with the grain structure of the steel,” Musk said. “It hadn’t been formed correctly, so we think that was the problem — a bad bolt that snuck through, that looked good, but wasn’t actually good in the inside.”Nope, the rating was just wrong due to problems in the metal.
I believe the implication is considering the scenario the strut may, in fact, somehow ended up under quintuple the load that it was supposed to be carrying and failed legit. That would constitute a far more serious design problem.We'd need a source confirming that. All we know is it failed at 2000 lbs, which I guess they calculated via their instruments.
Well, the "mostly empty" portion only works out if you're not considering infinite distance. If you draw a straight line, you're bound to hit something; it just might be... far, is all.Only if the big rip or big freeze aren't true. Since space is expanding and that rate is also expanding, if the thing that you would hit is far enough away that by the time you get there space will be expanding faster than the speed of light you would never hit anything at all, since for every bit forward the blast moved it would have two bits of space created between it and it's eventual impact.
This is somewhat the reversal of the "why is the night sky dark?" question. Find an area of sky that isn't obviously a star and zoom in and there are (further, fainter) stars there. Zoom in on a gap between those stars, and there'll be more stars.Well, the "mostly empty" portion only works out if you're not considering infinite distance. If you draw a straight line, you're bound to hit something; it just might be... far, is all.Only if the big rip or big freeze aren't true. Since space is expanding and that rate is also expanding, if the thing that you would hit is far enough away that by the time you get there space will be expanding faster than the speed of light you would never hit anything at all, since for every bit forward the blast moved it would have two bits of space created between it and it's eventual impact.
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
This seems incorrect - it indicates an infinite amount of energy hitting the earth assuming an infinite universe and an Earth-vaporizing amount within only a few hundreds of thousands of ly. Did I mess up or do I get this result from assuming that all of the energy from all the stars starts off going towards the observer?The conclusion is correct. Your maths were somewhat hard to follow. I couldn't get what you did with star density there, or why approximate 4pi to 1 for luminosity but leave it for shells etc. But that might be just me being rusty.
This is a constant times the derivative of x3, which is 3x2. We end up with 4*pi*E after cancelling, which is a constant roughly equal to 5x1027 J/s. This seems incorrect - it indicates an infinite amount of energy hitting the earth assuming an infinite universe and an Earth-vaporizing amount within only a few hundreds of thousands of ly. Did I mess up or do I get this result from assuming that all of the energy from all the stars starts off going towards the observer?
-snip-
-snip-
Wouldn't the most effective space weapon just be a good missile?Not necessarily. A missile will have a long distance to travel and a very small radius in which it is effective. It's vulnerable to point defence, such as lasers. It can be dodged - if it misses the first pass, it's unlikely to have enough full left to turn back round. As it's slower than light, you'll have the ability to see it coming and shoot it down, probably again with lasers. Missiles can be spoofed with chaff or electronic warfare.
Railgusn have the weakness that they have no correction ability for a target moving out of your firing prediction. Lasers are much faster, so it's harder to dodge; missiles can correct their aim on the go; but railguns have neither the speed of a laser or the self-aiming ability of a missile.Wouldn't the most effective space weapon just be a good missile?Railguns would probably be better. They could accelerate to greater speeds so that they're harder to detect in time, and you don't need to carry explosive ammunition/fuel with you. Just need electricity.
Wouldn't the most effective space weapon just be a good missile?Basically it boils down to what kind of technology is available. If missiles (and by extension kinetic projectiles in general) can be easily intercepted or otherwise prevented from reaching their target by point defense systems, then it's probable that direct-fire lightspeed or near-c weapons will take on a more direct role. If such projectiles cannot be easily stopped at all, by maneuver or otherwise, kinetic weapons might well be cheaper and thus more plentiful than missiles. Generally, however, the probable engagement distances of fractional light-seconds once you're outside of very low orbits (and hence no longer have any sort of "horizon" to worry about) will make low-velocity kinetics ("low" being relative to the speed of light) much less useful than either lasers (which have the same velocity as your detection systems) or missiles (which can make course corrections to counteract enemy maneuvers or simple inaccuracies). Again, though, technology - if you can't build lasers capable of defeating enemy armor in terms of similar mass-budgets at such distances or the tyranny of the rocket equation precludes missiles both operating and maneuvering at that distance, such that engagement envelopes are measured in tens, hundred, or thousands of kilometers, then kinetic weapons start to look more attractive.
@Gilgamesh- well what is it then? Earlier I was told that an ion pulse would spread itself out because of the charge all being the same and now your telling me it's a beam? Wouldn't a beam not fit that whole spreading itself out effect?Alright, now we're getting some details on the technology available. Earth-Moon system means that most of the broad strokes apply, actually, you'd need to be in planetary orbit, and likely low planetary orbit, for the planet itself to change the game. As for beam diffusion, your particle beam is going to lose power fast as it spreads out - you don't want it to spread out too much, not if you want it to hit its target(s) and actually do anything. Your shields need to be orders of magnitude weaker between fighters and heavy ships to work in this manner. As well, if it's so trivial to wipe out fighters, then the awkward question quickly arises of why fighters are even utilized. You don't benefit from them from a volume analysis (acceleration is based on mass, but velocities are not restricted by cross-sectional area like they are on Earth) or range extension (on Earth, fighters are utilized to extend strike capabilities over the horizon or beyond gun range, which is less important when there is no horizon and no gravity or atmosphere to reduce gun ranges), you can't protect them, and if they get shot down before they ever get close to their targets, then the resources that went into their construction were effectively wasted.
Also this weapon would be used at a greater distance and a crap load of energy put into it so basicaly firing (by the time it gets to the target anyway not straight out the barrel) a wall of charged particles (ya going a but soft scifi on this) that would knock out the incoming fighters electronics but not past the larger ships shielding. And with the why are they at war? Same reasons we would have war.
Religion, resources (Dune anyone? Maybe there is a very rare resource that while not entirely needed (not referencing dune right now) is highly desirable. Civilizations would have war over this resource), politics, civil war (I suppose this might fit with politics but eh), racism towards the other space fairing civs, etc.
@i2amroy- Most of the combat in this game will be taking place near (like as close as the moon is to earth near) planets. The shotgun/ion beam whatever it is might also be used against planets, think like a mobile solar flare generator. You could knock out an entire planet in a couple shots or at least take out the tech in larger/more populated areas.
Edit: also who's to say you can't fit on equipment to adjust a projectiles flight that is fired from a rail gun? After all it's not traveling a few hundred feet, not a couple miles, maybe not even a hundred miles but more there is enough distance for adjustment. Also choosing railguns over lasers because they have the weight to punch through shielding and possibly smaller than a laser and cheaper.
After all wouldn't it be easier to generate a shield that deflected lasers or absorbed their energy than it would be to make something that deflected multiple heavy rods. (I say multiple because it would be roughly the same energy to fire a couple of rods as it would be to fire a sustained energy beam of similar strength)
Railgusn have the weakness that they have no correction ability for a target moving out of your firing prediction. Lasers are much faster, so it's harder to dodge; missiles can correct their aim on the go; but railguns have neither the speed of a laser or the self-aiming ability of a missile.Wouldn't lasers lose focus at a distance? There are bits of space dust everywhere stealing your laser's power, too. You might end up heating your ship more than your opponent's.
@Gilgamesh- well what is it then? Earlier I was told that an ion pulse would spread itself out because of the charge all being the same and now your telling me it's a beam? Wouldn't a beam not fit that whole spreading itself out effect?Ok. To answer your points
Also this weapon would be used at a greater distance and a crap load of energy put into it so basicaly firing (by the time it gets to the target anyway not straight out the barrel) a wall of charged particles (ya going a but soft scifi on this) that would knock out the incoming fighters electronics but not past the larger ships shielding. And with the why are they at war? Same reasons we would have war.
Religion, resources (Dune anyone? Maybe there is a very rare resource that while not entirely needed (not referencing dune right now) is highly desirable. Civilizations would have war over this resource), politics, civil war (I suppose this might fit with politics but eh), racism towards the other space fairing civs, etc.
@i2amroy- Most of the combat in this game will be taking place near (like as close as the moon is to earth near) planets. The shotgun/ion beam whatever it is might also be used against planets, think like a mobile solar flare generator. You could knock out an entire planet in a couple shots or at least take out the tech in larger/more populated areas.
Edit: also who's to say you can't fit on equipment to adjust a projectiles flight that is fired from a rail gun? After all it's not traveling a few hundred feet, not a couple miles, maybe not even a hundred miles but more there is enough distance for adjustment. Also choosing railguns over lasers because they have the weight to punch through shielding and possibly smaller than a laser and cheaper.
After all wouldn't it be easier to generate a shield that deflected lasers or absorbed their energy than it would be to make something that deflected multiple heavy rods. (I say multiple because it would be roughly the same energy to fire a couple of rods as it would be to fire a sustained energy beam of similar strength)
Absolutely, they'll lose focus over distance subject to defraction. Lasers are also quite ineffecient, so you'll have a lot of problems with losing the heat once you've fired the laser. You could get around that with using some kind of heatsink, but then you're limited by the heat capacity of it. Radiators would be large but impossible to armour.Railgusn have the weakness that they have no correction ability for a target moving out of your firing prediction. Lasers are much faster, so it's harder to dodge; missiles can correct their aim on the go; but railguns have neither the speed of a laser or the self-aiming ability of a missile.Wouldn't lasers lose focus at a distance? There are bits of space dust everywhere stealing your laser's power, too. You might end up heating your ship more than your opponent's.
Sure, space is big, but there's only a few points where people are actually going to be. Orbits, lagrange points, and going in-between them.That's why I said "with enough spare fuel to take less efficient paths". :P
-snip-Point, though that's obviously something that is actively transmitting in the radio band right at you, and not taking any real steps to avoid detection at all (in fact it's actively trying to get your attention). There's plenty of countermeasures an attacker could take that would make detecting them more difficult, such as any combinations of:
You've got to burn to slow down, though, and that's difficult to hide when approaching a target. It is pointed at them, after all.-snip-Point, though that's obviously something that is actively transmitting in the radio band right at you, and not taking any real steps to avoid detection at all (in fact it's actively trying to get your attention). There's plenty of countermeasures an attacker could take that would make detecting them more difficult, such as any combinations of:
1) Only burning far away, and then "coasting" the rest of the distance.
2) Using vacuum insulation between an inner and outer hull, and then coating the outer hull with an extremely cold substance after any burns to reduce thermal profiles.
3) Approaching from the other side or next to a warmer thermal body, such as a planet, thus letting its heat signature drown out your own.
4) Approaching from the direction of a more active background area, such as along the milky way, thus lowering the difference between your own thermal output and theirs.
5) If you do have to do a burn that is close enough to be easily detected, launch a handful of decoys in different directions that are hotter but smaller, then have both you and the decoys "go dark" by cooling their outer hull. The end result would make it very difficult to tell which direction you went in.
To build off the black plane, I'd say it's more of a matter of two people in a black plane with a background that is constantly twinkling slightly, with a few very bright lights scattered about, and with lamps that are only really visible when they are "pushing" and the rest of the time are basically invisible; still possible to track someone down in, but much more difficult.
You've got to burn to slow down, though, and that's difficult to hide when approaching a target. It is pointed at them, after all.Yeah, but we're still talking about warning consisting of hours or minutes instead of weeks. And you could even use the "I'm here" burn to hide your actual invasion or infiltration forces, by having your big ship just drop into orbit and then doing small sideways launches to launch the actual forces, concealing those particular burns by the heat signature of the larger one.
-snip-I agree with everything you said except for one key thing. It is possible for a material resource to be scarce in the sense of how much is available at an economic price. For example let's assume that for some strange reason I need an incredibly enormous amount of iron, to build my vast and mighty spaceships. The cost and availability of iron that is sourced in-solar system (of which there is a distinct, relatively finite amount), is going to be magnitudes cheaper than me attempting to import iron from another solar system due to the vast distances involved in solar system to solar system travel. This means that it's totally possible to end up with a scenario where the limited resources in a given area are economically viable to harvest, while the unlimited amounts farther away are not viable, thus giving a situation where even though the total resources are essentially infinite, the total useful resources are not, and thus can lead to conflict.
Point, though that's obviously something that is actively transmitting in the radio band right at you, and not taking any real steps to avoid detection at all (in fact it's actively trying to get your attention). There's plenty of countermeasures an attacker could take that would make detecting them more difficult, such as any combinations of:Hee. That is a point, but bear in mind that said 20W radio signal is even smaller than the thermal radiation that would be output by the ship itself, much less any modern or probable near-future maneuvering system. As for the proposed countermeasures:
1) Only burning far away, and then "coasting" the rest of the distance.
2) Using vacuum insulation between an inner and outer hull, and then coating the outer hull with an extremely cold substance after any burns to reduce thermal profiles.
3) Approaching from the other side or next to a warmer thermal body, such as a planet, thus letting its heat signature drown out your own.
4) Approaching from the direction of a more active background area, such as along the milky way, thus lowering the difference between your own thermal output and theirs.
5) If you do have to do a burn that is close enough to be easily detected, launch a handful of decoys in different directions that are hotter but smaller, then have both you and the decoys "go dark" by cooling their outer hull. The end result would make it very difficult to tell which direction you went in.
To build off the black plane, I'd say it's more of a matter of two people in a black plane with a background that is constantly twinkling slightly, with a few very bright lights scattered about, and with lamps that are only really visible when they are "pushing" and the rest of the time are basically invisible; still possible to track someone down in, but much more difficult.
I had a crazy idea and I want to know if it's crazy like a fox or just crazy. I'm thinking about airbraking spaceships without exiting them from orbit. The breaking length of quality fishing line is 350 km (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_strength) while LEO "starts" around 120 km. So I'm thinking, would it be possible to equip a spacecraft with a "kite" that would reach down to the upper atmosphere on a 300 km tether? That way you could slow down for a stable orbit or an orbital rendezvous without expending fuel.Not crazy at all, and you don't need a kite. If designed properly, the ship itself can be used to aerobrake, as several probes we've launched (Magellan, multiple Mars probes) have done. ^_^
Suppose the kite was at 50km in height. The atmosphere at that level is 10^-6 g/cm^3. If the kite was moving at 10km/s (the speed of the Apollo 8 Trans-lunar injection departure), it would be creating 100 kN of drag per square meter of kite area, at least at first. That is the same as the rocket thrust for the Apollo 8 injection burn. But it would actually be a pretty small burden for the tether, most of the tether burden is the tether weight itself.
A complication would be that the kite moving at supersonic speeds would have all kinds of crazy aerodynamics to worry about. But maybe those crazy aerodynamics could be put to some use. The kite would be creating a pocket of pressurized air so maybe some of that air could be siphoned up the tether. This way there would be a source of volatiles for the spacecraft. With an ion engine it might even be possible to refull your tanks with nitrogen at earth by braking, go fly off to a different planet and then slingshot back to earth again to repeat the process.
So... crazy like a fox or just crazy?
-snip-A couple of things to keep in mind:
-snip-Fair enough. I guess it all kinda amplifies my original point, which is that spaceship v. spaceship combat is kinda untenable. If they can see you coming from weeks away it's just a simple matter of burning to avoid them, and assuming both spaceships have enough fuel the cost for them to continually adjust to match your course changes is going to cost them more in fuel costs than whatever they hoped to take from you.
1) I'm not sure where you are getting that breaking length. Is that just under it's own weight, or what? The amount of force you are applying is almost certainly going to be the dominating force in that arrangement, not the length of the cable.
2) Orbits of long tethers get crazy really fast due to tidal forces, you can even end up with strange things like square orbits, so you'd need to release the tether when you are done.
Is there a link I could read about that? I would think that because the tether can be kept taut at a desired angle (within limits) by angling the kite and controlling the retraction speed, you would be able to retract it in a managable fashion without messing anything up too much.Here you go: Ultra Long Orbital Tethers Behave Highly Non-Keplerian and Unstable (http://www.academia.edu/3453325/Ultra_Long_Orbital_Tethers_Behave_Highly_Non-Keplerian_and_Unstable).
Not sure I follow the unstoppable extermination attack logic. It would take a truly absurd amount of energy to reach speeds that light doesn't give good early detection at. There is a narrow band of attack sources that telescopes need to watch if you are building up to those sorts of speeds. So detection years in advance is a given unless you are within a solar system. Once detected the defenders just need to crash a counter projectile into the projectile to make it miss the solar system. Correcting the course of the projectile after its deflected would require more energy then the original deflection (due to needing to get the course just right). But for the attacker, that energy needs to be in the original projectile and needs to be brought up to extermination speed so it's a huge investment ahead of time. The defender on the other hand knows exactly how much deflection energy they need and just need to get it to an intercept speed. So the defender has a task that is orders of magnitude easier.
Devil's advocate: Black hole as super weapon.Alternately, they just let it shoot without bothering with shielding because on the balance of probability, the odds of a line intersecting the black hole, the target star, and an unanticipated extra target within range of the gamma ray burst (that is, in the same galaxy as a baseline, depending on how much you're feeding the black hole) are quite insignificant. Plus, if you're already conducting stellar engineering to facilitate the mass-extermination of all alien life in an entire galaxy, you may well simply consider any such impact a bonus, sort of an "exterminate one species, kill another free" deal.
One potential source of gamma ray bursts is the emission jet from a black hole. If we assume a Kardashev class II+ (not class III, just II+) civilization that loves doing astro-engineering, we could say they have captured one of the many smaller (say, 20 solar masses or so) black holes floating around the galaxy, and have altered its net rotation so that it precessess wildly. With the kinds of rotational velocities that black holes have, this means that within any given day, the "barrel" of the "gun" would have swept over the entire galaxy several times over. This makes aiming the gun unnecessary-- You just time the shot.
You "fire" the cannon by feeding it a small star. Perhaps a captured neutron star. This civilization would only require ONE such black hole gun. With it, it could reasonably exterminate any competing species within at most, a few thousand years after discovery. The downside is that the black hole gun would fire from both rotational poles of the black hole simultaneously. They would need to have some kind of seriously absurd deflector to prevent nuking a section of space that was not intended to be nuked. (Perhaps the mass they would use to fire the next shot? Say, another neutron star very close to the jet?)
The existence of such a species would neatly explain Fermi's paradox.
While it is costly it's the same (or well similar to) what we do now with military ships. Which is more expensive? Maintaining the ship or replacing it?Travelling? Not necessarily. If coasting, the plasma would be doing whatever it would do for a 'stationary' ship in orbit. Which might depend on the nature of the plasma.
How would you keep the plasma around the ship while it's traveling through space? Wouldn't it just get whipped back like the tail of a commet?
Indeed, I mentioned to diffraction previously. Blooming is generally used for thermal blooming, which doesn't occur in space so much due to the lack of atmosphere. The beam does spread out via diffraction, but smaller wavelength lasers can reduce that. As a result lasers are much more effective in space than they are on Earth.Wouldn't lasers lose focus at a distance? There are bits of space dust everywhere stealing your laser's power, too. You might end up heating your ship more than your opponent's.Absolutely, they'll lose focus over distance subject to defraction. Lasers are also quite ineffecient, so you'll have a lot of problems with losing the heat once you've fired the laser. You could get around that with using some kind of heatsink, but then you're limited by the heat capacity of it. Radiators would be large but impossible to armour.
Travelling? Not necessarily. If coasting, the plasma would be doing whatever it would do for a 'stationary' ship in orbit. Which might depend on the nature of the plasma.As mentioned, there isn't really much stealth in space.
And if you're holding it around you a magnetic bubble/whatever, you just make sure the bubble is sufficient to keep ahold of the plasma even under the forces of acceleration (so it doesn't trail) or deceleration (so it doesn't 'lead') or indeed get whipped in whatever direction a comet's tail does (whichever way the solar wind/etc pushes; backwards, forwards, sideways...).
(But it'd probably ruin the chances of stealth in such a ship, all that active plasma round it.)
Indeed, but of the stealth you might have had (the ultimate being to either drift in a ship utterly blackened or 'shiny to perfectly reflect the blackness of space', using thrusters only sparingly as required, and on the side of your ship facing away from your ultimate prey until and unless you absolutely need to, to slow down again), purposefully lighting yourself up in some band(s) or other of the electromagnetic spectrum like a weirdly inverted florescent tube (that would probably be purposefully looked for, if it was known 'shield' technology) would probably highlight your location and possible intentions at a far greater distance...(But it'd probably ruin the chances of stealth in such a ship, all that active plasma round it.)As mentioned, there isn't really much stealth in space.
What if you purposefully radiate energy in a specific direction? Or rather, dont radiate in the specific direction you know the detection to be? A few layers of one sided emmissive surfaces separated by micro-vacuum would cut the emissions down by several orders of magnitude if the radiators are allowed to freely radiate in the opposite direction.Well, that was what was pretty much behind my "sparingly use the thrusters that are only on the opposite side of the ship" idea, although I suspect that some of the concepts behind space-stealth is something clever (with thermocouples?) that makes the 'facing' side emit only radiation similar to the 4°K 'background' of space (radiating the difference above all the 'normal' system excesses out at the far side?), as well as dealing with the visible/radar aspects of the ship a la terrestrial/aircraft 'stealthing' materials.
A bit like submarines. If you can be stealthy, be very stealthy. If you can't then push everything to the limit and get very noisy indeed.The problem with that is that you can't even think about hiding your heat signature without very large, heavy, and expensive heat sinks, and even then it won't do jack shit if your ship is manned, because it will have to be kept within tolerable temperature limits for the crew... which are much, much higher than the background temperature of space. Provided you know which general direction to look in, it's also extremely easy to detect thrusters firing, even from across a solar system.
The great silence (i.e. absence of SETI signals from alien civilizations) is perhaps the strongest indicator of all that high relativistic velocities are attainable and that everybody out there knows it.
The sobering truth is that relativistic civilizations are a potential nightmare to anyone living within range of them. The problem is that objects traveling at an appreciable fraction of light speed are never where you see them when you see them (i.e., light-speed lag). Relativistic rockets, if their owners turn out to be less than benevolent, are both totally unstoppable and totally destructive. A starship weighing in at 1,500 tons (approximately the weight of a fully fueled space shuttle sitting on the launchpad) impacting an earthlike planet at "only" 30 percent of lightspeed will release 1.5 million megatons of energy -- an explosive force equivalent to 150 times today's global nuclear arsenal...
I'm not going to talk about ideas. I'm going to talk about reality. It will probably not be good for us ever to build and fire up an antimatter engine. According to Powell, given the proper detecting devices, a Valkyrie engine burn could be seen out to a radius of several light-years and may draw us into a game we'd rather not play, a game in which, if we appear to be even the vaguest threat to another civilization and if the resources are available to eliminate us, then it is logical to do so.
The game plan is, in its simplest terms, the relativistic inverse to the golden rule: "Do unto the other fellow as he would do unto you and do it first."...
When we put our heads together and tried to list everything we could say with certainty about other civilizations, without having actually met them, all that we knew boiled down to three simple laws of alien behavior:
THEIR SURVIVAL WILL BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR SURVIVAL.
If an alien species has to choose between them and us, they won't choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case; species don't survive by being self-sacrificing.
WIMPS DON'T BECOME TOP DOGS.
No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.
THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THE FIRST TWO LAWS APPLY TO US.
...
Your thinking still seems a bit narrow. Consider several broadening ideas:
Sure, relativistic bombs are powerful because the antagonist has already invested huge energies in them that can be released quickly, and they're hard to hit. But they are costly investments and necessarily reduce other activities the species could explore. For example:
Dispersal of the species into many small, hard-to-see targets, such as asteroids, buried civilizations, cometary nuclei, various space habitats. These are hard to wipe out.
But wait -- while relativistic bombs are readily visible to us in foresight, they hardly represent the end point in foreseeable technology. What will humans of, say, two centuries hence think of as the "obvious" lethal effect? Five centuries? A hundred? Personally I'd pick some rampaging self-reproducing thingy (mechanical or organic), then sneak it into all the biospheres I wanted to destroy. My point here is that no particular physical effect -- with its pluses, minuses, and trade-offs -- is likely to dominate the thinking of the galaxy.
So what might really aged civilizations do? Disperse, of course, and also not attack new arrivals in the galaxy, for fear that they might not get them all. Why? Because revenge is probably selected for in surviving species, and anybody truly looking out for long-term interests will not want to leave a youthful species with a grudge, sneaking around behind its back...
I agree with most parts of points 2, 3, and 4. As for point 1, it is cheaper than you think. You mention self-replicating machines in point 3, and while it is true that relativistic rockets require planetary power supplies, it is also true that we can power the whole Earth with a field of solar cells adding up to barely more than 200-by-200 kilometers, drawn out into a narrow band around the Moon's equator. Self-replicating robots could accomplish this task with only the cost of developing the first twenty or thirty machines. And once we're powering the Earth practically free of charge, why not let the robots keep building panels on the Lunar far side? Add a few self-replicating linear accelerator-building factories, and plug the accelerators into the panels, and you could produce enough anti-hydrogen to launch a starship every year. But why stop at the Moon? Have you looked at Mercury lately? ...
Dr. Wells has obviously bought into the view of a friendly galaxy. This view is based upon the argument that unless we humans conquer our self-destructive warlike tendencies, we will wipe out our species and no longer be a threat to extrasolar civilizations. All well and good up to this point.
But then these optimists make the jump: If we are wise enough to survive and not wipe ourselves out, we will be peaceful -- so peaceful that we will not wipe anybody else out, and as we are below on Earth, so other people will be above.
This is a non sequitur, because there is no guarantee that one follows the other, and for a very important reason: "They" are not part of our species.
Before we proceed any further, try the following thought experiment: watch the films Platoon and Aliens together and ask yourself if the plot lines don't quickly blur and become indistinguishable. You'll recall that in Vietnam, American troops were taught to regard the enemy as "Charlie" or "Gook," dehumanizing words that made "them" easier to kill. In like manner, the British, Spanish, and French conquests of the discovery period were made easier by declaring dark- or red- or yellow-skinned people as something less than human, as a godless, faceless "them," as literally another species.
Presumably there is some sort of inhibition against killing another member of our own species, because we have to work to overcome it...
But the rules do not apply to other species. Both humans and wolves lack inhibitions against killing chickens.
Humans kill other species all the time, even those with which we share the common bond of high intelligence. As you read this, hundreds of dolphins are being killed by tuna fishermen and drift netters. The killing goes on and on, and dolphins are not even a threat to us.
As near as we can tell, there is no inhibition against killing another species simply because it displays a high intelligence. So, as much as we love him, Carl Sagan's theory that if a species makes it to the top and does not blow itself apart, then it will be nice to other intelligent species is probably wrong. Once you admit interstellar species will not necessarily be nice to one another simply by virtue of having survived, then you open up this whole nightmare of relativistic civilizations exterminating one another.
It's an entirely new situation, emerging from the physical possibilities that will face any species that can overcome the natural interstellar quarantine of its solar system. The choices seem unforgiving, and the mind struggles to imagine circumstances under which an interstellar species might make contact without triggering the realization that it can't afford to be proven wrong in its fears.
Got that? We can't afford to wait to be proven wrong.
They won't come to get our resources or our knowledge or our women or even because they're just mean and want power over us. They'll come to destroy us to insure their survival, even if we're no apparent threat, because species death is just too much to risk, however remote the risk...
The most humbling feature of the relativistic bomb is that even if you happen to see it coming, its exact motion and position can never be determined; and given a technology even a hundred orders of magnitude above our own, you cannot hope to intercept one of these weapons. It often happens, in these discussions, that an expression from the old west arises: "God made some men bigger and stronger than others, but Mr. Colt made all men equal." Variations on Mr. Colt's weapon are still popular today, even in a society that possesses hydrogen bombs. Similarly, no matter how advanced civilizations grow, the relativistic bomb is not likely to go away...
We ask that you try just one more thought experiment. Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.
It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds.
Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body.
How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!"
What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.
There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.
There is no policeman.
There is no way out.
And the night never ends.
"The most powerful laser ever is 150000J
The problem with that is that you can't even think about hiding your heat signature without very large, heavy, and expensive heat sinks,
-snip-See, the problem I have with that is that it assumes that for some reason just having the capability to travel like that suddenly makes us all into immoral logical monsters.
Because you know so much about alien psychology that you can predict how they estimate Knightian uncertainty estimates of other races? Why dont you apply to perform psychology at three k iterations to the bond market and become a billionaire?
Quote"The most powerful laser ever is 150000J
I know this was said some time ago but really?
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/what-is-nif
1,850,000Joules, at more that 500,000,000,000,000W
I don't follow. My whole point was that we don't understand how aliens might think, and so it's dangerous to assume that they'll be benevolent.
It's natural selection; if there's a technology capable of destroying civilizations, then presumably the civilizations willing to use have already wiped out all the ones who aren't.Alternately, the ones who used it indiscriminately were already wiped out by those who didn't trust the sort of civilization that wipes out anything in their vicinity indiscriminately. The Killing Star is an interesting story, but one of the key issues in its logical analysis is that it assumes a two-party problem: you have only two sets of aliens, each with a gun at the other's head (or whichever housing for the cognitive organ of choice). Now, contrast this with the following: you have three sets of aliens, termed A, B, and Doom, none of which know each other, none of whom have FTL or other soft-SF techs, but all of whom have telescopes powerful enough for regular wide-sky exoplanet -searches for alien life (say, Kepler+SETI in another century or three) and the ability to accelerate projectiles to relativistic velocities. Doom meets A but not B, and immediately pulls the trigger (we'll assume an effectively 100% kill rate, which is another major issue with the Killing Star's assumptions). B watches one of their neighbor's orbiting worlds get a bit brighter briefly, investigates, and finds craters and the ruins of a civilization in whatever outposts were too small to exterminate out of hand, and what little they piece together indicates A had no idea what was coming. By tracking back (assuming here that they didn't already spot the "muzzle flash" originally), they identify where the shot came from. Suddenly, Doom is at a disadvantage - they have an enemy with a strongly vested interest in attacking them (out of self-defense, if nothing else) that they don't even know about. This enemy knows exactly where they are, and they don't even know that it exists. The other issues are the light-speed barrier to the propagation of information. If your target is in Proxima Centauri, your targeting information is four years old by the time you load it into your weapon, and eight years old by the time your shot actually arrives. That's all and good if your target is limited to a single
What if we are the only sentient life?If there's none out there, we'll just have to make some on our own, simple as that. Rate that technology's going, by the time we're comfortably colonizing other planets, uplifting non-sophonts or custom building intelligent species from the ground up shouldn't really be that big of an issue, on the technical side of things.
What if we are the only sentient life? I don't care how unlikely it is but just think about it what if we truely are the only sentient life that will ever travel the stars and see and learn and live the wonders of this massive universe
As a follow up, would you imagine that a genocidal or a non-genocidal race is going to do a better job spreading themselves out?I've been working on the mechanics of a game (off and on, for a while now) which can be considered to have a rock-paper-scissors component to it.
I remember some history it was some kind of fanfiction or amateur writing where planet Earth was being watched by some aliens and they witnesses of both world wars and some other atrocities and simply decided "fuck we dont want them infecting our galaxy, release the kraken" and sent a killing star our way. However centuries passed since aiming and the info lag played their worst and as the proyectile grew closer they saw how we evolved and left the warlike nature. They felt stupid for being overjudgmental (is that even a word?) And prayed for us to survive. We did, and quickly went back to full genocidal mode but instead of against each other it was against the aliens. The second part was about the human invasion and how many of the aliens made some kind of ritual suicidal cult over their guilty and whatnot...One of the HFY stories when that was a phase.
So I just watch some inferior-low-budget local-TV documentary with Steve Hawking.I believe it's called a 'hook and line'. And it seems you were successfully played by it...
It starts off with "Time Travel is possible".
Rest of it is just me constantly yelling in my mind the 20 reasons why is time travel to PAST impossible.
Then in the last minute he admits it is impossible, and only possibility is travel to future.
Why couldn´t he say it at the beginning?
I'd just like to mention that there's a lot of other species on earth that could be considered sentient or at the very least extremely close to it in terms of intelligence. I mean sure, we all share the same planet but if life on one world can give multiple rise to very intelligent species I don't see why it wouldn't happen elsewhere. That is unless we are the only _life_ in the universe in which case yeah to above mentioned seeding of creatures!What if we are the only sentient life?If there's none out there, we'll just have to make some on our own, simple as that. Rate that technology's going, by the time we're comfortably colonizing other planets, uplifting non-sophonts or custom building intelligent species from the ground up shouldn't really be that big of an issue, on the technical side of things.
I dunno. A combination of FTL and quantum teleportation (very large scale-- enough for a human body) could allow one to completely leave their lightcone of origin, and thus be able to intersect their past lightcone.
Amusingly, this would get around the "same particles" silliness that is a TV trope about time travel. (the whole "dont touch your past self!" bullshit.) The teleported version of yourself is really a quantum duplicate, where the original is destroyed, meaning it is made of different particles (From a causality point of view).
But then again, as the saying goes; Causality, FTL, Time travel: Pick two.
I am not sure what exactly light cone is, but I am assuming it basically your photon reflection.I don't (currently, it'll probably occur to me in a moment, and I'll kick myself) don't understand "photon reflection", but the light-cone is the (normal, without strange tricks) limit of everything that you can (or can have) interacted with, based upon 'hereandnow'.
So I just watch some inferior-low-budget local-TV documentary with Steve Hawking.I'm more annoyed by his weird anti-progress thing that pops up sometimes. The last ones I can remember were "don't develop AIs because they'll kill us all" and "don't look for aliens because they'll kill us all".
+1 on the "If we truly are alone in the universe, we should make our own company" answer.Better make them robotic just to cover all our bases (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ)
In fact, we should make our own company regardless. It would better prepare us for alien modalities of thought, since uplifted organisms would have very different baseline evolutionary habits from us, and while they would be based off humans for their sapience, would still be prone to rather alien modalities of thought from us. (Not as alien as say, the hypothetical sentient amoeba from kepler 72b (made up)-- but still alien to US, and thus something to help bridge the gap and prepare us for when we may eventually meet such creature.)
I'm more annoyed by his weird anti-progress thing that pops up sometimes. The last ones I can remember were "don't develop AIs because they'll kill us all" and "don't look for aliens because they'll kill us all".Oh god, Hawking. And Musk for that matter. I can't believe they don't see what they're doing when they bring celebrity to bear on science they aren't even participants in.
Pluto is best planetThat's because it's a dwarf planet, not an elf planet...
Unfortunate that it doesn't have active plate tectonics. Mars does, though, but at a more primitive level than Earth.Pluto is best planetThat's because it's a dwarf planet, not an elf planet...
more Pluto!I like that picture a lot. Is there a higher resolution version I can use as a wallpaper? Oddly all the ones I'm seeing on the raw image site (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php) (currently receiving pictures of pluto's atmosphere halo, pretty neat) aren't actually that big. Was the picture from the top of the article you link composited from smaller ones?
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-pluto-images-from-nasa-s-new-horizons-it-s-complicated
[img]
its probably a mosaic they put together. i don't know where they store the super high res ones. only image gallery i can find it in is here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/images/index.htmlmore Pluto!I like that picture a lot. Is there a higher resolution version I can use as a wallpaper? Oddly all the ones I'm seeing on the raw image site (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/Pluto-Encounter/index.php) (currently receiving pictures of pluto's atmosphere halo, pretty neat) aren't actually that big. Was the picture from the top of the article you link composited from smaller ones?
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-pluto-images-from-nasa-s-new-horizons-it-s-complicated
[img]
its probably a mosaic they put together.From the lower part of that image, which consists of not-as-sharp detail, I'd say that's right. Formed of whatever highest-res monochrome images they have (from various distances and angles, stretched and skewed to match the eventual viewing angle) and hue-washed with the lower-res colour photography.
(Some refinement later...)
I ordered a case of wine glasses. What I received was a case of glass shards.
We sent whiskey into space. (http://www.eater.com/2015/9/13/9319773/ardbeg-whisky-nano-rocks-international-space-station) It tastes different than Terran whiskey.
(Early version)(Even later...)
I ordered a case of wine glasses. What I received (managed to salvage from the crater) was a small pool of molten glass.
(Some refinement later...)
I ordered a case of wine glasses. What I received was a case of glass shards.
*fifty years down the line* 'The wine arrived. Tasted great, no damage to the bottles. Cat was killed by the parcel for the fourth time this week. In all, 8/10'Guys, why don't we just engineer the cat to produce wine?
So just a Lunar one, hardly a rarity, but it's Space. ;)
That applies to Solar Eclipses (how many (few) thousand years is it supposed to be before they all become Annular?) but Earth's shadow is larger than the moon (as is Jupiter's shadow far bigger than its satellites, and probably Mars with Phobos/Deimos) so it's not so 'finely tuned' this way round.So just a Lunar one, hardly a rarity, but it's Space. ;)
to be fair statistically i'm not sure if there are any other events within about 10,000 light years
the moon/sun angular diameter coincidence going on right now is pretty friggin special believe it or not
Sounds like one of the rovers needs to scoot its' adorable droid butt over to one of these dark streaks and start sampling.I hear they're not allowed to do that, because they weren't sufficiently sterilised and might bring contaminants with them.
What, space herpes? I thought the whole idea was that we were sterilizing the hell out of anything we sent, just to avoid killing martians with common-grade soil bacteria and the like? Plus that whole "being exposed to intense unfiltered UV radiation on a daily basis" thing.Sounds like one of the rovers needs to scoot its' adorable droid butt over to one of these dark streaks and start sampling.I hear they're not allowed to do that, because they weren't sufficiently sterilised and might bring contaminants with them.
What, space herpes? I thought the whole idea was that we were sterilizing the hell out of anything we sent, just to avoid killing martians with common-grade soil bacteria and the like? Plus that whole "being exposed to intense unfiltered UV radiation on a daily basis" thing.Sounds like one of the rovers needs to scoot its' adorable droid butt over to one of these dark streaks and start sampling.I hear they're not allowed to do that, because they weren't sufficiently sterilised and might bring contaminants with them.
Although spacecraft go through multiple cleaning steps to ensure that they bear no biological contaminants, previous reports suggest that Curiosity project developers did not follow these planetary protection protocols to the letter. The regulations are a safeguard; whether microbes can tolerate conditions on the surface of Mars is still unknown.
Even though R.S.L.s appear to be some of the most intriguing features on Mars, NASA has no plans to get a close-up look anytime soon.
R.S.L.s are treated as special regions that NASA’s current robotic explorers are barred from because the rovers were not thoroughly sterilized, and NASA worries that they might be carrying microbial hitchhikers from Earth that could contaminate Mars.
Of the spacecraft NASA has sent to Mars, only the two Viking landers in 1976 were baked to temperatures hot enough to kill Earth microbes. NASA’s next Mars rover, scheduled to launch in 2020, will be no cleaner. Sterilizing spacecraft, which requires electronics and systems that can withstand the heat of baking, adds to the cost and complicates the design.
Still not enough. You've heard of Deinococcus radiodurans right?I first read that as Deinonychus radiodurans. Which would be infinitely more awesome. And dangerous.
Vacuum filled with radon, radium, uranium, plutonium... everything radioactive!B-but if it's filled, is it really vacuum?
That's why I propose that instead of us halting for decades (even centuries if things keep this phase) our space program, otherworldly colonizations efforts, which are vital to our continued existence as species, to argue about the well being of some microbes that might or might not exist. We simply fucking go there with as many precautions as possible without being this ridiculous and check if they are over there as a side quest of the main fucking purpose of this, spreading ourselves to other planets and eventually the stars.The thing is, finding living organisms (even bacteria or viruses) on another celestial body would be beyond huge because of the ramifications. So you really, really, really want to be sure it's a legit find and not something that stowed away.
Why havnt we gone back to the moon? ???
Helium 3Alright. What would you use it for?
:-\ Power generation... maybe? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Power_generation)Helium 3Alright. What would you use it for?
We dont even have a rover on it? At least I dont think we do, if so I havnt seen any surface videos or pics.The Soviet Lunokhod program sent a couple back in the 60-70s.
I meant with present tech cameras but intrestingly in the photos theres a series of the same surface and a part is blocked out, it just looks like a crater darker than the others and its obstructed by post shooting editing (a black circle)You mean the markings on the Zond-8 photos? Those are uniform in all of the pictures, date marks or something.
Could be a shadow but why block it
Oh, and for those who missed it last week, NASA put over 10,000 Apollo mission photos up on Flickr:awesome!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/
...and it's all bogus, as usual. I mean, look at it! The cameraman is not reflected on the visor, there's a serial number on the styrofoam "rock," and if you zoom close enough you can even see the pixels! When will they stop bamboozling people and just 'fess up?WHAT!? You can see PIXELS in a PICTURE!? I finally see now!
Why did you read youtube comments? Nothing good has ever sprung from that.I realize no one is being serious right now, but some of you might be and should watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU). You should also watch it if you're not being serious. It's pretty great.Why did you link that? I'm now involved in three arguments on Youtube.
...you just claimed that the moon has liquid water and bacterial life....Yeah.
Way to read, hahaAre you being serious? If no, then use [sarcasm][/sarcasm] tags because it is hard to tell sarcasm on the internet.
So to say we cant go back to the moon because of budget is a lie, bacterial life exsits in the frozen continent and the moon has water cycles.The context around your statement of bacteria is the moon. It sounded like you thought there was a frozen continent filled with bacteria on the moon.
If I say it enough it will be adressed
I should have cleared it up a little, vague I guess.No. Any water on the moon is subterranean. We don't know the exact properties of it yet, but it does not come to the surface unless an impact opens the surface. And then the water evaporates and gets blown off of the moon. We accidentally found it when a prob landed harder than intended. (crashed)
The frozen continent antartica.
There is a water cycle on the moon else we wouldnt have found any, Right? Even if its becoming gaseous and evaporating away it must have water to continue this 'cycle'
Im not an intense tinfoiler but I... we all know the governments lie to the people they think they control, from affairs, murder and policies being slipped through.Perhaps you should be an intense tinfoiler. The pro-tinfoiler mind-wave broadcasts are getting through your existing headgear and making you believe strange things.
So to say we cant go back to the moon because of budget is a lie, bacterial life exsits in the frozen continent and the moon has water cycles.
Bacterial cannot be killed at kelvin, all it needs to survive in space is a casing to protect from space rads and it can hibernate.
We have the tech to travel to it, Im positive people are willing to be adventurers and risk life for discovery.
So why dont we go back there! Mars is a suicidal goal until we use non liquid explosive fuels.
If I say it enough it will be adressed
some cool Jupiter stuff.I blame the monoliths...
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/14/448632960/new-hubble-images-show-jupiters-great-red-spot-is-still-shrinkingSpoiler (click to show/hide)
some cool Jupiter stuff.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/14/448632960/new-hubble-images-show-jupiters-great-red-spot-is-still-shrinkingSpoiler (click to show/hide)
A Dyson sphere ?More monoliths!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/10/14/weird_star_strange_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html
More likely a comet swarm, but it does fire up the imagination doesn't it?It'd have to be one hell of a comet swarm. One does not simply block 22% of the light emitted by a star with comets, even periodically.
Could resonance from another large body (or set of already-resonant bodies, large in mass but obviously themselves small in cross-section) corral an asteroid belt/oort cloud into a relatively small (but larger than a planet) area/solid angle around the star, by nudging tidal forces?More likely a comet swarm, but it does fire up the imagination doesn't it?It'd have to be one hell of a comet swarm. One does not simply block 22% of the light emitted by a star with comets, even periodically.
Meh, let's point a radio telescope array at it for a little bit and see what we get.That sounds damn near that there 'science' doohickey, you're a-chattering about there. No good ever came of science, when the obvious answer to this discovery is to dance naked around some standing stones smoking something not-entirely-tobacco-like...
That should be a standard rule -- Find weird anomalies? Point a radio telescope at them.
Meh, let's point a radio telescope array at it for a little bit and see what we get.Yup.
That should be a standard rule -- Find weird anomalies? Point a radio telescope at them.
Ugh, no. We've looked at a huge number of stars, and we found one where debris happens to be passing by when we looked at it. There is no need to invoke aliens to explain this.The phenomenon regarding this star is unique, they've never seen anything like it. Aliens are as good an explanation as anything.
So let's take off the tinfoil hats and construct tinfoil full-body protective suits because we're talking about EM drives and microwave safety (https://www.reddit.com/r/EmDrive/comments/3eerc7/lets_talk_about_emdrive_safety_and_legality/).
(http://cdn.meme.am/instances2/500x/2438614.jpg)
I think they've ruled out it being any kind of lumps of normal matter, such as rogue planets or brown dwarfs or whatever - even if they didn't radiate at all they'd do things like blocking light from sources behind it.What?
As I read it I think the issue is that the occlusion is periodic, it keeps happening on a schedule.The parallax is shifting the dust cloud in relation to the star maybe.
As I read it I think the issue is that the occlusion is periodic, it keeps happening on a schedule.As I read it, that was actually part of the problem -- it's NOT periodic. There's one relatively minor pattern of oscillation but then there's these huge dips in brightness that don't have a pattern at all (or the pattern is so complex that it appears chaotic).
I think they've ruled out it being any kind of lumps of normal matter, such as rogue planets or brown dwarfs or whatever - even if they didn't radiate at all they'd do things like blocking light from sources behind it.What?
It's normal matter distributed distinctly abnormally. Not dark anything.
So far as I know.
Gorillas used to be a myth.
How far away is the thing anyway? Could we just hurl a probe at it and find out in a few hundred years?It would take several orders of magnitude longer than that...
[...]causing the structure to start to drift[..]s/causing/allowing
To put some hard figures into it, the star is 1,480 light-years away. That's 1480 years it would take for the probe's signal to get back to us. But first you need to get the probe there in the first place.How far away is the thing anyway? Could we just hurl a probe at it and find out in a few hundred years?It would take several orders of magnitude longer than that...
Its an alien power generator.Oh, for fuck's sake. Folks, we've got another gorilla believer.
We are just shaved neoanderthals still dancing around for a god to tell us what to do and burying our dead.
The black night orbits our planit but nobody acknowedges it, astronauts see ufos then are told to shut up and it is ignored.
Gorillas used to be a myth.
There are several major problems of building a structure that large:Indeed. To be fair, the original Dyson sphere was never meant to be a singular solid megastructure; Dyson himself called the notion impossible and considered them a misrepresentation of his original proposals. Interestingly, if by a Dyson torus you're referring to a ringworld and not a Dyson ring (which is a simple Dyson swarm, but you mention it in contrast to such instead of equating the two), the eponymous Ringworld did eventually consider all of these, if I recall properly, two of them to power plot drama. Its home system was largely devoid of larger bodies, having been rendered down to create the megastructure. Defense systems were emplaced to protect against incoming meteorites too small to completely clear out, and with traffic control no longer available to clear the Lying Bastard (the protagonists' ship) for entry, it is mistaken for a potential impactor and shot down on approach. The problem with the gravitationally-neutral nature of the structure required another book to help resolve it because it was the big one Niven missed, where people stealing the reaction jets that stabilized the structure caused it to drift exactly as it should, absent outside intervention.
- Materials required. You'd need to completely extract the metals from several planets and moons to get enough raw materials.
- Comets and asteroids (or any other body on an elliptical/parabolic/hyperbolic trajectory). If you don't spot and stop these things in time, they are going to make life miserable for the repair crews.
- Finally, and this is the biggest problem, Gravity. It will be a major pain to prevent tidal forces from messing with the structure during construction. Even worse, as soon as the structure completely surrounds the star, the net force of gravitational attraction from the star becomes zero, causing the structure to start to drift. What do you think happens if/when the structure drifts into the star it was built around?
Our most promising theory invokes a family of exocomets.
One way we imagine such a barrage of comets could be triggered
is by the passage of a field star through the system. And, in fact,
as discussed above, there is a small star nearby (~1000AU; Sec-tion 2.3)
which, if moving near to KIC 8462852, but not bound to
it, could trigger a barrage of bodies into the vicinity of the host
star. On the other hand, if the companion star is bound, it could
be pumping up comet eccentricities through the Kozai mechanism.
Measuring the motion/orbit of the companion star with respect to
KIC 8462852 would be telling in whether or not it is associated, and
we would then be able to put stricter predictions on the timescale
and repeatability of comet showers based on bound or unbound
star-comet perturbing models. Finally, comets would release gas
(as well as dust), and sensitive observations to detect this gas would
also test this hypothesis.
Or would the pressure of the incident solar winds already be able to help you out?No, both solar wind and solar radiation pressure run into the exact same thing as gravity where the reduced strength on the farther side is perfectly balanced by the fact that the farther side has more area now.
I was a hair's-breadth away from trying the same integration trick as that which shows that a shell is gravitationally-neutral to anything located within it (and thus vice-versa), to try to disprove the idea.Or would the pressure of the incident solar winds already be able to help you out?No, both solar wind and solar radiation pressure run into the exact same thing as gravity where the reduced strength on the farther side is perfectly balanced by the fact that the farther side has more area now.
...meanwhile, closer to home, Europe and Russia to the Moon? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34504067)tl;dr;
Just out of curiosity, what motivates your distrust of them? I mean, it does sound like something their government would do, but is there really that much incentive for them to risk other countries debunking their claims?Methinks it was a reference to the ever-popular "NASA FAKED THE MOON LANDINGS ON A SOUNDSTAGE DUH" theory.
The retroreflectors alone don't debunk the no-manned-landings argument. They could have been so easily landed on dumb, unmanned probes at any1 or all2 of the Apollo sites. (The Russians did at least as much.)Just out of curiosity, what motivates your distrust of them? I mean, it does sound like something their government would do, but is there really that much incentive for them to risk other countries debunking their claims?Methinks it was a reference to the ever-popular "NASAL FAKED THE MOON LANDINGS ON A SOUNDSTAGE DUH" theory.
Conclusively debunked by the Apollo retroreflectors.
huh?Oh yeah, the first attempt at a chimera was a spider goat, it escaped no big deal /sarcasm
Yeah the water blob is real
Just out of curiosity, what motivates your distrust of them? I mean, it does sound like something their government would do, but is there really that much incentive for them to risk other countries debunking their claims?No, mate. It was a joke. I'm firmly in the Mitchell&Webb (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw) camp.
huh?Oh yeah, the first attempt at a chimera was a spider goat, it escaped no big deal /sarcasm
We should breed a species of human for space, give them nocturnal vision maybe
How far away is the thing anyway? Could we just hurl a probe at it and find out in a few hundred years?
Now I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I think That Wolf is a NWO shill.Ignore this, you saw nothing continue with your regulary scheduled posting. Thank you.
I led with nocturnal vision transhumans because its the least offensive and it would save power on the ship.Or, you know, you could open a window.
Night vision has little use in space since there's so much light pollution, and if you're too far away from the sun to see, you're going to need to heat the ship anyway, so you might as well emit some of that heating energy in the form of visible light.water would eventually run out. Waste would accumulate. Can't survive indefinately.
Human photosynthesis however is very a promising way to reduce ship complexity. You'd save on food, oxygen, CO2 reprocessing etc. Imagine being able to persist pretty much indefinitely in an escape pod, with just sunlight and water filtration.
Night vision has little use in space since there's so much light pollution, and if you're too far away from the sun to see, you're going to need to heat the ship anyway, so you might as well emit some of that heating energy in the form of visible light.water would eventually run out. Waste would accumulate. Can't survive indefinately.
Human photosynthesis however is very a promising way to reduce ship complexity. You'd save on food, oxygen, CO2 reprocessing etc. Imagine being able to persist pretty much indefinitely in an escape pod, with just sunlight and water filtration.
Unless your spaceship is leaking air then the water can't go anywhere. So saying it "runs out" implies conservation of mass broke down, or a leak. But you'd find your pod's air depressurized long before that happened, if you assume a leak.Humans would still produce waste (poop) which would hopefully leave the ship. That mass has to come from somewhere.
How much would you poop if you weren't eating anything? e.g. you get energy from photosynthesis?Unless your spaceship is leaking air then the water can't go anywhere. So saying it "runs out" implies conservation of mass broke down, or a leak. But you'd find your pod's air depressurized long before that happened, if you assume a leak.Humans would still produce waste (poop) which would hopefully leave the ship. That mass has to come from somewhere.
That's my point. If a human could photosynthasize and metabolize, then they would produce waste, which would require some material to sustain them. Which means it wouldn't be indefinite.How much would you poop if you weren't eating anything? e.g. you get energy from photosynthesis?Unless your spaceship is leaking air then the water can't go anywhere. So saying it "runs out" implies conservation of mass broke down, or a leak. But you'd find your pod's air depressurized long before that happened, if you assume a leak.Humans would still produce waste (poop) which would hopefully leave the ship. That mass has to come from somewhere.
Just as poop must go somewhere, it also must come from somewhere.
The material comes from CO2 and oxygen and water. You can make sugars with just that. They are then burnt inside the body. There is no need to excrete the resultant materials, you get back CO2 and water.Plants also need nutrients from the soil.
All the molecules that you had at the start are still in the ship. You can drink your own pee to get almost everything back.ALMOST everything. The rest is waste. That mass that is waste needs to be replenished by something on the ship. Meaning no indefinitability.
Just have a microbe tank to reprocess the waste. A photosynthetic human would produce much less waste than normal, so a much smaller reprocessing set up would be needed. Human waste is hardly nuclear waste that never breaks down.But Fiber is incredibly hard to break down. Even so, the laws of thermodynamics say that something is always going to eventually break, so some spare materials would be needed to fix what broke. Be it part of a cell, or part of the whole ship.
Even so, the laws of thermodynamics say that something is always going to eventually break
Just have a microbe tank to reprocess the waste. A photosynthetic human would produce much less waste than normal, so a much smaller reprocessing set up would be needed. Human waste is hardly nuclear waste that never breaks down.But Fiber is incredibly hard to break down. Even so, the laws of thermodynamics say that something is always going to eventually break, so some spare materials would be needed to fix what broke. Be it part of a cell, or part of the whole ship.
You guys make the future sound so appealing...
"Hey, welcome to space! For dinner, we've got your own recycled feces with a big tall glass of urine!"
Where do I sign up?! to stay on Earth
I seriously doubt you'd get enough photosynthesis out of a human to feed a human.A similar problem was pointed out for photosynthesizing cows in this xkcd what-if (https://what-if.xkcd.com/17/).
unfortunately, the ship would have to be extremely large to accomidate enough plants for one human so the idea of an indefinite escape pod is out of the question.Exactly how large, again?
unfortunately, the ship would have to be extremely large to accomidate enough plants for one human so the idea of an indefinite escape pod is out of the question.
unfortunately, the ship would have to be extremely large to accomidate enough plants for one human so the idea of an indefinite escape pod is out of the question.Exactly how large, again?
Didn't they forget to add a certain fungus or something?unfortunately, the ship would have to be extremely large to accomidate enough plants for one human so the idea of an indefinite escape pod is out of the question.Exactly how large, again?
Biosphere 2 was 204000 cubic metres and supported eight people, aside from the large number of unforeseen issues (many of which could now be dealt with). A similar structure as a spac evessel would probably have to be larger to compensate for increased difficulty losing heat and more complicated support restrictions.
The exact numbers depend a bit on how far you want to go from a light source. Here's the basic assumptions:unfortunately, the ship would have to be extremely large to accomidate enough plants for one human so the idea of an indefinite escape pod is out of the question.Exactly how large, again?
Alternatively for interstellar distances you may want to go the hydrogen scoop method where each person would need about 437 m^2 (2.7 volleyball courts) worth of scoop on the front of your ship to harvest the hydrogen needed when traveling at solar escape velocity speeds; the main benefits being that while the amount of solar panels you need keeps increasing as you go farther from a star, the amount of hydrogen scoop area you need remains relatively constant no matter where you go in the milky way galaxy.Well, give or take. We're sitting in the middle of the Local Bubble, unfortunately, which is around 300 l.y. of interstellar void at around a tenth of the average hydrogen density of the Milky Way as a whole. We're really lucky in that we just happen to be in the middle of a slightly denser area (relative to the Local Bubble, at least) that happens to abut another such dense area (again, relatively speaking), but it does mean that anything that ends up going to, say, Sirius or Procyon is going to need to deal with a drop in local hydrogen density of anywhere from 50% to 80%, give or take. I'm not exactly well-read on the latest material, however, so I'm a little curious how they manage allowing for a constant hydrogen scoop area under such wildly fluctuating densities.
The exact numbers depend a bit on how far you want to go from a light source. Here's the basic assumptions:
1) I'm going with the solar panel design, because it scales better at long distances form the sun then the direct plant design does, and captures all types of light a bit better. I'll be using a solar panel efficiency of 80% (which is about double our current best ones, but still well under the theoretical maximums of ~90-95%).
2) We're going to go out to pluto and back.
3) You're going to grow sugar cane, since it has the best caloric storage of about pretty much any edible plant. I hope you like sweet things.
With these assumptions each person is going to need to have about 150 m^2 of solar panels stretching out on the outside of your ship, and probably around a 10m x 15m x 20m square cube to actually grow their sugarcane in, based on the normal adult human energy consumption.
To put that in perspective, each human is going to need about a volleyball court's worth of solar panels, and 1.2 olympic sized swimming pools worth of space to grow their food/purify water/make air (though you might need additional space for more air/water purification, I haven't run the numbers on those aspects). That's on top of whatever space you actually need for the ship itself and any area for the person to live in.
Alternatively for interstellar distances you may want to go the hydrogen scoop method where each person would need about 437 m^2 (2.7 volleyball courts) worth of scoop on the front of your ship to harvest the hydrogen needed when traveling at solar escape velocity speeds; the main benefits being that while the amount of solar panels you need keeps increasing as you go farther from a star, the amount of hydrogen scoop area you need remains relatively constant no matter where you go in the milky way galaxy.
Now, why bother with all these complicated biological processes when you could just upload your mind to a computer and live purely off of solar panels?Probably because we have yet to figure out the whole "brain uploading" thing, whereas we've made a bit more progress on the whole "closed-cycle ecosystem" thing. Not much more, but a bit more by comparison.
Assuming the brain scales up linearly (which is being generous)
There's also the issue that brain-uploading is not likely to use less actual energy than a brain, for quite some time even if you could do that.Yeah, the brain is one of the most complex and amazing things. Maybe in the future we could build our own and have organic computers that use the same system that our brain uses. That would be pretty cool.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163051-simulating-1-second-of-human-brain-activity-takes-82944-processors
The K-supercomputer with 82,944 processors modeled a brain of about 2% of the size of a human brain. It took 40 minutes to simulate 1 second of brain activity. While that's kinda impressive that we can even do that, it's clearly not up to scale for uploading peoples' brains to save energy.
Assuming the brain scales up linearly (which is being generous) that's 50 x 2400 = 120000 times less powerful than a human brain. The K computer is about 10 petaflops. So to model a whole human brain in real-time with this level of tech would need about a 1 million petaflop processor. The most efficient supercomputer gets about 2 teraflops / KW, so you'd be looking at energy consumption of 500 gigawatts. Which 5 billion times more than the energy consumed by an average human's body.
To make brain uploading viable, the energy requirements for running the simulated brain must basically fall below 100 watts for 1 million petaflops of processing. That might not be possible with silicon / von Neumann architecture. In either case, improved computing tech would be competing with other ways of providing for space travellers, which will also be improving technology, pushing further out the point at which brain uploading is the viable alternative.
What if you used something like algae? Would that decrease space needed?As best as I can tell sugar cane is still the best option for photosynthetic efficiency (3-4x more than most competitors), so I don't believe so.
There's also the issue that brain-uploading is not likely to use less actual energy than a brain, for quite some time even if you could do that.Honestly I think one of the big advantages of brain uploading would be the ability to slow yourself down to limit energy consumption, sort of a halfway mark between normal activity and total cryogenic stoppage. It would let you still react to things if they occurred, albeit at a slower processing level than normal. It would be like if suddenly time went into double speed for everything but you, you could still interact, but you might find it a bit difficult to process things when twice as much was happening in any given period of time.
I don't like your linked debunker's theory either. That angels did it rather than aliens. But you linked Uri Geller, a celebrity psychic as your source, so you shouldn't be surprised that it's bullshit. He's the source of the "psychic spoon benders" trope. Basically a stage magician who claims to have real magic powers.You misread my intended narrative, there, although I'll admit I didn't make it easy on you, the way I structured it.
There are better theories about manna. e.g. dried tree sap, and/or bug feces from feeding on the same trees.
To my knowledge, there's no historical evidence that the ancient Israelites were ever enslaved in Egypt, so I don't think we need to worry too much about scientific explanations for Manna.This right here. We've reached the point where even the Israelite historians are claiming that they were never actually enslaved by Egypt ala Moses. :P That entire part of the bible is all mixed up with anachronisms, disagreeing numbers, etc. as well as suffering from a huge lack of historical evidence (and at least a fair bit of historical evidence that deliberately contradicts stuff in that part of the bible).
And all this (albeit very interesting indeed) have something to with with SPACE because..... we are planning to send jewish slaves to construct pyramids on the moon?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utz53zoJGTM
And all this (albeit very interesting indeed) have something to with with SPACE because..... we are planning to send jewish slaves to construct pyramids on the moon?Potato!
Going to the moon?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(Also, emulating each neuron with an artificial neural network? Yeah, I'm of the conclusion that the best emulator for a brain is a brain. Any actual layer of abstraction is going to be significantly inefficient.)Neural networks are usually just matrices of various sorts that get multiplied together with an input. They don't work on noncontinuous functions very well, and I'd imagine that the brain has a lot of nonlinear effects, so breaking down the brain into 10^12 neural networks makes sense to me.
Doesnt nasa have a livestream from the ISS? You could say they release hundreds of thousands of space->earth images a day alreadyIt's going to be pictures from 1 million miles away, instead of 200 miles away.
They're all fake anyway, since we all know that the Earth is actually the inside of a hollow sphere.what the hell is that crazy thing?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
..........................................They're all fake anyway, since we all know that the Earth is actually the inside of a hollow sphere.what the hell is that crazy thing?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
they skate around on the glass ceiling, i think/me reads that thread page
anyway comets disprove "ball earth" theory, duh (http://truth-zone.net/forum/science-and-physics/63418-skycentrism-we-live-inside-the-earth.html?start=180#123984)
Einstein is not just a plagarist, he is an actor fronting Jew science fraud, designed to push us away from God, so that the legions of Satan can flourish. Listen up, what do you know about science? i am 100 per cent revisionist but I have a PhD in Chemistry, earned while my real interest was in recording and music production.I mean...what. Just...what.
I have a phd in Chemistry'
I'm not sure I understand your methods, but while you can perhaps get 1x105 neurons per square millimetre (actually, it'll be in three dimensions, but for the sake of comparison I'm going with the planar footprint value I found for an unextraordinary neuron soma) and about 1x106 transistors for the same area (again, with the best planar footprint I found quoted, and, yes, you can use multiple layers here, as well), I'm not sure how close to emulating each neuron you could get with each provided a trainable 'network' of 10 transistors (including the background infrastructure required to configure, or freeze in the eventual 'working configuration', that network).(Also, emulating each neuron with an artificial neural network? Yeah, I'm of the conclusion that the best emulator for a brain is a brain. Any actual layer of abstraction is going to be significantly inefficient.)Neural networks are usually just matrices of various sorts that get multiplied together with an input. They don't work on noncontinuous functions very well, and I'd imagine that the brain has a lot of nonlinear effects, so breaking down the brain into 10^12 neural networks makes sense to me.
I just realised that it's a conspiracy forum. Oops.they skate around on the glass ceiling, i think/me reads that thread page
anyway comets disprove "ball earth" theory, duh (http://truth-zone.net/forum/science-and-physics/63418-skycentrism-we-live-inside-the-earth.html?start=180#123984)
(http://i.imgur.com/22f2u6m.gif)
In any case, genetic algorithms and neural networks can solve things in interesting ways.Oh, I'm a great fan of genetic algorithms, etc1. I just don't think the micro-electrical-chemical mechanisms in neurons, improved over many eons, can yet be operationally (i.e. properly) approximated to by brute-force base engineering of the kind we can apply to it, however it ends up then being moulded from a generic 'blank' setting to the intended purpose.
Fluid mechanics are not a useful computation method for most problems.The question is do(/does) fluid mechanics do something within the brain, processing-wise? If it does, then it needs to somehow be part of the simulation. Without it, the model is flawed.
Then there's the duplicated sections firing exactly the same way...which probably serves a function (even if we're not quite sure what), so you need to maintain it.... etc, etc...
Ultimately, what I'm getting at is that there's a lot of stuff going on in the brain because there's so much garbage processing going on(that isn't helpful or experienced in any way)Compare and contrast to so-called Junk DNA. Useless? Doubtful. It (at the very least) soaks up free-radical damage, with some sacrificial base-sequences being very magnetic to such damage, sparing more 'active' regions. But also there are possible autocatalystic functions, not yet properly identified. And we haven't yet fully identified the actions of the proteome and other elements of the cytoplasm. If we strip the human genome of everything we don't know the function of (or even just imagine, but are a bit unsure about the specifics), we'd certainly be throwing away something important.
I think there's some Russian billionaire funding research into mind-computer transfer, with the goal ofImmortality would be only a side effect.livingdrinking vodka forever.
Junk DNA is a bit of a misnomer. If it were really junk, it would get removed from the genome pretty quickly naturally. It's not so much "Junk" DNA, it's more "We don't know what it does yet" DNA.There's also a fair bit of DNA that is "junk" in the sense that while it doesn't actively do anything, but it's mere presence serves to alter the things around it. Look at this example algorithm:
DNA is far more convoluted and complex than anything we've ever done. Codes for proteins, control codes for gene expression, one gene might do one thing when another gene is active, and do another thing entirely when it's not. &c. &c.
I mean, if you take that big rusted washing machine and use it to hold your door open, does it stop being junk?If it's the only thing I have available to hold the door open, and I really need that door held open or the building becomes unusable, then yes, it magically changes from being a junky rusted washing machine into just a very oversized doorstop. :P That doesn't necessarily mean it's a very good doorstop, of course, but it does mean that it becomes essential to functionality and thus no longer "junk" IMO.
Junk DNA is a bit of a misnomer. If it were really junk, it would get removed from the genome pretty quickly naturally. It's not so much "Junk" DNA, it's more "We don't know what it does yet" DNA.Just in case you missed it, that was my gist. Possibly you didn't and you were expanding on what I said, though, in which case thank you.
Sheb raised the point I wanted to. Organisms are filled with redundant stuff. I've said before, nature trends towards two things: Hack jobs and efficiency, and somehow the latter comes from the former.It's all a hack job. But it's also all (at least anything that's been around for a handful of generations and not causing you problems) a hack-job that generally works. Which is obviously more efficient than a hack job that doesn't, or an efficiency that falls over due to a critical loss of redundancy.
More a case of me typing up my post, forgetting to hit send, and then coming back 50 minutes later with some ninja posts having happened and going "Screw it! Posting anyways!" :PJunk DNA is a bit of a misnomer. If it were really junk, it would get removed from the genome pretty quickly naturally. It's not so much "Junk" DNA, it's more "We don't know what it does yet" DNA.Just in case you missed it, that was my gist. Possibly you didn't and you were expanding on what I said, though, in which case thank you.
I've heard that most of the "junk" DNA is different genomes that are triggered by environmental conditions. So somebody born in environment A would be different than someone born in environment B. Even if their DNA was exactly identical.
Even if their DNA was exactly identical.Just 100% no on this. "Junk" DNA is part (most) of the total DNA, and all DNA resides in your 23 chromosome pairs. So someone with differing junk DNA cannot have "exactly identical" DNA at all.
Another useful role for carrying such "junk" around, is that it reduces the likelihood that a random mutation (say, caused by a cosmic ray particle, or by UV exposure, or (insert ionization source here) happening in a vital section of DNA. If you carry around lots of non-coding junk, a mutation there wont kill you. If your genome is "Super efficiently lean"-- a mutation is pretty much always a bad thing.
http://jcb.rupress.org/content/157/4/579.abstract
I'm not really sure this is connected to space anymore.Radiation damage.
For radiation sources it's sort of debatable too, because other non-DNA molecules also absorb UV and cosmic rays, so having a bigger DNA target wouldn't necessarily have a meaningful protective effect on other DNA. It's a bigger target now with the extra DNA. It's possible that it would protect against free radicals that actually get into the chromosome however.That is indeed something that I intended to mention, if I didn't. Some repeating 'junk' base-pair sequences (e.g., for the sake of illustration, ATATATATATAT..., but it's probably not that, I'd have to go a-Googling to get the exact details) act as 'lightning rods', actually being more attractive to radical ions and taking damage (with or without a handy molecular tool, nearby that spots damaged ATATATATATs and repairs/neutralises it).
That might affect our (possibly jewish) slaves building the moon piramyds for the space pharaoh.I'm not really sure this is connected to space anymore.Radiation damage.
I think that they ended up just braving it for the apollo programs because they passed through it quickly enough that it didn't matter.I know that the Apollo missions were at about 30% inclination, so they would have gone over most of it.
Building a station there though, that's something we'd need to avoid. Why would we do that though?
What is the dangerous radiation belt around the earth? Van Halen belt? Anyways, we can get past it easily, it is donut-shaped so we can go over or under it I think.Pfft. You just made me imagine a massive body of songs from these folk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen) orbiting the Earth. Van Allen belts. Yes, theoretically you can bypass the Van Allen belts entirely by going through the north or south magnetic poles. This, however, is ridiculously fuel-inefficient. If you launch from there, leaving aside the surface logistics of an Antarctic space launch facility, you lose most of the benefits of near-equatorial launches, which is the use of the Earth's own rotation as a sort of "booster" to save on fuel. A polar transfer is not especially cheap fuel-wise, either. Finally, you can still transit the Van Allen belts while still avoiding the worst of it; to elaborate on jaked's statement, the Apollo missions were planned on a trajectory to avoid the inner belts and only transited the outer belts, and most of the radiation received was actually from solar radiation once they left the Earth's magnetosphere entirely. As noted, there isn't too much of a need to station humans within the belts on a long-term basis. This actually brings up the major issue, though: the question of radiation damage is much more general than the Van Allen belts alone.
But slaves were never actually used to build the Egyptian pyramids.That might affect our (possibly jewish) slaves building the moon piramyds for the space pharaoh.I'm not really sure this is connected to space anymore.Radiation damage.
Didn't you see that documentary.... Exodus?But slaves were never actually used to build the Egyptian pyramids.That might affect our (possibly jewish) slaves building the moon piramyds for the space pharaoh.I'm not really sure this is connected to space anymore.Radiation damage.
I think that Exodus (the book) says that the slaves made the bricks, not the structures themselves.And the movie.
I think that Exodus (the book) says that the slaves made the bricks, not the structures themselves.Indeed, I just went back and checked, since I was curious. Exodus cites "harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields," as well as attributing the construction of Pithom and Rameses to them. I don't see anything about pyramids, though I do tend to be a bit blind; that may have been a later conflation of separate construction works due to the notion that "Egyptian = pyramid."
Regardless, Exodus is not a reliable source.No, but considering this all started from a sarcastic joke along that exact line, it is amusing to point out that for all its fallacies and likely its complete inaccuracy from base premises (that is, the notion that there were a significant number of Hebrew slaves in Egypt in the first place), even Exodus itself doesn't make the pop-culture mistake of Jews building Egyptian pyramids.
Regardless, Exodus is not a reliable source.It's a more reliable source than no source though.
I think it's important to differentiate between "acting as our only source because no other more reliable sources exist" and "acting as our only source because we don't want to look at other sources". While Exodus can certainly count as the first for societal research about the people of the time in which it was written (which was mainly not the time in which it is set), it's definitely the second one for historical research, to the point where even religious Israeli historians agree that it's a bunch of anachronistic stories that didn't really happen as described. :PRegardless, Exodus is not a reliable source.It's a more reliable source than no source though.
That's how we know we truly are in one of the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.It's turtles all the way down!
In more spacey aimed stuff, it seems like some of our space trash is coming back (https://www.rt.com/news/319788-moon-space-debris-wtf/). From the sound of things it isn't going to be a problem, though it looks like labs are going to use this as an excellent training exercise and field test for many of the protocols that would be used if a more dangerous piece of space stuff (like say, a large asteroid), was headed towards us.And of course, people are claiming that it is aliens and the government is lying to us.
Ugh, I hate those people. Specially when it's obviously a ruse to hide bigfoot.In more spacey aimed stuff, it seems like some of our space trash is coming back (https://www.rt.com/news/319788-moon-space-debris-wtf/). From the sound of things it isn't going to be a problem, though it looks like labs are going to use this as an excellent training exercise and field test for many of the protocols that would be used if a more dangerous piece of space stuff (like say, a large asteroid), was headed towards us.And of course, people are claiming that it is aliens and the government is lying to us.
:PUgh, I hate those people. Specially when it's obviously a ruse to hide bigfoot.In more spacey aimed stuff, it seems like some of our space trash is coming back (https://www.rt.com/news/319788-moon-space-debris-wtf/). From the sound of things it isn't going to be a problem, though it looks like labs are going to use this as an excellent training exercise and field test for many of the protocols that would be used if a more dangerous piece of space stuff (like say, a large asteroid), was headed towards us.And of course, people are claiming that it is aliens and the government is lying to us.
You're not thinking combinatorially! Obviously Bigfoot is and alien! :PUgh, I hate those people. Specially when it's obviously a ruse to hide bigfoot.In more spacey aimed stuff, it seems like some of our space trash is coming back (https://www.rt.com/news/319788-moon-space-debris-wtf/). From the sound of things it isn't going to be a problem, though it looks like labs are going to use this as an excellent training exercise and field test for many of the protocols that would be used if a more dangerous piece of space stuff (like say, a large asteroid), was headed towards us.And of course, people are claiming that it is aliens and the government is lying to us.
Bigfoot is the result of atavism in human alien hybrids.Guess it's time to go alert the XCOM2 team then. I'll be hiding out in my basement and praying that we build enough satellites. :P
More EMdrive noise. (http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/nasa-eagleworks-has-tested-upgraded.html)
I don't want to hope, but I'm hoping. People keep saying it might make free energy, but that is not necessarily true; it's quite unclear what's going on inside that thing.
It's just... a 32 month round trip to Saturn and back.
More EMdrive noise. (http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/11/nasa-eagleworks-has-tested-upgraded.html)
This last bit is quite telling; it means you haven't been paying attention StarverWut?
At this point in the game, we need experimental refutation of the Q-thruster modelling framework postulated by the Eagleworks team.Wrong way round.
Why? "OMG! Its cold fusion all over again! Ooow my funding!"
Why? "OMG! Its cold fusion all over again! Ooow my funding!"
As I obviously ETAed it after you replied, I'll also put it in the reply. It's more like "OMG! It's faster-than-light neutrinos all over again!" More testing! More rigour! More people replicating the results! Then we can talk.
Eagleworks probably isn't fabricating data (and, for all I know, neither is NWPU), just like OPERA didn't. But more science please, to make sure there aren't any trivial errors...
More bluntly-- Why is EagleWorks the ONLY research group willing to look at this?
...is a small research group investigating a variety of fringe theories regarding novel forms of spacecraft propulsion.(My italics.)
The only way to be sure, is to independently test.^^^
But nobody is independently testing. (Because "Woooo! cold fusion!")
Thats what I am bitching about. If you think Q-thruster is Hokum, then test and publish your refutation.
(and note, Q-thruster is basically just a resonant cavity tuned to a specific RF modulation mode, that contains a dialectric element. The Q-thruster IS an Emdrive, but not all Emdrive designs are Q-thrusters.)Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thrusters are different from RF Resonant Cavity Thrusters, though, with different (proposed) mechanisms behind their 'creation' of momentum. (The first allegedly creates and ejects reaction-mass from virtual particles, thus getting around the need for a 'reaction mass' supply, the second involves unequal radiation pressures at each end of a chamber, thus getting around the need for any reaction mass.)
free energy
free energy
this is the most terrifying phrase in all of existence
Jeff maybe unaware SpaceX suborbital VTOL flight began 2013. Orbital water landing 2014. Orbital land landing next. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2t15vP1PyoA …
The thrust could be due to stuff inside the device being incinerated. (https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3ertp3/scientists_confirm_impossible_em_drive_propulsion/cti45hy) In which case it's no better than an ion drive.Called it, kinda:
Have they ruled out thermal pitting yet on the surface of the larger section? Just heat forming microscopic spalls from overstressed metal crystals that are ejected like rocket fuel? This is probably completely the wrong place to ask, but I saw heat diagrams where the bigger half was getting much hotter on their forums and I'm a little concerned.I'm off to give myself a trophy or something hue. *forever a layperson*
Soyuz 45 which launched earlier has docked with the ISS.Don't worry, even if the American on board isn't culturally used to driving anything that isn't automatic, there's a Brit on board who will surely know how to drive manual1... ;)
Something went wrong with the automated docking system, so they had to switch to manual.
Japanese probe now in orbit around Venus, after a mishap sent it for a loop around the sun. (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/japanese-spacecraft-reaches-venus-%E2%80%94-five-years-late)Got there in the end.
anyone interested in becoming an astronaut?
http://www.npr.org/2015/12/16/459691082/nasa-s-looking-for-astronauts-do-you-have-the-right-stuff
man some people in the comments. seriously.
universities should be as selective
To be an astronaut, you need a degree in a scientific field, vision correctable to 20/20, and you've got to stand between 4 feet, 8.5 inches tall and 6 foot 4.it's almost as if commenters don't even read the articles
a lot of them also seem to be under the impression that astronauts do nothing but float around and take pictures all day.well, the floating around part is more or less accurate :)
a lot of them also seem to be under the impression that astronauts do nothing but float around and take pictures all day.Are you saying that you'd rather be doing what you're doing now than floating around, performing repairs, science, and using complicated toilets?
For some reason, this suddenly came to mind...Wait... Her ship IMPLODED from the vacuum of space??? Can you even physics??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCalLq9iDiw
?!For some reason, this suddenly came to mind...Wait... Her ship IMPLODED from the vacuum of space??? Can you even physics??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCalLq9iDiw
Are you saying that you'd rather be doing what you're doing now than floating around, performing repairs, science, and using complicated toilets?The food's probably not that great.
Radiation's not that bad due to protection since you're in the magnetosphere, food's not terrible IIRC and muscle atrophy? You exercise in space for a reason.You're still at a greater risk for cancer. Well, you can't have a decent pizza or anything. Yes, lots more exercising.
There's probably limits on free time and internet, too.<INSERT WILHELM SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!>
Radiation's not that bad due to protection since you're in the magnetosphere, food's not terrible IIRC and muscle atrophy? You exercise in space for a reason.You're still at a greater risk for cancer. Well, you can't have a decent pizza or anything. Yes, lots more exercising.
There's probably limits on free time and internet, too.
There's significant muscle and bone atrophy (more bone)Yeah, exercise can only do so much, and some of the more long-term effects of life in space on your body are currently fairly hotbed areas of research. Our first 1 year stay in space experiment won't end for another 3 months, at which point the scientists will finally have the data they need to start drawing some real conclusions about longer-term effects.
Still, it is a rather novel situation, exploring the wear and tear of an intact falcon 9 just returned from an orital launch. Anything they find will be unexpected, because they have little to base their expectationon.
Before they refly, they need to know which parts are worn, which are ok, which needs to be replaced. That is how they can assess refurbishment costs, and estimate the number of times it can fly. Considering the kind of job rockets do, I can't see them having a service life as long as, lets say, airplanes. But even just 3-4 times, it would be an interesting change.
It's not like it would fit in a museum anyways, right?
If you're suggesting replacing engines, you may have a few misconceptions. The engines are some of the more expensive parts of a rocket, what with needing all kinds of super-alloys and having extremely low production tolerances.This. Engine reuse is the main reason for it. Engine reuse also have precedent, in that it is done on pretty much every mission to space already. SpaceX, a few days before each launch, hoists the rocket up, fuels it, and does a test burn using the engines to ensure none of them explode immediately from manufacturing defects or similar. Rocket engines aren't built to last indefinitely, but of all the SpaceX flights thus far, there has only been a single engine popping; indicating a pretty high tolerance margin. The rocket itself has an absurdly high tolerance margin, as it can complete its mission even after losing multiple engines (in the case where the engine broke, it made it to orbit successfully).
Hi, I'm new to the thread. It seems very relevant to my interests.
Edit: Also, the payload was 11 communication satellites for OrbComm.Building on that, each satellite weighs 172 kg, so 1892 kg in total. And they were sent to a geosynchronous transfer orbit.
It's not like it would fit in a museum anyways, right?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Considering they have a facility down at Cape Canaveral that houses an entire Saturn V rocket, yeah I think they can find somewhere to put it. If they don't totally destroy it doing the analysis.BTW, if you ever get a chance, you should visit this. It's pretty fucking epic to see in real life.Spoiler: Kennedy Space Center (click to show/hide)
Spaceships, aircraft carriers and skyscrapers are three of those things that I think people just can't appreciate how big they are until they see them in person. And then you go "Holy shit, people BUILT this? Humanity FUCK YEAHHH"It's not like it would fit in a museum anyways, right?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Considering they have a facility down at Cape Canaveral that houses an entire Saturn V rocket, yeah I think they can find somewhere to put it. If they don't totally destroy it doing the analysis.BTW, if you ever get a chance, you should visit this. It's pretty fucking epic to see in real life.Spoiler: Kennedy Space Center (click to show/hide)
I'm impressed.
went there as a kid. it was awesome.Spaceships, aircraft carriers and skyscrapers are three of those things that I think people just can't appreciate how big they are until they see them in person. And then you go "Holy shit, people BUILT this? Humanity FUCK YEAHHH"It's not like it would fit in a museum anyways, right?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Considering they have a facility down at Cape Canaveral that houses an entire Saturn V rocket, yeah I think they can find somewhere to put it. If they don't totally destroy it doing the analysis.BTW, if you ever get a chance, you should visit this. It's pretty fucking epic to see in real life.Spoiler: Kennedy Space Center (click to show/hide)
I'm impressed.
I didn't know that existed, and now would very much like to go.
Given the sheer expense of building a Saturn V, I do have to question why that one's just sitting in a museum instead of doing a job.
That would make a great deal more sense.And cobbling up a static display from spares doesn't need the rigorous post-production testing that a full orbit-capable version needs.
If you're suggesting replacing engines, you may have a few misconceptions. The engines are some of the more expensive parts of a rocket, what with needing all kinds of super-alloys and having extremely low production tolerances.
Hi, I'm new to the thread. It seems very relevant to my interests.
Musk planned from the start to eventually be able to land and reuse his rockets, I'm fairly sure....and all from his extinct volcano crater base in Japan!
Musk planned from the start to eventually be able to land and reuse his rockets, I'm fairly sure.yes. here's some relevant explanation of his goals, if kind of long.
Potential trans-neptunian Neptune. (http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/feature-astronomers-say-neptune-sized-planet-lurks-unseen-solar-system?utm_content=buffer59a3e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer)Interesting. I heard about it on the radio earlier. They were calling it "Planet 9", thus sealing Pluto's non-planetary fate1...)
We should just reinstate Pluto and call the tenth planet X. Just, X.
And in fairness, there are a couple planetoids out there bigger than Pluto. Mostly not by very much, and on pretty weird orbits too.Actually, New Horizons proved Pluto is in fact bigger than Eris, making Pluto once again the biggest dwarf fortress.
If it turns out to be there, I do approve Chronos/Kronos.
Eris changes her size periodically to cause controversy. It's her thing.And in fairness, there are a couple planetoids out there bigger than Pluto. Mostly not by very much, and on pretty weird orbits too.Actually, New Horizons proved Pluto is in fact bigger than Eris, making Pluto once again the biggest dwarf fortress.
If it turns out to be there, I do approve Chronos/Kronos.
And in fairness, there are a couple planetoids out there bigger than Pluto. Mostly not by very much, and on pretty weird orbits too.Actually, New Horizons proved Pluto is in fact bigger than Eris, making Pluto once again the biggest dwarf fortress.
If it turns out to be there, I do approve Chronos/Kronos.
Remember, the temperature of the surface of stars is approximately 0K. For the purposes of some calculations anyway.To be fair, in Astronomy, if observed values end up the same order of magnitude as predicted values it is usually remarkable.And in fairness, there are a couple planetoids out there bigger than Pluto. Mostly not by very much, and on pretty weird orbits too.Actually, New Horizons proved Pluto is in fact bigger than Eris, making Pluto once again the biggest dwarf fortress.
If it turns out to be there, I do approve Chronos/Kronos.
Has black hole sun been discussed yet?I think it has. The conclusion was that the Sun isn't one, and Soundgarden had just one good song.
Actually, I don't think so. The sun is constantly emitting a negligible-for-its-size but real amount of both matter and energy, while a black hole of equal mass would not. As such....I'm not exactly sure what that would do to the orbits, but I'm sure it would add up over the millennia.Centripetal force keeping the planets in orbit would be exactly the same. I think that's what he was trying to say.
You should not discount the impact this would have on planetary systems. Large, highly magnetic bodies like Jupiter would become the main forces of magnetisim in the planetary system (again, unless the hole is actively feeding), and this would perturb the orbits of smaller but still magnetic bodies, like the earth.By how much? Because unless you show me some numbers, I'll happily discount it, and much more easily than radiation and solar wind pressure, or solar mass loss.
It think magnetism wouldn't be strong enough to deviate the orbits in any meaningful way. But I'm no astrophysicist so I couldn't really told.Neither am I, but my gut feeling is that the differences between a fluorescent/magnetic sun and a non-fluorescent/magnetic black-hole would be fairly minimal and would have a 'new equilibrium' of orbits (at least beyond Mercury, but we'd have to look at what changes the concentrated alteration in Frame Dragging might do to that, perhaps) of a not dissimilar nature.
Ah. So you've never actually tried putting any numbers on that.
So, without knowing exactly when the accretion disc stops being present, I cannot even begin to calculate what the impact will be.Sure you can. The question, and your responses that followed, concerned the effect the lack of solar magnetosphere would have on planetary orbits. You can disregard the accretion disc and its influence, since we're interested in the upper bound for the effect.
meaning these objects would have greater masses, and thus different orbital periods and stable orbital radii from the central mass.Noting that the mass of an object in orbit doesn't affect the object's orbit.
I dont particularly enjoy math.Eh. How can you know what you're saying has any relation to reality then? Because, you see, no matter how much you may deride spherical cows, even that approximation gives you a better handle on how big a barn you must build than pure guesswork could ever provide.
Eh. How can you know what you're saying has any relation to reality then? Because, you see, no matter how much you may deride spherical cows, even that approximation gives you a better handle on how big a barn you must build than pure guesswork could ever provide.At least once you solve, once and for all, the Spherical Packing Problem.
and that planet will have significantly less mass afterwards.
vastly different from the one we have nowSee, those are the kind of qualifying statements that require something more than just 'feelies' to support. Is it really significant? In what way? How do you know? Why should we believe you? Why not check it before saying something like that and risk sounding silly?
and that planet will have significantly less mass afterwards.vastly different from the one we have nowSee, those are the kind of qualifying statements that require something more than just 'feelies' to support. Is it really significant? In what way? How do you know? Why should we believe you? Why not check it before saying something like that and risk sounding silly?
Clay, according to Blair, is a mixture of silica and the silicates of aluminum, calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. The silicates are hydrated and as a result they may contain from 6 to 12 percent of water chemically combined.
Myself, and it's fine if you don't care, I've lost all respect for your opinions - you've never shown any deeper understanding outside how to use google. Dodging relatively simple mathematical exercises like they're the equivalent of performing genesis doesn't help.
Anyhow, I'm outta here. Take what I said as you will - use it or lose it.
Let's get out of this pointless argument. The sun never was, and never will be a black hole. So let's drop it.That sounds like a quitter's attitude to me. Future Humanity will one day be able to pursue the noble goal of collapsing our homeworld's star into a singularity, no matter how much ignorant cynicism you peddle in the present. We need to work today to give them that chance, to believe in the black hole that believes in us, or at least in consuming all available matter and energy.
According to Wikipedia, a 1 solar mass black hole should be able to grow, and not shrink from hawking radiation.It will only grow if it has matter to suck in. Just a sol-sized black hole would still shrink from hawking radiation.
If you can somehow increase the intensity of the gravitation inside the heart of the star to overcome fusion pressure, and subsequent neutron degeneracy pressure, and thus create a singularity-- such created singularity should be stable once you turn off your doomsday device.
Now, would a device that can do that win a Nobel prize, or an Ignobel prize?
A stellar black hole of 1 M☉ has a Hawking temperature of about 100 nanokelvins. This is far less than the 2.7 K temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Stellar-mass or larger black holes receive more mass from the cosmic microwave background than they emit through Hawking radiation and thus will grow instead of shrink.[citation needed] To have a Hawking temperature larger than 2.7 K (and be able to evaporate), a black hole needs to have less mass than the Moon. Such a black hole would have a diameter of less than a tenth of a millimeter.[92]
nanokelvinsYou know you're going to have a bad day when someone uses this unit of measure.
If you can somehow increase the intensity of the gravitation inside the heart of the star to overcome fusion pressure, and subsequent neutron degeneracy pressure, [...]I'd go for trying to reduce the fusion pressure, and possibly the other as well. Some exotic 'poisoning' particle could sap the virility of the sun's reaction (I think they used the concept of a Q-Ball for the movie Sunshine).
what was that other measurement from awhile ago? picohitler?nanokelvinsYou know you're going to have a bad day when someone uses this unit of measure.
FemtoStalins
I prefer the smaller, and thus more accurate, femto-nepoleans myself.
Difficult to quantify. That is like comparing newtons to pascals. ;)
Isn't in MicroMaos?Difficult to quantify. That is like comparing newtons to pascals. ;)
you ever seen how piano string tension is represented?
Difficult to quantify. That is like comparing newtons to pascals. ;)
If we hold that 1 Hitler has a value of 6 million dead jews, while 1 Stalin has a value of 20 million total dead people (not of military service)-- There are approximately 3 Hitlers to 1 Stalin conversion rate.
This means that there are approximately 333,333,333.3 femtostalins to one megahitler.
Bear in mind that fast and loose conversions like this is how you crash space probes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter)
Here's a thought: what would happen in a system with an antimatter sun and matter planets? I don't recall there being such a thing as an antiphoton, so would there be low enough matter exchange to avoid chaos?
Here's a thought: what would happen in a system with an antimatter sun and matter planets? I don't recall there being such a thing as an antiphoton, so would there be low enough matter exchange to avoid chaos?
QuestionFrom here. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/questions/question/2201/)
Ali and Steve, Australia asked:
Is there an antimatter equivalent to light?
Answer
Dave - In some sense it does. There is an antimatter equivalent to a photon. It’s not an antiphoton. If you have two photons you know are in exactly the opposite phase they can cancel each other out. As far as we know the photon is its own antiparticle.
The issue with backing commercial ventures is that from what I recall the space treaty dictates that any minerals from space must benefit all mankind, which means either the companies have to make a very convincing case, lie through their teeth, or break the treaty.Isn't the treaty between governments rather than applying to the whole of humanity?
The issue with backing commercial ventures is that from what I recall the space treaty dictates that any minerals from space must benefit all mankind, which means either the companies have to make a very convincing case, lie through their teeth, or break the treaty.As I understand it, that applies to governments (and Luxembourg is among those ratified) from claiming sovereignty over celestial bodies, but that wouldn't actually stop a company with a space-presence (or a national space-agency?) from using the resources of said bodies.
That asshole statement of benefits of space along with the no nukes in space because "you'll pollute space" (fucking hippies, God how I hate them with white hot passion) are to be revised and corrected the moment we get more space presence.I thought the Nuke ban was because of the time the US nearly ignited the Pacific hemisphere's sky.
Isn't the treaty between governments rather than applying to the whole of humanity?
Register HQ in country that did not sign Space Asshole Prevention act
???
Profit.
I thought the whole thing about ~igniting the atmosphere~ was said to be impossible (though nobody knew if it was before the tests) :v?Pretty much. They had already run through the math before the Trinity test. It was mostly just Fermi (surprisingly, not Feynman) playing a prank by offering to serve as a bookie to the military on site regarding the odds of that happening; I think the person in charge chewed him out since the military guards didn't have clearance for all the math or the background to understand it, so they took it at face value.
What is there to ignite? There's oxygen, but nothing for the oxygen to burn with that isn't an endothermic reaction.
That wouldn't happen either at all ever. Nuclear fission of atoms lower than iron on the periodic table, excepting unstable isotopes, needs more energy than they let out.
They didn't know that at the time.I think the point to take away is supposed to be that they did 'know' it wouldn't happen, but they didn't know that it wouldn't happen. So it wouldn't hurt to double-check, once actually considered.
That asshole statement of benefits of space along with the no nukes in space because "you'll pollute space" (fucking hippies, God how I hate them with white hot passion) are to be revised and corrected the moment we get more space presence.
Yeah, but orion space craft would be akin to propulsing yourself with a office chair and a ak47. Surely you can't go around and pass a ak47 as a simple propusion engine.
And I have personally heard the "we are going to pollute space if we nuke it too" stupid argument in person. That day I almost had a stroke.
And I have personally heard the argument that we aren't bombing ISIS because environmentalists are worried it will add to global warming. People say stupid crap. Just because someone says stupid crap doesn't mean multi-billion dollar projects are behoven to them.
On the one hand, strategic nuclear use wouldn't make climate change any better. On the other, there are better reasons not to nuke the middle east than a fractional and temporary increase in temperature.
Though according to freeciv, you can cancel one out with the other. Not really an acceptable way of going about fixing the climate, but hey, if it works in freeciv then it has at least a 5 percent chance of working in real life.
I'd rather it just be 60%. Specifically, the 60% the military's using.
But no, this is 'murrica.
This is the Space Thread, not the Earth Thread.Though according to freeciv, you can cancel one out with the other. Not really an acceptable way of going about fixing the climate, but hey, if it works in freeciv then it has at least a 5 percent chance of working in real life.
I've tried that in Freeciv. It doesn't cancel. You just get mixed desert and tundra continents.
If I'm not mistaken, Kerbal Space Program doesn't model the gravitational pull of more than one stellar body at a time (or is it two?) Needless to say, that sort of discrepancy among other things kind of invalidates it as anything more than a broad learning tool.Just the one, yes. Whichever "Sphere of most influence" you're in (so getting closer to a body orbiting a larger one suddenly switches you to that smaller one, carrying in your relative velocity from when you were 'just' influenced by the larger one).
n-body physics only make a big difference over a long period of time, with small "tugs" every obit or so. As you can imagine, that would be incredibly annoying to play where if you send a probe to jool (jupiter analog) the many years it takes to get there will have caused all your satalites around kebin to have been tossed wildly around and sent off into deep space or crashed into kerbin. Other than the every so often small "tug" the physics simulation is spot on, and it makes the game playable.
What the shit. (http://www.ice-age-ahead-iaa.ca/scrp_wf/pepg000.htm)
This guy is arguing that the sun is actually electrically powered, using green comic sans.
I mean, what?
Does this look like how you want to perform scientific discussion?
That looks like one of the 'Electric universe' aka 'Plasma cosmology' crowd (though they'd probably argue there's a difference). They're some of the crackpottest out there. Google 'thunderbolts project' if you don't value your hair.What the shit. (http://www.ice-age-ahead-iaa.ca/scrp_wf/pepg000.htm)
This guy is arguing that the sun is actually electrically powered, using green comic sans.
I mean, what?
Does this look like how you want to perform scientific discussion?
Consider the article.
Quickly scanning through, it appears to me that what we have here is someone who has learnt some basic physics and believes that they now know 'everything', and now can't believe any extra refinements to physics that is available for them to learn. Such as "nuclear fusion gives out energy, so nuclear fission should always use up energy, obviously!!!" (to paraphrase). They've made up a 'consistent' personal theory in lieu of this and will doubtless stick religiously to that theory, especially since all geniuses were once told they were wrong, so being told that they are wrong is conclusive evidence that they are, in fact, a genius...What the shit. (http://www.ice-age-ahead-iaa.ca/scrp_wf/pepg000.htm)
This guy is arguing that the sun is actually electrically powered, using green comic sans.
I mean, what?
Does this look like how you want to perform scientific discussion?
Consider the article.
Also unutterably stupid.
*returns to reading RationalWiki to restore their faith in humanity*
So, wait, theoretically, doesn't that mean that the universes "true" equilibrium would be when all matter is iron? Then there would be no way to release any more energy.
Uh, no?Also unutterably stupid.
*returns to reading RationalWiki to restore their faith in humanity*
hey aren't those the guys who make shit up about roko's basilisk so they can more efficiently make fun of yudkowsky and his whole follower group
(Hence why I think he's 'learnt' the basics about fission and now refuses to consider learning the basics about fusion, because "he now understands everything!", and doesn't need to learn any more.)
Rational wiki is, iirc, notorious for being chock full of crazies.Is this a Poe's Law moment? I think this is a Poe's Law moment... They're pretty much the anticrazies. Or so I gathered.
I don't think it's even college level, at least not in UK terms. I think I was taught1 about fission (and fusion) in secondary school (tops out at age 16), and at Sixth Form College (the usually two years of pre-university non-compulsory education) the Physics probably went more into the maths and details, but didn't vastly change my basic impressions.(Hence why I think he's 'learnt' the basics about fission and now refuses to consider learning the basics about fusion, because "he now understands everything!", and doesn't need to learn any more.)I can certainly assure you he's either never been to a college physics course, or didn't pay attention.
I think you experienced a better educational system than many.Indeed.
Uh, no?Also unutterably stupid.
*returns to reading RationalWiki to restore their faith in humanity*
hey aren't those the guys who make shit up about roko's basilisk so they can more efficiently make fun of yudkowsky and his whole follower group
I don't think they make anything up about the basilisk. As far as I know.
I think I just listened more in these subjects. (And/or read more of the text-books than anyone asked me to, at a push.) I'm not sure I was hot-housed to know this stuff.I think you experienced a better educational system than many.Indeed.
*reads ALL the comments*Uh, no?Also unutterably stupid.
*returns to reading RationalWiki to restore their faith in humanity*
hey aren't those the guys who make shit up about roko's basilisk so they can more efficiently make fun of yudkowsky and his whole follower group
I don't think they make anything up about the basilisk. As far as I know.
here, found it (https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/2myg86/xkcd_1450_aibox_experiment/cm8vn6e)
They are crazy, just in opposition to some other crazy.Rational wiki is, iirc, notorious for being chock full of crazies.Is this a Poe's Law moment? I think this is a Poe's Law moment... They're pretty much the anticrazies. Or so I gathered.
Until someone mention conservapedia, I was somehow thinking rational wiki was "the one that's basically a lot of conservatove ranting by one guy and his goons". Disregard my nonsense.They are crazy, just in opposition to some other crazy.Rational wiki is, iirc, notorious for being chock full of crazies.Is this a Poe's Law moment? I think this is a Poe's Law moment... They're pretty much the anticrazies. Or so I gathered.
I have not heard of this Conservapedia. Tell me, is it basically some conservative people's beliefs as to science?No, it would be very unfair to burden conservative people in general with responsibility for conservapedia. It is mostly one crazy guy. It's full of pages like "Best arguments against homosexuality" or "evolution syndrome".
Evolution syndrome is the tendency of some people to insist compulsively that human evolution from animals must somehow be true, and to spend nearly all of their time pushing that belief on others.
Gravity waves confirmed.(?)
I'd link the article but I'm on my phone. It's on several major news outlets but light on detail.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/8/11392138/spacex-landing-success-falcon-9-rocket-barge-at-sea (http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/8/11392138/spacex-landing-success-falcon-9-rocket-barge-at-sea)It was pretty darn neat. The barge landing was pretty impressive.
SpaceX did it!
I love that the drone ship was the "Of Course I Still Love You"
one point of data does not make a line.
Time will tell if this is repeatable.
Should it be repeatable, it will radically reduce the costs of launching payloads into LEO.
To get cheaper, rockets probably need to eventually be replaced, because they have to carry their own fuel up with them.
I think that a space elevator might be slightly more reasonable than that.Hey now, I'm as much a fan of megastructures as anyone, but we can't actually build one of those yet. Reusable rockets will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce costs, and we can do it right now- no new wonder materials needed. Fuel makes up a tiny, tiny fraction of space launch costs. Most of it comes from having to build a very low-tolerance, high-tech, massive contraption every time you want to send something up.
It didn't get much attention with the SpaceX landing, but the payload SpaceX was carrying was an inflatable module for the ISS (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/beam-module-iss-1.3539160) That has been attached over the week-end. It'll be inflated in May.
Genesis I & II have been in orbit since 2006/2007, supposedly without any issues.The difference is that this is the first one that is designed to be able to work in tandem with life support; i.e. the goals for this particular one are "to test the BEAM module's structural integrity, leak rate, radiation dosage and temperature changes over a two-year-long mission".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#Expandable_habitat_modules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace#Expandable_habitat_modules)
Also Bigelow(the guy) that builds the things also owns a hotel chain.
Binoculars tinted to near opaqueness should work.Warning!!!
Opportunity gets another mission extension. (http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-missions/mer-updates/2016/07-mer-update-opportunity-nears-end-of-marathon-valley-tour.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/)It's definitely not bad for a three-month tour. :P
It's been around for twelve and a half years, now, which is absolutely incredible, if you think about it.
That is quite surprising. I guess this means earthlike planets are probably really common?Well, it does depend to some degree on what "Earth-like" refers to. Venus and Mars are both Earth-like, if you only take the knowledge about that world we presently know about this one (orbital distance, planetary mass, planetary radius). Even if we do infer from our present limited sample set that such planets are common (at least, until we get enough data to make a more conclusive estimate one way or the other), all it demonstrates is that terrestrial planets can easily exist between 0.5-3 AU from a G-type main-sequence star.
Venus would be pretty nice without the runaway greenhouse. And it probably is pretty nice...50 km above the surface.At that sort of height, air pressure is about Earth sea level, so floating Venusian bases could be viable. If you can solve the slight issues of constant gale-force winds and the fact that the air is full of sulfuric acid. Venus is a terrible place.
If you can solve the slight issues of constant gale-force winds and the fact that the air is full of sulfuric acid. Venus is a terrible place.If they're constant gale-force winds, then its probably managable, a bit like the ground beneath my feet is moving sideways at around 600mph without my having to worry about it (or the additional roughly 67,000mph variable-direction, etc).
theres till the crushing pressures and the incredible heat. their is absolutely no way you could ever build anything on Venus and also no reason to.
no reason to.C'mon think a bit bigger. We need it's precious carbon to produce more humans. If we can't even consume a planet in our own solar system, how will we ever conquer the multiverse?
no reason to.C'mon think a bit bigger. We need it's precious carbon to produce more humans. If we can't even consume a planet in our own solar system, how will we ever conquer the multiverse?
It's nice not having to haul carbon dioxide up and down hundreds of kilometers at a minimum (that being just through the atmosphere, not even including the additional delta-v needed to actually depart and return to your orbital installation), each time going through the same areas of the Venerean atmosphere; it seems a bit more convenient to build and process down there, then just send up the end products. Also, building in the atmosphere allows you to take advantage of maintaining a neutral pressure differential. If you float orbital habitats at 1 atm outside and 1 atm inside (an oxygen-nitrogen breathable mix will float on Venus), you don't have to build your outer structure as strong to keep the air inside, and you don't need to panic nearly as quickly if you get a leak since there's no pressure differential to drive your air out (or the outside air in). You also can take advantage of the local gravity without having to build it into your orbital habitat or deal with the significant long-term health effects of microgravity. (EDIT It also occurs to me that having an atmospheric shield equivalent to Earth's above you also is nice for avoiding solar radiation, micrometeorites, and other issues that would have to be dealt with for permanent space settlements to become a reality.)no reason to.C'mon think a bit bigger. We need it's precious carbon to produce more humans. If we can't even consume a planet in our own solar system, how will we ever conquer the multiverse?
Why not just siphon it off into orbital habitats? Orbits are very free of wind and poison.
theres till the crushing pressures and the incredible heat. their is absolutely no way you could ever build anything on Venus and also no reason to.
I'll say it again: Venus is a terrible place. Stick to Mars.Mars, with its invidious dust being sandblasted at you by ultra-high-speed winds in the still far-thinner-than-useful atmosphere. You have a Sun that is a mere pinprick, but is irradiating everything out of all proportion, and whilst you can 'bake' to room temperature at high noon, you need to deal with negative hundred or more (whether you prefer C or F, but its around +140 for those who prefer K) at the other extreme, stressing structures and membranes.on a cyclc nature. Again, thanks to the thin atmosphere.
*hand wave*You don't need to know how the air remains breathable...CoruscantHow the fuck's that planet going to stay breathable? The oxygen'll get used up eventually!
Need radiation protection on Venus, too. Venus also lacks a magnetosphere, though the atmosphere would absorb SOME of the radiation at least.Magnetospheres don't protect planets from radiation, they protect atmospheres from being ablated away. The atmosphere is what inhibits the radiation.
Living on Mars is BARELY easier than living on the Moon, except you have to descend much further into a gravity well, and travel much further, for no benefits beyond "we went there", which has value, but not much compared to "we are living on another world and can remain there indefinitely" like Venus air-colonies would offer.
That sulfuric acid might be a godsend actually. Sulfuric acid contains hydrogen (and oxygen), which is otherwise lacking in the atmosphere. And acids react with alkalines and make water + salts.
Mars and the moon both have lots of iron. Not really worth the trouble of going there though.
I'm still not seeing why you dont just send a ship to dip in, grab the hydrogen and then bugger back out into orbit where humans belong. It's nice that you can freefloat in the atmosphere but you can float even freer outside the atmosphere.Because acidic corrosion is preferable over deadly radiation (although the 1 bar of Venusian atmosphere might not protect as well as 1 bar of Earth's atmosphere, if only for the ozone). As a bonus you get a little bit of gravity so the legs don't go all wobbly weightless.
The moon has iron in a low enough gravity well that you can launch from it without rockets. That's more handy then iron at the bottom of a deeper gravity well.
A bigger or smaller moon/planet would orbit in the same time period. So we could e.g. pummel asteroids / comets into Mars to bulk it up, to heat it and make it hold an atmosphere better. That wouldn't affect its orbit much at all.The moon has iron in a low enough gravity well that you can launch from it without rockets. That's more handy then iron at the bottom of a deeper gravity well.
I've always wondered what would happen if a significant amount of mass was removed from the moon, either transferred to earth or shipped away. What would happen to tidal forces and weather patters on earth? And how would it affect the moon's orbit? Would it affect other things, like axial tilt?
That's assuming they need trees to process oxygen, whereas most of that on Earth is done by algae already. You could argue the same about Endor or Hoth: worlds without oceans shouldn't be able to support that level of ecosystem (in Hoth's case, large-scale fauna). At least Coruscant could have the excuse that they have high-tech machinery underground that processes the air. After all, it's a given that eventually we'd be able to "design better algae". Algae relies on massive amounts of water and is not a specifically efficient use of turning sunlight into oxygen: because algae isn't designed to do that, oxygen is a waste product. So since it's not optimized we could clearly engineer better algae even with current biotech knowledge.CoruscantHow the fuck's that planet going to stay breathable? The oxygen'll get used up eventually!
If you're just going to set up in orbit, and you've already solved the issues of permanent orbital settlement such that you don't need to go to Venus, well, there's not nearly as much point in going to Venus at all.
That's assuming [Coruscantians] need trees to process oxygen,My 'serious' answer1 is that they have obviously mastered nucleogenesis/transmutation. They have impressive reactor-tech2, and even if it's an endothermic nucleosynthesis process, they can power that from part if the output from the regular hypermatter reactor cores, fuelled from (and by-products disposed to) off-planet reservoirs as necessary.
It would be easier to make it survivable. Easier to live in. Venus is closer than anything but periodic LEO visits. You get a leak in an orbital habitat, you run the risk of dying soon. You get a leak in an aerostat, you run the risk of eventually running out of oxygen unless you start up scrubbers, and have a bad smell to deal with until you find it. It really is the only other location which is close to habitable besides Earth.If you're just going to set up in orbit, and you've already solved the issues of permanent orbital settlement such that you don't need to go to Venus, well, there's not nearly as much point in going to Venus at all.
I imagine that if you can transport enough mass to Venus to make a floating city, you can transport enough mass to not Venus to make an orbital city.
...one player is the merciless void of space...
It would be easier to make it survivable. Easier to live in. Venus is closer than anything but periodic LEO visits. You get a leak in an orbital habitat, you run the risk of dying soon. You get a leak in an aerostat, you run the risk of eventually running out of oxygen unless you start up scrubbers, and have a bad smell to deal with until you find it. It really is the only other location which is close to habitable besides Earth.If you're just going to set up in orbit, and you've already solved the issues of permanent orbital settlement such that you don't need to go to Venus, well, there's not nearly as much point in going to Venus at all.
I imagine that if you can transport enough mass to Venus to make a floating city, you can transport enough mass to not Venus to make an orbital city.
we have managed leaks for decades. Buoyancy is new.
I specifically mention blimps and Zeppelin's, dude.Yet you only say 'decades' (and imply airships as still newer than that, when the history of lighter-than-air flight is better measured in centuries. We can handle leaks.
On phone so Zeppelin'sOn tablet, but not at all forced to use an apostrophe (although the keyboard uses up half the height of the display, which is awkward) and really a spill-chucker/bord-wodger forces possessive but not plural of a semi-obscure word..? Meh. It was an aside. Never mind.
Blimps and Zeppelin's always return to earth in a storm. That isn't an option for Venus city. For decades we have had space craft that have operated in orbit just like an orbital city would. Just do more of the same. Higher orbit and bigger station. Then you can start using off world resources to grow.They do because it is easy. A leaking venusblimp would be easiest to fix in flight. Easiest to resupply in flight. Easiest to reach from orbit to assist or escape to orbit upon evacuation. "We do this thing, and the other things, not because they are easy but we also do not make them harder than they need to be." To paraphrase.
The ISS has managed, what, 20 years without any serious impact, and Venusian space is much emptier than LEO.It's had its moments,. As has a predecessor (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir#Accidents), hence a lot of the caution with docking, these days, unless you want to skip resupply operations and just concentrate on the natural dangers entirely.
venus takes the least delta-v to get to, so it can be useful for slingshots....for which you don't 'stop off'. You slingshot. Hence why I think the first manned visit to (the vicinity of) Venus will be a flying visit at best. No orbit, no upper atmosphere, no landing.
And (as well as why we're sending men(/women) to venus) that's the bit we need more information on. But by the time someone is seriously thinking of it, we'll have better ideas about all of that. Right now, we know we could orbit Venus (to observe? Like an unmanned probe?) or float in its atmosphere (like an unmanned probe, again) and once we know why we want actual people there (long-term hands-on analysis of the atmosphere?), that'll be part of the mission-spec.Well, we could live on Venus, it holding a few advantages over hard vac.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Venus
Interesting readings by all means. Both orbital and floating colonies are proposed. As well as terraforming, which in my opinion should be long term goal of ALL of our colonies whenever possible.
Oh, I got ninjad.Quite a lot. I'm already (on balance) on the side of the 30-mile-high club, and the arguments for it were given (by others) a page or two back... ;)
NASA just announced that any published science done with NASA funding will be made available to the public for free. (http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-made-all-the-scientific-research-it-funds-available-for-free)this is really something that should be done for all scientific research. its idiotic that basically all new discovery's are locked behind a thousand paywalls.
So that's pretty cool.
What do you meant by 'don't curate'?
Your living area IS the buoyancy module, oxygen is a lifting gas in a CO2 atmosphere.It would be easier to make it survivable. Easier to live in. Venus is closer than anything but periodic LEO visits. You get a leak in an orbital habitat, you run the risk of dying soon. You get a leak in an aerostat, you run the risk of eventually running out of oxygen unless you start up scrubbers, and have a bad smell to deal with until you find it. It really is the only other location which is close to habitable besides Earth.If you're just going to set up in orbit, and you've already solved the issues of permanent orbital settlement such that you don't need to go to Venus, well, there's not nearly as much point in going to Venus at all.
I imagine that if you can transport enough mass to Venus to make a floating city, you can transport enough mass to not Venus to make an orbital city.
But your entire city can fall to death if the buoyancy module fails... we have managed leaks for decades. Buoyancy is new.
The closest is blimps and Zeppelin's but those land.
Why colonise Mars when we could colonise the Sahara?
That too. With current materials and engineering we could build a space elevator on Mars and if we are lucky and can employ materials there to manufacture ships Mars could become a spaceshipyard of sorts to jump start colonization of more places in the solar system. Of course that's just jumping the gun a bit.Why colonise Mars when we could colonise the Sahara?
Lower gravity.
Yeah, unless for some insane reason you're imagining a Mars settlement as unpressurized and unshielded Mars will obviously seem worse than Venus, but pressurization and shielding are far easier than dealing with making a buoyant living space in sulfuric acid clouds, as can be seen by every mission to space ever.Make a battery, turn it inside out, fill it with 20% oxygen.
Huge satellites before colony ships most likely. Also Mars is crap for farming but due to low gravity and materials it could export food to space. Or just export raw materials for farming like algae compost grown in vats.Sounds wasteful. Why are we growing algae on Mars and not in space, again?
We don't have the money to lift a critical number of people and habitats out to Mars, but we'll be a lot closer to doing so for Venus than we will for Mars, so to answer the earlier question: would I prefer to go to Venus or Mars to live in a hab? I assume the first crew on Mars will die, or be rescued at tremendous expense, no fucking way would I be part of that, get back to me in a hundred years and we'll see if we have regular habitation and transport there down to a regularly thing yet. We could start launching habs down to float in Venus and make sure the maintenance systems work before people even arrive, which is a lot more comforting.Sure we don't have the money to lift all that to Venus neither, no matter how much less expensive it turns out. On the other hand which could be the long term plans for floating habitats on Venus? How much larger can they become? How much weight can they support per tonnage? Could it support industrial scale operations? How do you deal with the high winds blasting acid toward those tanks? Are they designed to withstand wind as fast as 360 km per hour? How are you going to lift those thanks there? How are you going to manage them to stay in a single place? This last point is critical. How are you going to simply dump those habitats in Venus and then expect to get to them without an anchor. And a ~60K anchor that can withstand acid and +400C° temperatures sure seems like a huge weight to carry there.
Mars you need a spacesuit, Venus you need little more than a gas mask and an outer layer, biiiig difference there.How do you think you're going to deal with 75 degrees Celsius atmosphere, still denser than on Earth = better heat transfer, trying to cook you alive, night or day? You won't be leaving your habitat without a spacesuit either, bub.
for a reason NASA has manned plans for going to Mars and not Venus.
That's what I meant.for a reason NASA has manned plans for going to Mars and not Venus.
Nor really plans, but there is a proof-of concept study:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160006329.pdf
Huge satellites before colony ships most likely. Also Mars is crap for farming but due to low gravity and materials it could export food to space. Or just export raw materials for farming like algae compost grown in vats.Sounds wasteful. Why are we growing algae on Mars and not in space, again?
(And going to space (off-earthl) for space (liebensraum) isn't very logical, compared with just normal population controls of various kinds, until we have some sort of space-elevator/star-gate/whatever to get (willing/unwilling) emmigrants off-planet efficiently. It must be the "getting eggs into other baskets" elementthat is the driver to off-world colonisation, in the shorter term. But starting with pioneers and adventurers before even that.)
Huge satellites before colony ships most likely. Also Mars is crap for farming but due to low gravity and materials it could export food to space. Or just export raw materials for farming like algae compost grown in vats.Nowhere's really good for farming other than earth. You can't even use Mars' 'soil' because it's full of perchlorates. If you don't know, they're basically super carcinogenic.
super carcinogenic.An early version of the song in Mary Poppins, rejected and rejigged.
On the other hand which could be the long term plans for floating habitats on Venus? How much larger can they become?Being designed for neutral buoyancy (within a controllable degree) add as many other neutrally-buoyant units on as will physically attach.
How much weight can they support per tonnage?One tonne per tonne, all-in. That's superstructure, envelope, inhabitants, machinary, etc.
Could it support industrial scale operations?See above.
How do you deal with the high winds blasting acid toward those tanks?See below
Are they designed to withstand wind as fast as 360 km per hour?See below.
How are you going to lift those thanks there?Drop them from orbit. Whether fabricated on Earth and lifted from there or constructed 'somewhere' in space from hoisted or harvested materials, that's to be seen.
How are you going to manage them to stay in a single place?Why would you do that?
This last point is critical. How are you going to simply dump those habitats in Venus and then expect to get to them without an anchor. And a ~60K anchor that can withstand acid and +400C° temperatures sure seems like a huge weight to carry there.No anchor. Free-floating. Travelling with the wind, far from (the idea is) turbulance, it'll be like at serene balloon ride, without the scary "so now where are we going to land this thing?" feeling as everyone looks out for a handy field with no powerlines, ahead. (Or, in our case, landing on a steep slope.)
One tonne per tonne, all-in. That's superstructure, envelope, inhabitants, machinary, etc.Where do you get this? So, if I want a warehouse to store a 250000 tons, I need to bring 250000 tons of material to Venus? Don't seem much practical.
Drop them from orbit. Whether fabricated on Earth and lifted from there or constructed 'somewhere' in space from hoisted or harvested materials, that's to be seen.And they get to orbit magically? That's what I meant. You still need to spend a great deal of effort bringing the material there. And according to you you need a ton of material in order to support a ton? How much mass you actually need to move? Can local materials be used like in the case of a solid planet colony? (In my head Venus would be like colonizing a gas giant), since the last question answer is a big fat no, then you need to bring everything.
To find the darn thing? I know structurally talking it will be subjected to less stress as free floating but it doesn't seem very practical for things beyond simply exploration and scientific study. The fact of being free floating doesn't magically do away with the speed of the wind neither.QuoteHow are you going to manage them to stay in a single place?Why would you do that?
No anchor. Free-floating. Travelling with the wind, far from (the idea is) turbulance, it'll be like at serene balloon ride, without the scary "so now where are we going to land this thing?" feeling as everyone looks out for a handy field with no powerlines, ahead. (Or, in our case, landing on a steep slope.)Right, as serene as a ballon flight can be with peaks of 360 km per hour... ;) And in this scenario... once the planet if densely you'll have the occasional colonies crashing into each other. Nice.
Cause Venus habitats can be made from cheap plastic while orbital habitats need to be made from a few meters thick lead.
Oxygen is a lifting gas in a CO2 atmosphere, designing things to deal with acid is a well developed technology, and you have something like 2k W/m^2 that close to the sun and that high up, I'm sure you could find something for station keeping or broadcasting location, and that's before getting into things like the electric potentials you can develop from hanging a tether down into the hotter atmosphere.We don't have the money to lift a critical number of people and habitats out to Mars, but we'll be a lot closer to doing so for Venus than we will for Mars, so to answer the earlier question: would I prefer to go to Venus or Mars to live in a hab? I assume the first crew on Mars will die, or be rescued at tremendous expense, no fucking way would I be part of that, get back to me in a hundred years and we'll see if we have regular habitation and transport there down to a regularly thing yet. We could start launching habs down to float in Venus and make sure the maintenance systems work before people even arrive, which is a lot more comforting.Sure we don't have the money to lift all that to Venus neither, no matter how much less expensive it turns out. On the other hand which could be the long term plans for floating habitats on Venus? How much larger can they become? How much weight can they support per tonnage? Could it support industrial scale operations? How do you deal with the high winds blasting acid toward those tanks? Are they designed to withstand wind as fast as 360 km per hour? How are you going to lift those thanks there? How are you going to manage them to stay in a single place? This last point is critical. How are you going to simply dump those habitats in Venus and then expect to get to them without an anchor. And a ~60K anchor that can withstand acid and +400C° temperatures sure seems like a huge weight to carry there.
I do get the perks of the upper atmosphere of Venus, but they do not outweigh the troubles just yet. Sorry but I'm for one, not buying your hypothesis that it's actually easier making colonies on Venus, for a reason NASA has manned plans for going to Mars and not Venus.You don't have a solid place to start building in space either, but we're going to have to get better at that at some point, we already know how to build floating structures in the ocean, these are not super difficult problems, it's just a matter of engineering out the known and existing technologies to solve the problems at hand.
In Mars inflatable (lighter) habitats partially sunken and covered in martian soil are a possibility, as it is using the landing module as an starting habitat. I once saw a plan that involved sending several unnamed ships beforehand to land in a place and then using the empty fuel tanks as an habitat, which is possible because you actually have a solid place to start.
There is a range of altitudes where you only need an air supply and protection from acid, I don't think there is a reason to prefer one over another besides whatever works best at the time, and indeed making it so habs could be floated in a range of them, and even change altitudes seems smart, and doable.Mars you need a spacesuit, Venus you need little more than a gas mask and an outer layer, biiiig difference there.How do you think you're going to deal with 75 degrees Celsius atmosphere, still denser than on Earth = better heat transfer, trying to cook you alive, night or day? You won't be leaving your habitat without a spacesuit either, bub.
Dropping them on Venus is going to be at worst the same cost energy wise.for a reason NASA has manned plans for going to Mars and not Venus.
Nor really plans, but there is a proof-of concept study:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160006329.pdf
I do agree with your general conclusion, though - a floating habitat is a cool idea, but if somebody tries to tell me that it's also cheaper and/or easier than plonking some prefabricates on Mars and constructing a colony out of them, then that person is to me full of hot air (somewhat fittingly).
What range is that? Certainly not where the atmospheric pressure is around 1 bar.There is a range of altitudes where you only need an air supply and protection from acid, I don't think there is a reason to prefer one over another besides whatever works best at the time, and indeed making it so habs could be floated in a range of them, and even change altitudes seems smart, and doable.Mars you need a spacesuit, Venus you need little more than a gas mask and an outer layer, biiiig difference there.How do you think you're going to deal with 75 degrees Celsius atmosphere, still denser than on Earth = better heat transfer, trying to cook you alive, night or day? You won't be leaving your habitat without a spacesuit either, bub.
Lots of things are more worthwhile energy wise in orbit, up in the clouds of Venus you get more sunlight than we do here in orbit, take something which WOULD be too expensive and draw a line under it, with an arrow pointing to the insolation at Venus cloud tops.Again, at the altitude proposed (50km, 1 bar), the insolation you get is less than 10% higher than what you get in orbit at 1AU - which gives you lower overall energy, because panels in orbit can be permanently angled perpendicular to the incoming light, whereas on Venus, much like on Earth, you only get the max insolation wattage at noon, at equator. You can extend the optimum insolation time and lattitude ranges by angling solar panels with tracking devices, but it only can get you a moderate improvement - no angling will help you at night.
No. A warehouse containing 250000 tons (whatever your reason for having one of those, which as yet seems not to habe been decided) weighs 250000 tons plus the weight of the warehouse, which includes the structure and lift-envelope necessary to maintain lift 250000+extras tons (barring a small quibble that I'll skip over). The extra would not be anything like as much as a quarter of a million tonnes, as it is probably something like a Cloud 9 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_(tensegrity_sphere)) with a tolerance for up to a quarter of a million tonnes (or tons) if that's what's wanted.One tonne per tonne, all-in. That's superstructure, envelope, inhabitants, machinary, etc.Where do you get this? So, if I want a warehouse to store a 250000 tons, I need to bring 250000 tons of material to Venus? Don't seem much practical.
(In my head Venus would be like colonizing a gas giant), since the last question answer is a big fat no, then you need to bring everything.As you would to send a habitat to orbit.
The ground beneath your feet is travelling at anything up to 1000mph, you know. Yet you don't complain. Why not?To find the darn thing? I know structurally talking it will be subjected to less stress as free floating but it doesn't seem very practical for things beyond simply exploration and scientific study. The fact of being free floating doesn't magically do away with the speed of the wind neither.QuoteHow are you going to manage them to stay in a single place?Why would you do that?
Right, as serene as a ballon flight can be with peaks of 360 km per hour... ;) And in this scenario... once the planet if densely you'll have the occasional colonies crashing into each other. Nice.Does your house often collide with your neighbours' houses? With houses from the next city over? (Maybe it does, if you're somewhere like San Andreas. But not more than once or twice, surely?)
Ocean structures are built by ships. Those things built in docs! Those things that go to port in storms! Venus has neither docks nor ships.I think I know what you're trying to say, but... You may have something inverted in there.
Again, at the altitude proposed (50km, 1 bar), the insolation you get is less than 10% higher than what you get in orbit at 1AU - which gives you lower overall energy, because panels in orbit can be permanently angled perpendicular to the incoming light, whereas on Venus, much like on Earth, you only get the max insolation wattage at noon, at equator. You can extend the optimum insolation time and lattitude ranges by angling solar panels with tracking devices, but it only can get you a moderate improvement - no angling will help you at night.
So at best (implausibly), you can get 50% of the listed ~1400W/m^2 insolation, which is pretty much half of what you get in any orbit at 1AU that doesn't pass through Earth's shadow.
Orbital solar collectors are a fool's errand. The efficiency of best solar panels is something like 20%, so if you add an intermediary step where you have to transform the collected electricity into radiation to be then again collected by solar panels on the planet, you lose another 4/5ths of the collected energy. This would only be feasible if you collected more than five times as much energy in orbit as you could otherwise, so that the conversion losses are justifiable.Again, at the altitude proposed (50km, 1 bar), the insolation you get is less than 10% higher than what you get in orbit at 1AU - which gives you lower overall energy, because panels in orbit can be permanently angled perpendicular to the incoming light, whereas on Venus, much like on Earth, you only get the max insolation wattage at noon, at equator. You can extend the optimum insolation time and lattitude ranges by angling solar panels with tracking devices, but it only can get you a moderate improvement - no angling will help you at night.
So at best (implausibly), you can get 50% of the listed ~1400W/m^2 insolation, which is pretty much half of what you get in any orbit at 1AU that doesn't pass through Earth's shadow.
I recall a plan to use orbital (possibly geosynchronous) solar arrays to maximize the utility of solar technology, that would then use microwave power transmission to send what they collect down to a receiving station on Earth. It fell through here because that's a lot of effort of sending something into orbit for not all that much gain, but in this case it would take more effort to safely bring all of that stuff out of orbit. A big dish would also be a lot more compact than a gigantic solar farm too.
49 to 51 km is what I recall from last time I looked into this.What range is that? Certainly not where the atmospheric pressure is around 1 bar.There is a range of altitudes where you only need an air supply and protection from acid, I don't think there is a reason to prefer one over another besides whatever works best at the time, and indeed making it so habs could be floated in a range of them, and even change altitudes seems smart, and doable.Mars you need a spacesuit, Venus you need little more than a gas mask and an outer layer, biiiig difference there.How do you think you're going to deal with 75 degrees Celsius atmosphere, still denser than on Earth = better heat transfer, trying to cook you alive, night or day? You won't be leaving your habitat without a spacesuit either, bub.
QuoteLots of things are more worthwhile energy wise in orbit, up in the clouds of Venus you get more sunlight than we do here in orbit, take something which WOULD be too expensive and draw a line under it, with an arrow pointing to the insolation at Venus cloud tops.Again, at the altitude proposed (50km, 1 bar), the insolation you get is less than 10% higher than what you get in orbit at 1AU - which gives you lower overall energy, because panels in orbit can be permanently angled perpendicular to the incoming light, whereas on Venus, much like on Earth, you only get the max insolation wattage at noon, at equator. You can extend the optimum insolation time and lattitude ranges by angling solar panels with tracking devices, but it only can get you a moderate improvement - no angling will help you at night.
So at best (implausibly), you can get 50% of the listed ~1400W/m^2 insolation, which is pretty much half of what you get in any orbit at 1AU that doesn't pass through Earth's shadow.
Orbital solar collectors are a fool's errand. The efficiency of best solar panels is something like 20%, so if you add an intermediary step where you have to transform the collected electricity into radiation to be then again collected by solar panels on the planet, you lose another 4/5ths of the collected energy. This would only be feasible if you collected more than five times as much energy in orbit as you could otherwise, so that the conversion losses are justifiable.This is not wholly accurate. The 20% figure people like to throw out is market forces, we have proven cells that are higher. (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/PVeff%28rev160812%29.jpg) There actually is no hard limit on solar cell efficiency, but the soft limit is ~50%.
No. A warehouse containing 250000 tons (whatever your reason for having one of those, which as yet seems not to habe been decided) weighs 250000 tons plus the weight of the warehouse, which includes the structure and lift-envelope necessary to maintain lift 250000+extras tons (barring a small quibble that I'll skip over). The extra would not be anything like as much as a quarter of a million tonnes, as it is probably something like a Cloud 9 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_(tensegrity_sphere)) with a tolerance for up to a quarter of a million tonnes (or tons) if that's what's wanted.Which misunderstandings? About how do you deal with 360 km per hour winds blasting acid? And the huge amount of resources in the long run you are going to carry to Venus? I think those are still things that should be figured out.
"All-in" was the key phrase. 'Wet weight', not 'dry weight'.
Dismissing the further midunderstandings you made on this point...
(Mars/Moon-bases, at least at first, would also need the 'tin-cans' lowered from orbit, whether ready assembled on Earth, in LEo or metely fabricated as panels elsewhere, to be bolted together and filled with air once in situ, but what chever way it needs a safe descent option not so much needed (just insertion retros) in orbitals. You can also count on adding regolith/etc on top, saving you sending 'bulk' materials, but untul you set up a local miner/processor/fabricator manufactury you're still delivering the more necessarily designed and machined components. Venusian Cloud Station is using thick atmosphere as the equivalent to at least part of the regolith aspect, whilst orbital stations in all locations have to be equipped with all protections thst their host world isn't incidentally providing in some part either by distance (Mars) or magnetically (Earth). Proximity of Venus to the Sun and the more 'accidental' magnetic protection it gets probably requires a tougher orbital station for Venus, albeit not as tough as any surface habitat would have to be, as noted.)Sure it's already established that radiation would be less an issue in Venus, yet all the other issues remain. Specially the following:
The ground beneath your feet is travelling at anything up to 1000mph, you know. Yet you don't complain. Why not?It's quite, quite different. We are already in motion with it, not to count that the ground beneath my feet is actually solid.
Does your house often collide with your neighbours' houses? With houses from the next city over? (Maybe it does, if you're somewhere like San Andreas. But not more than once or twice, surely?)They would if they were suspended free floating in the atmosphere.
From this article that goes over the pros and cons of Venus in much more depth: http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/will_we_build_colonies_that_float_over_venus_like_buckminster_fullers_cloud_nine-127573Woa what a interesting reading Max! Thanks for the link. However a certain bias is noted when the guy says that a con with Mars is hard to make self sufficient and will need for parts and supplies from Earth or that we will contaminate Mars with microorganisms when Venus is just the same case I still fail to find hard numbers on how much X volume of gas (be it hydrogen, helium, or breathable air) would lift Y amount of weight at 50 km over the surface of Venus.
Which misunderstandings? About how do you deal with 360 km per hour winds blasting acid?By travelling at the same 360km/hr (with afoermentioned materials that can handle the acid).
It's quite, quite different. We are already in motion with it,...
not to count that the ground beneath my feet is actually solid.And if you were flying in a hurricane, the ground would be pretty dangerous to encounter.
Where the winds from the west hit winds from the east. (Hint: discovering what updraughts and downdraughts there are is a key investigation by the first unmanned balloon-probes looking at viability, as well as just themselves trying to survive whilst studying their other ground-based objectives.Does your house often collide with your neighbours' houses? With houses from the next city over? (Maybe it does, if you're somewhere like San Andreas. But not more than once or twice, surely?)They would if they were suspended free floating in the atmosphere.
You seem to believe that ballon will magically stay put in the atmosphere, which they will not, they'll be carried away by tornado level winds.Tornado-level, but not tornado-turbulent, as far as we know. They will stay put (as best as we can tell, so far) within the stream of air, carried along with it in an (it is hypothesised) stable and steady manner.
Alright, that's approx 1/2 reduction in pressure over that range. Your habitat would need some major buoyancy control capability to achieve that. Something like making a Dirigible that can fly to Mt Everest while carrying a city.49 to 51 km is what I recall from last time I looked into this.What range is that? Certainly not where the atmospheric pressure is around 1 bar.There is a range of altitudes where you only need an air supply and protection from acid, I don't think there is a reason to prefer one over another besides whatever works best at the time, and indeed making it so habs could be floated in a range of them, and even change altitudes seems smart, and doable.Mars you need a spacesuit, Venus you need little more than a gas mask and an outer layer, biiiig difference there.How do you think you're going to deal with 75 degrees Celsius atmosphere, still denser than on Earth = better heat transfer, trying to cook you alive, night or day? You won't be leaving your habitat without a spacesuit either, bub.
It's 1400 W/m^2 at the proposed 50km altitude. Same as on Earth's surface you get 1000 W/m^2 (max) instead of the 1400 in orbit. See the NASA study linked earlier.QuoteQuoteLots of things are more worthwhile energy wise in orbit, up in the clouds of Venus you get more sunlight than we do here in orbit, take something which WOULD be too expensive and draw a line under it, with an arrow pointing to the insolation at Venus cloud tops.Again, at the altitude proposed (50km, 1 bar), the insolation you get is less than 10% higher than what you get in orbit at 1AU - which gives you lower overall energy, because panels in orbit can be permanently angled perpendicular to the incoming light, whereas on Venus, much like on Earth, you only get the max insolation wattage at noon, at equator. You can extend the optimum insolation time and lattitude ranges by angling solar panels with tracking devices, but it only can get you a moderate improvement - no angling will help you at night.
So at best (implausibly), you can get 50% of the listed ~1400W/m^2 insolation, which is pretty much half of what you get in any orbit at 1AU that doesn't pass through Earth's shadow.
1400? Venus gets 2601 W/m^2: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
The clouds themselves are where most of the 0.77 albedo comes from, by design colonies would be above that, and have much more of that sunlight to use.
By travelling at the same 360km/hr (with afoermentioned materials that can handle the acid).Fair enough, as long there's not a bit of turbulence.
not to count that the ground beneath my feet is actually solid.And if you were flying in a hurricane, the ground would be pretty dangerous to encounter.[/quote]
Where the winds from the west hit winds from the east. (Hint: discovering what updraughts and downdraughts there are is a key investigation by the first unmanned balloon-probes looking at viability, as well as just themselves trying to survive whilst studying their other ground-based objectives.Knowing where it is won't prevent free floating objects from getting there (and eventually crashing into each other).
Tornado-level, but not tornado-turbulent, as far as we know. They will stay put (as best as we can tell, so far) within the stream of air, carried along with it in an (it is hypothesised) stable and steady manner.Which is an awful amount of "ifs" for what would be one of the most important projects of mankind. There's nothing ensuring they won't at least bump into each other even when traveling in the same direction.
It is all relative. Venusian days, for 'air settlers' could be quite different from whatever those 'ground settlers' might experience, as they whizz away below at 360km/h in the other direction, stubbornly proclaiming that they on the (frequently volcanicly refreshing?) surface are the stationary ones.... The ground settlers will be dead, melted to the bones, while the air settlers would be screaming in panic as they crash into each other habitats and soon to be joining the ground ones in the afterlife. Fixating on the frame of reference of motion won't change that.
Alright, that's approx 1/2 reduction in pressure over that range. Your habitat would need some major buoyancy control capability to achieve that. Something like making a Dirigible that can fly to Mt Everest while carrying a city.Airtight tents that can keep however many pounds per square inch inside, hopefully without being popped.
And if you can't achieve that, then you'll be spending a rather large chunk of collected energy trying to cool down the city so that its inhabitants don't die from heat stroke.
Not saying that it's not possible - just that its yet another major engineering hurdle that makes this all quite a bit less of a no-brainer than you've been painting it.
It's either that magnificent feat of futuristic technology on Vens, or raising a bunch of airtight tents on Mars.
It's 1400 W/m^2 at the proposed 50km altitude. Same as on Earth's surface you get 1000 W/m^2 (max) instead of the 1400 in orbit. See the NASA study linked earlier.Interesting take they have, I was thinking that 50~54 was the ideal range, but my info was based on the older Landis studies. (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20150016298.pdf) Either way there is a lot of energy available just from sunlight at these altitudes, additional energy from thermovoltaic methods, and who knows what other ways we might find to tap into the energy available while sitting on top of a superheated atmosphere receiving nearly twice the irradiance we get here at the top of the atmosphere?
Airtight tents that can keep however many pounds per square inch inside, hopefully without being popped.
Right now, I think the best guess is that its a laminar flow. This needs to be studied.By travelling at the same 360km/hr (with afoermentioned materials that can handle the acid).Fair enough, as long there's not a bit of turbulence.
But I'm am not flying. Those habitats will, perhaps not into the ground (unless an structural failure), but into each other eventually.[/quote]How? If they are drifting on the breeze, the closer they happen to get, the more similar the breeze in every respect. At worst, they'd drift together at low velocity, relative to each other, and station-keeping propulsion can deal with that.Quotenot to count that the ground beneath my feet is actually solid.And if you were flying in a hurricane, the ground would be pretty dangerous to encounter.
Its highly unlikely it is there. This is what we'd survey for, though. (Winds don't just 'hit each other' and pass through, colliding their payloads like two contra-orbitting satellite objects, frexample, there'd need to be identifiable discontinuities...Where the winds from the west hit winds from the east. (Hint: discovering what updraughts and downdraughts there are is a key investigation by the first unmanned balloon-probes looking at viability, as well as just themselves trying to survive whilst studying their other ground-based objectives.Knowing where it is won't prevent free floating objects from getting there (and eventually crashing into each other).
Which is an awful amount of "ifs" for what would be one of the most important projects of mankind. There's nothing ensuring they won't at least bump into each other even when traveling in the same direction.For the first part, that's what we'll ascertain before we do anything serious. For the second part, I've covered that.
... The ground settlers will be dead, melted to the bones, while the air settlers would be screaming in panic as they crash into each other habitats and soon to be joining the ground ones in the afterlife. Fixating on the frame of reference of motion won't change that.Ever heard of hypotheticals? And we may be able to deal with tne former, we've as yet no reason to believe the latter will happen, but we're darn certain going to find out before we go there for real...
/mumbles about cost over-runs and delays and the parking fees currently being incurred at the space-port...Hahahahaha!
Just operated a flight from HKG-ANC, 13 Dec, and off the coast of Japan, we had 270/255 knots of wind! It was great, nice smooth ride. Those winds lasted for about an hour. When we got in the NOPAC they had died down to about 120knots and as we went further east, they gradually went to 0. Abeam SYA the winds were light and variable. About 200NM out of ANC, they picked up slightly to about 280/40.Literally just a commercial airliner.
All in all, typical winds for this time of year.
Oh yes, 300 km/h winds, how terrible. How could we ever create something capable of withstanding and even flying in such winds?
...
Oh right.
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=747439QuoteJust operated a flight from HKG-ANC, 13 Dec, and off the coast of Japan, we had 270/255 knots of wind! It was great, nice smooth ride. Those winds lasted for about an hour. When we got in the NOPAC they had died down to about 120knots and as we went further east, they gradually went to 0. Abeam SYA the winds were light and variable. About 200NM out of ANC, they picked up slightly to about 280/40.Literally just a commercial airliner.
All in all, typical winds for this time of year.
Also comercial airliners are designed to travel faster than that. And if I understand right thise abeam winds were favorable and smoth winds? What if they had not?Oh yes, 300 km/h winds, how terrible. How could we ever create something capable of withstanding and even flying in such winds?
...
Oh right.
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=747439QuoteJust operated a flight from HKG-ANC, 13 Dec, and off the coast of Japan, we had 270/255 knots of wind! It was great, nice smooth ride. Those winds lasted for about an hour. When we got in the NOPAC they had died down to about 120knots and as we went further east, they gradually went to 0. Abeam SYA the winds were light and variable. About 200NM out of ANC, they picked up slightly to about 280/40.Literally just a commercial airliner.
All in all, typical winds for this time of year.
TIL that airliners are lighter then air and fly nonstop for decades.
Oh yes, 300 km/h winds, how terrible. How could we ever create something capable of withstanding and even flying in such winds?
...
Oh right.
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=747439QuoteJust operated a flight from HKG-ANC, 13 Dec, and off the coast of Japan, we had 270/255 knots of wind! It was great, nice smooth ride. Those winds lasted for about an hour. When we got in the NOPAC they had died down to about 120knots and as we went further east, they gradually went to 0. Abeam SYA the winds were light and variable. About 200NM out of ANC, they picked up slightly to about 280/40.Literally just a commercial airliner.
All in all, typical winds for this time of year.
I'd honestly design it as a set of colony ships and freighters. On arrival, the colony ships park in orbit and set up as space stations, get satellites up, and so on. The freighters, using robotic labor and a few astronauts for management and unexpected-problem solving, build the aerostats, then people get shipped from orbit. From there, more freighters can keep coming to deliver more aerostat parts, and presumably somebody can set up a cycler shuttle or the like to get a stream of new personnel.You're overengineering the wrong parts.
The force the wind excerts depends on air pressure, and since air pressure on venus is about 93x earth's pressure, a 300 km/h wind could definitely ruin your day, or airship.The situation being discussed is of ~50km altitude, thus ~1 atmosphere and also free-floating (the right buoyancy by design) so that the winds it feels are residual differences within the 300km/h windstream, relative across the scale of the colony.
So I guess a lot would depend on what height and pressure our venusian colony would float, and if we have any data for the wind speeds at that level. A colony higher up in the clouds would definitely be safer, but would demand better buoyancy.
Yeah, but the ISS' problem is that it keeps trying to oscillate itself apart, not errant particles in LEO.
Have you ever seen a ten year old sail?
I'm left wondering, without access to the ground and thus minerals, why bother making aerostat colonies? Surely just making some ships to orbit Venus would be better?Vacuum is harder to deal with than 0.5~1 bar of pressure, and you could do things like grow aerial trees to get building material, wood is just CO2+water+sunlight after all.
Have you ever seen a ten year old sail?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
<---Joke---That is a racing sail for an opti. I used to sail those. The top racers would change their sails every year.Have you ever seen a ten year old sail?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pretty awesome find indeed. The planet would be suffering from high X-ray radiation levels though from the dwarf star, and magnetic eruptions that can blow away atmospheres, so we shouldn't get our hopes up too high of finding life there.
Interstellar travel may be impossible with todays technology, but spending the effort to make such travel possible is a lot more atractive if you know something good is waiting for you on the other side of the void.But we've had the technology for decades! It's just an engineering, political, and sociological problem.
At 0.1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9.8 m/s2).
Is that from earth's perspective or the ship's perspective? Special Reletivity would be important here.Interstellar travel may be impossible with todays technology, but spending the effort to make such travel possible is a lot more atractive if you know something good is waiting for you on the other side of the void.But we've had the technology for decades! It's just an engineering, political, and sociological problem.
Orion nuclear pulse drive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_drive)Quote from: WikipediaAt 0.1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9.8 m/s2).
The only humans experiencing the perspective would be people on earth caring about the minutae of the trip. The people on board wouldn't experience it.What I'm saying is would the trip take 44 earth years (about 43.5 years for the ship), or 44 ship years (about 44.5 years for earth)
What I'm saying is would the trip take 44 earth years (about 43.5 years for the ship), or 44 ship years (about 44.5 years for earth)
In local system news, I recently heard about plans for a lunar orbit space station (http://www.space.com/32014-human-outpost-near-moon-cislunar-space.html). Has this been discussed yet?
In local system news, I recently heard about plans for a lunar orbit space station (http://www.space.com/32014-human-outpost-near-moon-cislunar-space.html). Has this been discussed yet?
The GR effects due to acceleration will be agreed on by all observers regardless of reference frame, the SR effects due to velocity and different inertial frames are the ones that make it look like the other guy is the one being slowed down.The twin paradox has nothing to do with GR or acceleration - it's a purely SR effect. You get different elapsed proper time because of different paths through space-time between the same pair of events.
When you undergo acceleration you actually move slower through time, and thus age less compared to an unaccelerated observer.
If we accelerate enough, though we could bring down the travel time to any amount, even under 4 years perhaps.That's what they did on Avatar I think, mixed with cryosleep or something.
I... the different paths through spacetime as a result of the accelerating frame mean it isn't a paradox anymore, if you both start at event a and travel to event b except one twin has a longer spatial component to their journey then they must have a shorter temporal component, otherwise they aren't meeting at the same events.The GR effects due to acceleration will be agreed on by all observers regardless of reference frame, the SR effects due to velocity and different inertial frames are the ones that make it look like the other guy is the one being slowed down.The twin paradox has nothing to do with GR or acceleration - it's a purely SR effect. You get different elapsed proper time because of different paths through space-time between the same pair of events.
When you undergo acceleration you actually move slower through time, and thus age less compared to an unaccelerated observer.
It's true that in a typical twin paradox scenario an outbound twin must reverse her velocity to get back home, but: 1) the acceleration is not what causes differential ageing 2) you can construct the scenario without acceleration at all (e.g. by using a closed space, or a free-fall slingshot), 3) either wat you're not ever using GR - the space-time is a flat Minkowski space-time.I am extremely well versed in the workings of SR and GR, and have already read everything on Baez's site actually.
Here's a good writeup on the subject:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_paradox.html
I am extremely well versed in the workings of SR and GR::)
Just saying, I'm not someone you need to explain the twin paradox or whatnot for, especially when you are just agreeing with me in a roundabout fashion.
b (xb, yb, zb, tb) <- twin and twin' reunite
|\
| \
| \
| / <- twin' turns around to head back
| /
|/
a (xa, ya, za, ta) <- twin remains on earth while twin' leavesThe Equivalence Principle analysis of the twin paradox does not use any real gravity, and so does not use any General Relativity. (General Relativity is the study of real gravitational fields, not pseudo ones, so it has nothing to say about the twin paradox.) Nevertheless, what General Relativity does say about real gravitational fields does hold in a restricted sense for pseudo gravitational fields. The one thing we need here is that time runs slower as you descend into the potential well of a pseudo force field. We can use that fact to our advantage when analysing the twin paradox. But it needs to be emphasised that we are not using any actual General Relativity here, and no one ever needs to, to analyse the paradox. We are simply grabbing a result about real gravitational fields from General Relativity, because we know (from other work) that it does apply to a pseudo gravitational field.The effects involved there are one way to look at it, but as he notes here:
We begin with a couple of assertions that belong in the realm of General Relativity. (We postpone asking what SR has to say about these assertions.)
Free choice of reference frames: You can describe the physics of a situation in pretty much any reference frame you like, but some frames demand the introduction of force fields that don't show up in other frames. You can call these "pseudo-force fields", or even "pseudo-gravitational fields".
Uniform "gravitational" time dilation: Say you have two identically constructed clocks. One is deep down in a uniform "gravitational" potential well (or "pseudo-potential", if you prefer); the other is higher up. If the two clocks compare rates by sending light signals back and forth, then both will agree that the lower clock runs slower than the higher clock. This can be rephrased as "Time runs slower as you descend into the potential well of a uniform pseudo-force field."
The Spacetime Diagram Analysis (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_spacetime.html) is closer to the spirit of GR (vintage 1916) than the Equivalence Principle analysis. Spacetime, geodesics, and the invariant interval: that's the core of General Relativity.Also here:
Most physicists feel that the Spacetime Diagram Analysis (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_spacetime.html) is the most fundamental. It does amount to a sort of "Universal Interlingua", enabling one to see how superficially different analyses are really at heart the same.
So do we need GR for this discussion?For a simplified explanation of why weirdness in SR happens? Yes. Relativity of Simultaneity and such are weirder than the swept area of a line.
It's fine, man. I'm just not buying your expertise. I'm sure you can live with that.
Apparently, the problem occurred in the upper stage's Oxygen tank, which I don't believe can be reused.It certainly can't now...
It is an event with info. Failures are more rare than successes so are more probabilistically significant.Unless you are genuinely defending the predatory media fear cycle, that's kind of irrelevant. This isn't about a probabilistic risk assessment, this is about public perception. Our daily reader isn't doing true costs estimates, but they are being manipulated into disapproving of space expansion by the nature of reporting on it. Even worse, launches will always be vulnerable to this due to HUGE EXPLOSIONS 5 NASA FAILURES YOU WON'T BELIEVE. It's a very low bait threshold.
Or, to be more pithy: Those who fail to learn from history are boomed to repeat it.
It was just yesterday that I heard that a SpaceX rocket would actually be reused (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37220074) and now news comes in that I see they have suffered a launchpad failure (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37247077) during fuelling (with, I presume, a 'virgin' booster), and have lost the payload.Don't cry, Elon – it's all just a hyper-realistic videogame run by your future descendants to demonstrate your historic greatness! If at first you don't succeed, load the savegame and try again!
I presume insurance will be claimed on, but even if this helps replace the satellite it'll not help future premiums or momentum of the planned future developments (c.f. Spaceship One and Virgin Galactic).
Don't cry, Elon – it's all just a hyper-realistic videogame run by your future descendants to demonstrate your historic greatness! If at first you don't succeed, load the savegame and try again!It's not hyper-realistic. Adding tonnes of random struts does nothing to help, unlike real life...
Elon Musk is so superhumanly perfect that any game starring him has to be hyper-realistic.Don't cry, Elon – it's all just a hyper-realistic videogame run by your future descendants to demonstrate your historic greatness! If at first you don't succeed, load the savegame and try again!It's not hyper-realistic. Adding tonnes of random struts does nothing to help, unlike real life...
You can tell he's a synth because he hasn't given up yet.You can tell just by looking at the above infographic: It says that Musk ran out of library books to read at the age of eight, and although it doesn't specify which library that was, it's reasonable to assume that it was the biggest one within a few miles of his childhood home in Pretoria. As of 2009, there were about 1.5 million volumes in the University of Pretoria Library collection, and that number was probably roughly the same in the late seventies – let's say 1.1 million volumes. The average length of a novel is somewhere around 80 000 words, although the scientific monographs and periodical volumes one can expect to find in an university library tend to be a bit wordier – so the average length of the books read by Musk was probably somewhere around 105 000 words. The graphic does not tell us when exactly he started to read at a steady rate of ten hours per day, but we can (uncharitably) assume that it was at the age of three, and it took him no less than five years to accomplish the task.
It was just yesterday that I heard that a SpaceX rocket would actually be reused (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37220074) and now news comes in that I see they have suffered a launchpad failure (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37247077) during fuelling (with, I presume, a 'virgin' booster), and have lost the payload.
I presume insurance will be claimed on, but even if this helps replace the satellite it'll not help future premiums or momentum of the planned future developments (c.f. Spaceship One and Virgin Galactic).
Apparently, the problem occurred in the upper stage's Oxygen tank, which I don't believe can be reused.
I occasionally playfully tease cats with a laser-pointer. They seem to like it, even if they do seem bemused.Wrong thread, or cunning metaphor?
As a cunning linguist myself, I find the comparison of playful pussy-cats being provoked to ponder the presence of powerful pseudo-deific providers of pleasureable scratching and pre-packaged playthings is probably preferable to pusillanimously proffering perverse or peevish puns.I occasionally playfully tease cats with a laser-pointer. They seem to like it, even if they do seem bemused.Wrong thread, or cunning metaphor?
You do gotta admit it's a little weird that all the mysteriously vanishing high-energy radio emissions we've found are all in similar ranges, though. Probably not aliens, but if it were aliens against all odds, it would probably look a lot like that.Obviously jump drive signatures. High-energy and nonrepeating.
Better, even (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Encounter_with_Mars). ^_^You do gotta admit it's a little weird that all the mysteriously vanishing high-energy radio emissions we've found are all in similar ranges, though. Probably not aliens, but if it were aliens against all odds, it would probably look a lot like that.Obviously jump drive signatures. High-energy and nonrepeating.
My takeaway from ESA's Philae mishap is that I will no longer feel bad when I fuck up a probe landing in KSP. Even if lands sideways and oriented such that the solar panels can't get light and the probe is doomed...I'm at least as good as a professional space agency. :P
Even that's better off than the Japanese mission that missed Mars. It's genuinely not hard to miss a whole planet in the void, but it's also impossible to say that and not think it's ridiculous.I remember trying to get a sense of this with Celestia, so I got my controls set up where I could fly around and pretend I was a Xeelee.
The NASA OSIRIS-REx probe is en route to the Bennu planetoid, to gather surface material, and return it to Earth.The reason that Bennu was chosen has more to do with it's age, surface composition, and convenient location than anything else. The hope with the mission is to bring back some extremely old material, and it requires an asteroid with a lot of loose material on the surface. (The collection mechanism involves using a nitrogen jet to blast loose material away from the asteroid). Bennu just happens to be the most conveniently located asteroid with that age and composition.
"There is a small chance that Bennu will impact on earth in the next century. The impact would be strong enough to turn a country the size of France into a crater".
I guess if they're sending a probe, they must be pretty worried. I think they're quite certain it will impact Earth, or they wouldn't go through all the trouble of sending a probe to collect surface samples.
However, the additional data might help refine that impact probability estimate.
"There is a small chance that Bennu will impact on earth in the next century. [...]".IRTA "There is a small chance that the probe will impact on Earth in the next century", which implied a longer-duration sample-return mission than I had expected. Then, as I read on, I got quite concerned as to how a simple probe might ever get to be so dangerous (without going through a wormhole, being borgified and coming back to find its maker, that is...)
As far as I understand, Bennu itself orbits the sun in about 6 years, so OSIRIS-REx should be back within a decade if all goes well, not next century.If that's to me, yes I worked out my mis-read fairly quickly, but then I thought it amusing enough to share. (Second post in a row was regarding the "why choose Bennu?" question, as additional reasoning. But could have been given more context.)
In other news, […]Happy to be Stage 1 for that...
What concerns the SpaceX research team most, is the small explosion that sounds before the big one, on online videos of the event.
They say "It could come from the rocket, but it could also have come from somewhere else".
Inb4 sabotage theories reach a higher orbit than SpaceX ever did.
so I think there is a good chance to see a blue origin flag on the moon sometime in the next decade or 2.That's going to be the New Armstrong rocket, I predict. But there are still some intermediate challenges to be overcome (and named).
I still kind of wish we had an international space program instead of having to rely on americans and occasionally the chinese government.The Russians are the only man-lifters in the game. (Chinese are closer to joining them than the US is to rejoining, governmental or commercial...)
That's a bunch of nonsense driven by the political narrative of the past five years. Private enterprise does not have to "take over" space travel anymore than it has to "take over" the military.I still honestly trust profit-motivated organizations more than politically-motivated ones. And I trust politically-neutral organizations most, even if they don't tend to get shit done they don't tend to fuck up as much as dependent organizations.
Why anybody even thinks this is a zero sum game in the first place is beyond me. Of course, politicians do it so they can peddle their hardass cred and cut space programs even further, but why anybody else does is baffling.
Wait, the HEIC started the US revolution? Is it something like "they lobbied for tea tariff to keep their profit up"?
"Not knowing when it's going to come down translates as not knowing where its going to come down."In before crashing space station parts annihilate the white house, igniting global thermonuclear war. :P
In before crashing space station parts annihilate the white house, igniting global thermonuclear war. :P
Couldn't they send out a special mission with a rocket to lock into the main station port and prop it up enough for it to regain stable orbit? I mean, I'm not sure if that would be cost effective, but I'd guess it probably is, considering that its an entire space station being lost :UIt's also retired. It's been inactive since 2013 and already intended for reentry between 2016-2017, which means it's unlikely that they would have changed their plans in the interim. They wouldn't be salvaging a working station; they'd sending it up to tweak the reentry course at most, which isn't nearly as cost-effective.
whilst quite a large number of small bets in roubles and bitcoin have gone towards it landing directly upon a Syrian aid convoy
Ugh, fucking Funny or Die's idiot reporter trying to ask a "question" that's just a joke. A joke that wasn't funny.Yeah, they clearly didn't do any screening of the questions beforehand.
he had that bad stutter for the whole speech. My poor untrained ear is struggling to listen to him.
But, hey, he got me some great pictures of rocket stuff, so I'll forgive him for not being a good speaker :P
I waited for it and missed because had to driva back home.
There's any brief on the presentation I can read?
Wonder what Musk must think about the venusian floating habitats... yes, I went there.How was the weather? Did you try the local cuisine?
Mars has a bit of protection from radiation due to the atmosphere, but remember that 6.3 kilopascals is where your body is warm enough to boil water, and even the deepest canyons on Mars only reach 1.1 kilopascals. You need a different type of spacesuit than you would on the moon, but you still need a spacesuit, because it's close enough to space that you aren't really going to care about the minute differences as it kills you.
The infrastructure is exciting, the colony idea is silly. We won't have the sort of colony that could survive by itself on Mars and reseed a post-catastrophe Earth any time in the next century, most likely several centuries.
Internal pressure is part of why exposure to vacuum is damaging, but I was assuming the presence of a compression suit, that won't help when the water in your lungs and mouth and on your eyes starts to boil, doesn't sound fun. I mean, obviously it isn't the same as having 373 K water dumped on you, but definitely not something I want to try either way.
I was pointing out that there isn't a really significant difference between the equipment needed to survive on the Moon and that needed on Mars. Radiation protection is a bit less critical, but from a quick check it looks like you could stay under the suggested upper limits on exposure for astronauts if you stayed there for ~60 years, assuming you spend no more than about an hour a day on the surface (http://www.mars-one.com/faq/health-and-ethics/how-much-radiation-will-the-settlers-be-exposed-to) of course.Internal pressure is part of why exposure to vacuum is damaging, but I was assuming the presence of a compression suit, that won't help when the water in your lungs and mouth and on your eyes starts to boil, doesn't sound fun. I mean, obviously it isn't the same as having 373 K water dumped on you, but definitely not something I want to try either way.
Why are you not assuming a hard helmet? I mean, we do still need to breathe and the Martian atmosphere isn't, you know, breatheable. The helmet will be pressurized, but we don't have to rely on clumsy "astronaut" suits any more.
It takes days to reach the moon, not hours.Apollo 11 reached lunar orbit after only 51 hours and 49 minutes. Yes, that's a little over two days, but can still be measured comfortably in hours.
What's the point of going to Mars over going to the Moon/orbit? That's the real reason.Mars have somewhat better conditions than the moon, also, in the long, long, very long run might be terraformable, and there might be some resources that aren't in the moon. Also if farther from Earth which is an advantage somewhat if we want to have a backup civilization.
Perhaps Elon can get some funding by renting or selling orbital real estate to nations/citizens who want a place in space but don't want to pay 100 b for another ISS.
What's the point of going to Mars over going to the Moon/orbit? That's the real reason.Mars have somewhat better conditions than the moon, also, in the long, long, very long run might be terraformable, and there might be some resources that aren't in the moon. Also if farther from Earth which is an advantage somewhat if we want to have a backup civilization.
Yes, nothing it haven't been already said (some points even myself a few posts ago), however the goal is to make mankind an interplanetary species. The moon, while closer and having a lot of perks over Mars, shouldn't be the ultimate goal. I think however it should be the start.What's the point of going to Mars over going to the Moon/orbit? That's the real reason.Mars have somewhat better conditions than the moon, also, in the long, long, very long run might be terraformable, and there might be some resources that aren't in the moon. Also if farther from Earth which is an advantage somewhat if we want to have a backup civilization.
Advantages of the moon, on the other hand:
You can return to Earth within a few days.
You can communicate with Earth almost in real time.
You can reach space much easier and send huge amounts of material into Earth orbit.
Energy production from solar cells is not threatened by sand storms.
Why does it matter that much if the rock you're spreading mankind to orbit the sun or Earth?If I were a chemist working with dangerous chemicals, would you like to live right next to me or a few blocks away? Or would you rather live near or far from an atomic power plant? Basically the same reason of why mission control is far away from the lift off platform.
Well here are my concerns after I've thought about it today.The amount of material to be mined must be really colossal in order to make a dent on the forces the moon have over earth and it's ecosystem. We are talking about absurdly huge amounts of material, the sort of, if we are able to mine it, then we are probably already interstellar species or something. This would be a really good question for Randall Munroe what if. (http://what-if.xkcd.com/)
The moon orbits us and controls the tidal waves among other things AFAIK. Now, I do however see a potential issue with using that for resources and putting people there as it could in turn disrupt the earth's ecosystem
If I were a chemist working with dangerous chemicals, would you like to live right next to me or a few blocks away?
Obviously it was an hyperbole and not correctly scaled. ::)If I were a chemist working with dangerous chemicals, would you like to live right next to me or a few blocks away?
If a chemist were working with dangerous chemicals in Canada would you rather live in California or India?
Also, again, mars might potentially be terraformable, while the moon is not, at least for the foreseeable future.Wouldn't solar wind just blow away any atmosphere faster than you can create it? You kinda need a planetary magnetic field for proper terraforming AFAIK. Sure, the process of losing atmosphere is fairly slow, but how quickly can you replenish it? Does Mars even have enough reasonably accessible atmospheric elements, or would you need to bring in ice asteroids? If you need those, where do you get them, Kuiper belt? How much would that cost?
If you can make passenger ships, you can make cargo ships.
If you can create a planetary atmosphere in a reasonable quantity of time, lack of magnetic field should not be an huge concern, im terms of atmospheric stripping.That's a big if. An atmosphere would take a LOT of gas to make, how much infrastructure would you need to get that gas in a reasonable timeframe and how much would this cost?
I think the estimates range around a few ten thousand up to some million years of solar wind erosion to strip away the atmosphere.Also, again, mars might potentially be terraformable, while the moon is not, at least for the foreseeable future.Wouldn't solar wind just blow away any atmosphere faster than you can create it?
Indeed, terraforming is a tremendous effort which requires moving incredible quantities of mass.If you can create a planetary atmosphere in a reasonable quantity of time, lack of magnetic field should not be an huge concern, im terms of atmospheric stripping.That's a big if. An atmosphere would take a LOT of gas to make, how much infrastructure would you need to get that gas in a reasonable timeframe and how much would this cost?
Solar wind losses are a geological-scale issue. We can start with manufacturing an atmosphere now and worry about topping it off every 20,000 years or so later.well I would like the idea as well but only if there are failsafe planetside to deal with such effects
As for actually getting the atmosphere there, options exist. I personally favor polar asteroid bombardment, although asteroid winters are a bit of a problem.
What on mars would such a failsafe even be?I'm not sure, but I can postulate.
On the last point however, I quote "the long lunar nights (354 hours long) would means that reliance on solar power would be impeded in any location other than the polar regions"Barring such special locations, solar everywhere upon a spinning rock is going to be roughly 50% on, 50% off, give or take seasonal skews and advantageous/disadvantageous elevations.
If only we had portal guns, we could just open entrances to the Martian atmosphere inside every car engine and coal furnace.Now you're thinking with your Johnson! Though given the massive pressure differential you could extract useful work just from shunting gas over there, of course setting up an engine using portal ring seals or portal exhausts while having portal technology is fairly absurd anyways.
Well here are my concerns after I've thought about it today.We would have to spend more money than I think has ever been spent in all of human history to move enough material to alter the orbit enough to matter here.
The moon orbits us and controls the tidal waves among other things AFAIK. Now, I do however see a potential issue with using that for resources and putting people there as it could in turn disrupt the earth's ecosystem
I think the rate at which mars loses atmosphere is about 3100 tonnes per year.Yeah, but we have a lot of hydrocarbons right here on Earth. Not so much on Mars. And an atmosphere that's mostly CO2 isn't exactly a livable planet. We'll have to bring in asteroids for water, and that's gonna be extremely slow.
This sounds catastrophic and scary, but remember that industry puts out something like 7-20 gigatonnes of CO2 per year on earth, and we aren't trying to terraform the planet.
Let's assume the goal is an Earth-pressure atmosphere, with is 100 times the current one. Looking up CO2 asphyxiation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia), it looks like 1% atmospheric CO2 would be the operational limit for humans, so going above what's already on Mars makes little sense if we can't breath it. But we could theoretically jet some off Venus to Mars, to process it into the 20% O2 we need. The amount would be 20x the current Martian atmosphere, so 5.0 x 1017, or 1/1000 of the Venusian amount.Whoops, was converting a couple of the values from tonnes and others were volume based rather than mass based values so I had to track down the mass from various locations and apparently didn't follow the link trails far enough, as one of them was actually in grams (http://kirschner.med.harvard.edu/files/bionumbers/Carbon%20pools%20in%20the%20major%20resevoirs%20on%20Earth.pdf), and I think it should have been 7.2x1014 kg as it was converting from 720x1015 g, but I had a terminal I was using as a scratchpad to keep track of the values so I probably swapped a couple of the zero sections around at some point when swapping them into the calculator and such.
I was thinking of Martian soil nitrates (http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/mystery-solved-mars-has-nitrates-180954769/?no-ist) as a possible Nitrogen source. Wind-blown sediments across the surface of Mars seem to be 0.1 - 1.0 composed of nitrates. The question is how much total is there?
BTW, you messed up the CO2 numbers for the three planets there. On Mars, It makes up ~95% of the 2.5 x 1016. You only had 15 zeros. For Earth, CO2 makes up 0.04% of 5.15x1018 which is 2.0x1015, not 7.2x1013 and would make up 10% of the Mars atmosphere, not 3%, and you missed a zero on Venus, too.
So, quick, honest question here then: Wouldn't Olympus Mons(sounds cheesy, I know) or a similarly high mountain on mars be the first acceptable spot for a colony?
Terraforming a completely uninhabitable planet is probably the least useful expenditure of Humanity's resources. It'd be much more efficient to borrow from scifi and instead just build very large, orbiting colonies. Think about it, what's a better use of effort: trying to convert a huge, polluted garbage heap into a livable space, or just building a new home where we can dictate the conditions as precisely as we need to?Well, I can actually agree with this point. You see, I talked long ago about it in a talk session with someone and I basically held the belief that as millions and billions of years go on old stars will die and new ones will form, hence the hobo/nomad kind of thing-But that would be millions and billions of years from now. so on that note, I got ninja'd.
And granted our robotics advances sufficiently, those barren planets can still be useful in being huge, unmanned mining operations, providing cheaper materials for our colonies since transferring materials off of a smaller planet (or moon) needs significantly less power due to the smaller gravity well.
And granted our architecture advances sufficiently, transferring materials off of smaller planets won't even need much fuel, we'd just build a space elevator to accommodate each mining operation as it dismantles each planet for materials.
So the matter of interstellar travel isn't one of trying to flip every big rock into a two-bit bastard Earth, but rather making the best use of existing resources to build a long string of hobo houses that gradually stretch into deep space. That's how I see the colonization of outer space being economical.
That actually sounds like a decent idea, a spaceport/space-elevator on olympus mons with a link to outer-lying colonies would be something that stimulates my thought process. That would be useful in a sense of the word, a compromise so to say.So, quick, honest question here then: Wouldn't Olympus Mons(sounds cheesy, I know) or a similarly high mountain on mars be the first acceptable spot for a colony?
Well the advantage is that the martian atmosphere is extremely thing there so it would be easier to launch off the planet. Not like super easy but easier. The downsides I can think of is that you cant use parachutes or air-braking to land there and it's not going to be convenient to any resources you need.
A decent sized mars colony might build a spaceport on Olympus Mons but I dont think it would be where you would want the first settlement.
You don't even need to go to Olympus Mons for a space elevator. The gravity is weak enough to have a Kevlar rope from the ground to the stationary orbit. Phobos is an issue, though.
Olympus Mons would bend good place to rest out a space elevator.No, but Mars has an areostationary orbit, which is what you mean... ;)
Does mare have a geostationary orbit?
Why would you even put an elevator on a mountain at all?It's a convenient spot for one, but you'd probably want at least two others bracketing Hellas, which has the higher local pressure, approaching the triple point of water, and as a relic of the Late Heavy Bombardment probably has all sorts of interesting goodies underneath it to justify it as an obvious site for a major colony. There's a long tradition of mining craters, why stop now?
Actually there was someone who proposed the same thing-I forget where the article is, but to surmise it I would say it was basically 'Bio-engineered fungus' that would literally spread so quickly and adapt to the martian surface that it would suck out nearly all the CO2 you need and replace it with oxygen within a course of 100 years give or take.Let's assume the goal is an Earth-pressure atmosphere, with is 100 times the current one. Looking up CO2 asphyxiation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia), it looks like 1% atmospheric CO2 would be the operational limit for humans, so going above what's already on Mars makes little sense if we can't breath it. But we could theoretically jet some off Venus to Mars, to process it into the 20% O2 we need. The amount would be 20x the current Martian atmosphere, so 5.0 x 1017, or 1/1000 of the Venusian amount.Keep saying, an easier way to do it rather than shipping atmosphere would e to 'aerobrake' asteroids. They vapourise in atmosphere releasing various volatiles, you don't get massive craters, and it's MUCH cheaper and easier for the same amount of atmosphere.
The first thing we'd need to deal with on Mars is that the land's coated in perchlorates. It's toxic, and it would take a LONG time to clear up. Maybe develop bacteria, fungus, algae or something to do it, but it would still take a good number of centuries, likely.
(Yes we do! Giant three-legged machnes with sirens on them... Have I labourd my point enough yet? ;))What you're saying is that we should fire projectiles at the planet, add a lot of extra heat to the system and send machines that would encourage the spread of some kind of weed (probably red) and wipe out any indiginous organisms as we go (assuming we can't farm them for liquids)..?Assuming there ARE indigenous lifeforms.
And we don't need machines.
Actually there was someone who proposed the same thing-I forget where the article is, but to surmise it I would say it was basically 'Bio-engineered fungus' that would literally spread so quickly and adapt to the martian surface that it would suck out nearly all the CO2 you need and replace it with oxygen within a course of 100 years give or take.Let's assume the goal is an Earth-pressure atmosphere, with is 100 times the current one. Looking up CO2 asphyxiation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia), it looks like 1% atmospheric CO2 would be the operational limit for humans, so going above what's already on Mars makes little sense if we can't breath it. But we could theoretically jet some off Venus to Mars, to process it into the 20% O2 we need. The amount would be 20x the current Martian atmosphere, so 5.0 x 1017, or 1/1000 of the Venusian amount.Keep saying, an easier way to do it rather than shipping atmosphere would e to 'aerobrake' asteroids. They vapourise in atmosphere releasing various volatiles, you don't get massive craters, and it's MUCH cheaper and easier for the same amount of atmosphere.
The first thing we'd need to deal with on Mars is that the land's coated in perchlorates. It's toxic, and it would take a LONG time to clear up. Maybe develop bacteria, fungus, algae or something to do it, but it would still take a good number of centuries, likely.
So, that was really promising, the only possible downside would be say, viruses spawned from it. It would require constant monitoring on a massive level however to catch viruses as they go into the ecosystem and well, basically create life and such. I mean, if you're going to have a terraformed mars, you're going to likely have to watch out for a couple(or many more) viruses and bacteria.
My takeaway from Musk's latest announcement is that he's lost his last shreds of sanity and credibility, and is well on his way to becoming a crazed hermit like Howard Hughes. I'm really looking forward to the next great firework display, provided that no people get hurt in it.
That's a bit like asking whether I want a certain presidential candidate to fail in his daring attempt to MAGA. Trump says he's going to alter reality to make it more favorable to white middle-class Americans, Musk says he's going to stuff a hundred people in a tin can and send them on (what amounts to) a one-way suicide mission to Mars, all funded by "kickstarter, profit, and underpants," (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/27/elon-musk-spacex-mars-colony) according to himself. I'll grant that SpaceX may still contribute to stuff like re-supplying the ISS, but this Mars twaddle is a clear sign that Musk has finally gone off the deep deep end, and is about to crash his company in a blaze of glory.My takeaway from Musk's latest announcement is that he's lost his last shreds of sanity and credibility, and is well on his way to becoming a crazed hermit like Howard Hughes. I'm really looking forward to the next great firework display, provided that no people get hurt in it.
Wait, so you want his rockets to blow up and his projects to fail?
But so long as we get an ideal saturation point, and the planet isn't oversaturated to the point of toxicity, or saturated to the point where the planet is a big fire cracker that could potentially burst into flames, which is what happened to Earth at one point and is in fact one of largest mass extinction events in our history.This isn't a drawback, it's a feature! Built-in purging of any and all native lifeforms as well as self handling of the overabundance of your oxygen producers! :P
Any super smart experts in natural/artificial around? I've embarked on a class project where step one is "Become an expert in orbital mechanics"play kerbal space program? :P not a bad option really.
Any super smart experts in natural/artificial around? I've embarked on a class project where step one is "Become an expert in orbital mechanics"
Okay, so, was playing a game today and(yes, I play games more than I read books. I should do the opposite, yes, but this is where I learn things from! :) ) I thought about string theory and methods
of possible warp travel, however far off they may be.
In the game stellaris you are given FTL technology off the bat. I'm playing with a mod where you have to actually research it before hand. I eventually am now at this moment researching hyperlane theory, but no more about the game and more about the idea:
String theory is a popular theory that everything in the universe is woven or inter-woven together. Following this theory, if you will, I refer to a verse I heard from one of my elder relatives;Basically,
"the stars sing to each-other". If you look at a popular Let's play of aurora on Something Awful(Yes, I used to be a goon but I got banned a long time ago) there was basically the idea that as they spread out, humanity figured out that stars, and even celestial objects, could communicate by some sort of consciousness. Now, follow me if you will:If the stars sing to each other, and IF string theory is true, then perhaps we could figure out how to go about FTL travel in a faster, more efficient way. Travelling along 'hyperlanes' in the sense that we can only reach stars that are connected to one another cosmically and consciously. This would allow for a far more faster, accessible form of FTL travel. There is only one downside I can think of however.
The ships could get stranded in deep space if they veer off course too much. Someone would have to be manning some sort of navigation console to be able to safely transition from Point A hyperlane to point B hyperlane. These anomalys would likely be beyond our gravity well, near the gas giants or at or past the Oort Cloud. So, when I say space is dangerous in that sense, I do mean it. It's cutting costs to be able to reach FTL for soon, but if it was mastered it would likely be the best way of going about it.
Disclaimer:I'm a high school dropout with his GED. Take everything I say in this post as a grain of salt.
Any super smart experts in natural/artificial around? I've embarked on a class project where step one is "Become an expert in orbital mechanics"This series (https://m.youtube.com/#/playlist?list=PLYu7z3I8tdEm-oVAzO8EHRAqAFG5RmNPl) might be helpful, though you probably need to know at least a little bit to understand it.
Necro for activity. (http://www.iflscience.com/space/russia-wants-to-send-people-to-the-moon-in-2031/)Now I am intensely grateful for close relations between Trump and Putin. If we get pulled into participating, NASA might actually see sane funding again. Start a second space race, but with more friendliness and less looming nuclear war! Better yet, four-to-eight of cooperation will make it difficult to pull out of diplomatically.
Regardless of whether or not they actually manage to land on the moon by that time, let alone put a base on it, the work they're doing into heavy lift rocketry alone seems pretty valuable. It's also good that they're apparently going to cooperate with other space agencies.
Trump is walking manure? You can plant your potatoes directly on him?Nonono, he emits manure from his orifices. Including the main head-orifice.
Careful with the politics stuff, please. I don't have the free time to properly moderate this thread.
TrumpxClinton ships are just noIs that Donald and Hillary, or... well almost any combo of (Malania/Ivanka/Barron/Junior/etc) x (Bill/Chelsea/Buddy/Socks/etc) fulfils the promise of a terrible punchline. Pick any pairing you want...
Still think it's gonna be an FTL neutrino situation. What are really the odds that we actually ran into the hole in physics with a practical macro phenomenon?as much as explaining and truly understanding an Einstein Rosenberg bridge..
Yeah, the amusing bit here isn't whether it works well, but that it works at all. I guess now we should get actual research into why the hell this thing works.It's probably extradimensional lag starting to affect the universe simulation.
Better get ready to say hello to the Kracken.Yeah, the amusing bit here isn't whether it works well, but that it works at all. I guess now we should get actual research into why the hell this thing works.It's probably extradimensional lag starting to affect the universe simulation.
NASA/Eagleworks just released an interesting paper on the EMdrive.HOLY CARP
This time in a peer reviewed journal.
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B36120
No anomalous thrusts on the null article, no significant indicators of evaporation of test article being the source of thrust.
Looks like some armchair physicists will get a steaming plate of crow.
IT’s impossible. But science appears to say it’s happening. A prototype space engine seems to be producing energy from nothing. And it’s just passed peer review.
The reactionless thruster was met with a surge of excitement — and scepticism — when reports of its science-fiction sounding ability to pull fuel out of the void of space itself emerged in 2001.
...
SOMETHING FROM NOTHING
The EM Drive is essentially a chamber with a hole at one end with microwaves bouncing around inside.
There is no fuel supplied.
But, when turned on, the drive generates thrust.
Worse, it violates some of the most fundamental laws of physics that our understanding of the universe — and all of our technology — is built upon.
Or not.
“It’s looking stronger,” Dr Neumann says. “But it’s still breaking the law of conservation of momentum — which is something we’d really like to keep as it’s the basis of some really important bits of science and technology.”
What should make the engine impossible is Newton’s Third Law: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Put simply, something doesn’t move unless an outside force pushes it.
This is why engines need fuel. The fuel contains energy.
The EM Drive carries no fuel. So there is no energy to release.
If the EM Drive is doing anything new and exciting it is probably not an "omigawsh we gotta throw away physics" type of thingIt never is. That kind of paradigm shift isn't common. Take relativity, ferex - Newtonian mechanics still worked, as long as gravity and speed were negligible. Science is very accurate at describing the everyday realities that we are used to - that will never be thrown away. We won't have a "shit, the Earth isn't flat after all" moment, ever. What we will have is a "whoa, if we look at the small scale, physics is completely different and weird" moment, at most, or a "whoa, the value of this force is 0.999999999999999 of what it should be, because of the X Effect" moment.
Does the paper actually say that the emdrive is producing negative energy, or are you just using your ~imagination~?Note that I said if it works as they posit, which--according to the general description of these that I've seen in that paper and elsewhere--hinges upon there being virtual particles in the vacuum that you can interact with in certain ways to generate thrust and so forth.
TL;DR: Science builds on top of itself. The foundation will never be thrown away; some speculative scaffolding on the top may. Also, I'm preaching to the choir and tilting at windmills.This I do not agree with. While the foundations of physics will never be suddenly eliminated, our advancements are not limited to the speculative and uncertain. The issue is that we do not necessarily know that our understanding of the "foundation" is complete, and in fact it probably isn't. Higgs boson, Special relativity, dark matter, how gravity functions, etc. The context of these discoveries can alter our context all the way down to the most basic assumptions, and change all of them as a result.
My question here is how is it circumventing the law of conservation of momentum, if in fact the fuel source in and of itself is electromagnetic microwaves? That's a force in physics in its own right. Or am I wrong here?
Ah, perhaps I was unclear. The "foundations" of physics, as I use the term, are the older, more easily testable models; theories about that which underlies all matter would not be "foundational" in my analogy.TL;DR: Science builds on top of itself. The foundation will never be thrown away; some speculative scaffolding on the top may. Also, I'm preaching to the choir and tilting at windmills.This I do not agree with. While the foundations of physics will never be suddenly eliminated, our advancements are not limited to the speculative and uncertain. The issue is that we do not necessarily know that our understanding of the "foundation" is complete, and in fact it probably isn't. Higgs boson, Special relativity, dark matter, how gravity functions, etc. The context of these discoveries can alter our context all the way down to the most basic assumptions, and change all of them as a result.
For example, if the EM Drive were to function properly, you might end up with "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, except for resonance carried through radiation of energy". Which would fundamentally alter damn near everything else that follows it, but in a way we were able to miss up until now due to existing presumption and lack of good experiments because of Earth's gravity.Well yes, it would fundamentally change what comes after it, but the existing foundations, as a special case, will remain relatively unchanged.
Not that I have changed my bet that the EM Drive won't work.
The virtual particle theory is also implicated in other theoretical phenomena, like hawking radiation, where the antimassed virtual particle falls into the event horizon, and the massed one does not, resulting in mass zipping away from the black hole's horizon in the form of radiation, while the mass of the singularity is reduced, as it absorbs the antimass of the particles streaming in, causing annihilationOkay, everything's making sense, this is a good explanation
and turning the mass into spacetime to satisfy the field equations.WHAT THE HELL
I want to know exactly what those criticisms are.If you're by any chance an SA on physics forums, there's a thread in the SA lounge (otherwise hidden).
The virtual particle theory is also implicated in other theoretical phenomena, like hawking radiation, where the antimassed virtual particle falls into the event horizon, and the massed one does not, resulting in mass zipping away from the black hole's horizon in the form of radiation, while the mass of the singularity is reduced, as it absorbs the antimass of the particles streaming in, causing annihilationOkay, everything's making sense, this is a good explanationQuoteand turning the mass into spacetime to satisfy the field equations.WHAT THE HELL
WHAT IS THAT EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN
No, wierd - you're spreading misconceptions. See here:The virtual particle theory is also implicated in other theoretical phenomena, like hawking radiation, where the antimassed virtual particle falls into the event horizon, and the massed one does not, resulting in mass zipping away from the black hole's horizon in the form of radiation, while the mass of the singularity is reduced, as it absorbs the antimass of the particles streaming in, causing annihilationOkay, everything's making sense, this is a good explanationQuoteand turning the mass into spacetime to satisfy the field equations.WHAT THE HELL
WHAT IS THAT EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN
The virtual particle pair erupts spontaneously from empty space. This happens all the time. Normally, this pair annihilates basically instantly, and all is well. The energy of the particles returns to being spacetime.
However, when part of the pair falls into the horizon, it cannot self annihilate, and the energy does not get returned. To satisfy the requirement of returning that energy, part of the singularity gets annihilated instead.
I don't know what you would call that, whatever that is supposed to mean. But I do know that my bicycle has wheels that have both negative and positive energy gradient across their diameter - as long as they're spinning. I guess they're half made of anti-mass.
I think you've never calculated a gradient, is your problem.
Which is you riding on the high horse.Don't let this devolve into insults, guys. If you are in an argument about science stuff, all you have to do is simplify your claims into bullet points and find links to back up each one, right?
Or possibly shouting down from your white tower.
I always wondered which one she used.. Sarin? Phosgene? Botulinum?The Neurotoxin she released with the Neurotoxin emitters was a Deadly Neurotoxin (https://youtu.be/l_hYUzWMxGs?t=560), that's all you need to know.
Guess we will never know.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/nasas-em-drive-still-a-wtf-thruster/Are these things faith-based? As in "clap if you believe, and the engine will work"?
A nicely put together writeup. One of many to come, I presume.
People in love do awful things, I'd rather the drive run on intolerance for bullshit.Ah, the Shrike's just a big cuddle-bug, honest. It's just also made out of sharp blades, razorwire, and long thorns.
I could totally dig becoming a Shrike.Can I sig this?
Hah, yup.I could totally dig becoming a Shrike.Can I sig this?
People in love do awful things, I'd rather the drive run on intolerance for bullshit.You doubt the Void which Binds?
So, um, the EM drive could in fact, be a dark matter drive?? http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/11/30/could-dark-matter-be-powering-the-emdrive/#9b4eab11e539I can't see forbes since they keep popping up their annoying little adblock nanny thing so I forbid every bit of the site pre-emptively, but I'm guessing if the power levels involved and a resonance chamber could accidentally provide evidence of dark matter, then professional scientists who actually do this sort of stuff for a living would probably have deliberately tried to do just that sort of experiment, and to date I haven't seen any blurbs about "dark matter detected directly" or anything alone those lines.
It's a pretty wild idea, though I have no idea how they'd get any meaningful thrust out of it.
Personally my hunch is that in a few years they're going to be turning around and saying there's no such thing as dark matter, it was just a crutch to fill in some other blank they didn't know about. Dark matter is only needed because of assumptions about cosmic inflation which have been challenged by more recent theories.DM is needed to explain galactic rotation curves, the Bullet Cluster, and most importantly (IMO) the peak distribution in acoustic oscillations seen in the CMBR. As far as I can see, neither of those has anything to do with inflation.
So there's a lot of stuff about planet x on the Web now, at least now that I'm looking for it. There's speculation that it's a dead star, or some type of gas giant. Due to the delicate nature of electromagnetism in the solar system,...¿Que?
...I would postulate that even a minor adjustment in its 3600 year orbit would cause adverse effects one way or the other. Now what I'm getting at here is the concept of climate change, and dark matter as well.As a chaotic system, anything can happen, eventually, but nothing is likely in less than a full orbit's-worth of time, let alone in the immediately imminent future.
But, before I go on further about this, who is disdainful of the idea that 'planet x' presents a problem? I'd rather know that now then continue in discussing it just to have my argument thrown out the window
While there are signs that a larger planet a long distance away might exist (based on the movement of certain Kuiper Belt objects such as the dwarf planet Sedna there could be a mars-sized object out around 53 AU or a neptune-sized one out around 1500 AU), the effects of such a planet on us are extremely, extremely tiny, to the point of being basically unnoticeable. No blaming climate change or anything even close to being similar in scale on any distant planet.
(As a further note, analysis of mid-infrared observations with the WISE telescope have ruled out the possibility of a Saturn-sized object (95 Earth masses) out to 10,000 AU, and a Jupiter-sized or larger object out to 26,000 AU. If there is something out there then it's either small, meaning no oldsters, or very far away).
To clarify...So there's a lot of stuff about planet x on the Web now, at least now that I'm looking for it. There's speculation that it's a dead star, or some type of gas giant. Due to the delicate nature of electromagnetism in the solar system,...¿Que?
I do not think that means what you think that means. Could you clarify?Quote...I would postulate that even a minor adjustment in its 3600 year orbit would cause adverse effects one way or the other. Now what I'm getting at here is the concept of climate change, and dark matter as well.As a chaotic system, anything can happen, eventually, but nothing is likely in less than a full orbit's-worth of time, let alone in the immediately imminent future.
Climate change* relates to Earth's journey through the solar system, not astrological issues.
(* - Outside of local atmospheric changes, which are unaffected by the positions of any other planet not actually making contact.)
Dark Matter is something else, also.QuoteBut, before I go on further about this, who is disdainful of the idea that 'planet x' presents a problem? I'd rather know that now then continue in discussing it just to have my argument thrown out the window
Consider me officially disdainful of this. But I'd like to hear where you're actually coming from before I vo too far in deciding where I think your position actually is.
I'm terrified to ask, but what are you defining electromagnetism as here?my definition of electromagnetism is still the same basic definition that we have an electromagnetic sphere, but that being something as much of a basic force in the universe as gravity, or dark matter.
My position is that any planet in the solar system, or in the universe for that fact, has the possibility of holding an EM Field around it. Such as the sun, any number of the planets in our solar system;however weak or strong they may be.I'm not quite sure that you understand what a Lagrange point is, because it has absolutely nothing to do with electromagnetism and everything to do with gravity (which, as of this writing, we still have no real conclusively proved way to connect the two yet). To understand Lagrange points the first thing that you have to understand is that normally the speed an object in orbit is directly linked to it's orbital distance. This is because (and I'm going to steal some graphics from xkcd right now), space is not like this:
This, in turn, leads to langrange points-One's that Elon Musk is planning on using for the interplanetary transport system.
Magnetic field, you mean? Internalised magnetohydrodynamics causing significant effects at interplanetary distances?[snip]Yes, you hit the nail on the hammer(thank you), I am talking about internalised magnetohydrodynamics causing such effects. Keep in mind I still havn't gone to college or any college physics
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Sounds like you're working on Bronson Alpha/Bellus fictions, or an nuanced offshoot of this meme. But care to share a link so that I can be corrected?
Oh Armok no, not EU. Please tell me...yup, same diagnosis here...
What's "EU"?It's a collection of stars on a flat plane that may or may not collide with each other in the future, depending on some farmer's Unified Fields. There's also multiple pulling strings theories.
What's "EU"?
What's "EU"?Erupted Unguents. It's a really horrible gastrointestinal STI, don't google it.
and the world would be a much better place if EU morons spent more time actually studying rather than sitting around getting high by zapping their parietal lobe with a cattle prod or something else which would explain the stupidity that emerges from those beliefs.After looking up what the parietal lobe does and functions I am extremely angry(not at anyone here). Who in gods Quintilianth dimension thought that could possibly be a good idea?
and the world would be a much better place if EU morons spent more time actually studying rather than sitting around getting high by zapping their parietal lobe with a cattle prod or something else which would explain the stupidity that emerges from those beliefs.After looking up what the parietal lobe does and functions I am extremely angry(not at anyone here). Who in gods Quintilianth dimension thought that could possibly be a good idea?
Oh Armok no, not EU. Please tell me...Yes, I mean magnetic.
...just to make sure, is this electrical or magnetic? The former is utterly nonsensical (neutral charges for all known macroscopic naturally-occuring celestial bodies), the latter is at least hypothetically possible.
Also, the Earth formed in about 10-100 million years. It's been roughly 4.4 billion years since, and that has nothing to do with the ETA of Andromeda. (Also, no stars will actually collide; there'll just be a bunch of stars strewn about, and then life goes on and the galaxies go their own way, somewhat slower than before.)
...what?Starver is engaging in troll logic there to joke, ipsil
I'm aware, though wouldn't be surprised if that's some of their actual viewpoints.It is. It actually is. For certain subsets, depending on which rabbitholes their various Alices favour.
Japan to deploy giant electric space tentacle. (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/505020386/japan-sends-long-electric-whip-into-orbit-to-tame-space-junk)Also
Japan to deploy giant electric space tentacle. (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/505020386/japan-sends-long-electric-whip-into-orbit-to-tame-space-junk)Alsowhalers on the moonfishing nets IIIN SPAAAACE (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-asia-space-race/netting-space-junk.html)
We're whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon, and we wait what?
But wouldn't they want their spacecraft back? "I'll let you perform awful Cthulhu-ian acts on my spacecraft, just give it back afterward." Lol.
To be fair fully intact but out of control satellites aren't really the biggest issue, in terms of trying to get rid of them. if I recall correctly the only reason those two collided was calculation errors on their location. Its the smaller stuff that matters most. You can't track, it you can't avoid it. Not to say removing old ones isnt important.
Well, I feel politics is gonna have to play into this at some point. Conflicts in space are something that should be avoided, and that's one of the reasons I think the original outer space treaty was formed, so say Russia getting mad for another country clearing space debris could be, while seeming a minor thing, most definitely lead to effects. If japan's going to do this, they need to bring it to the United Nations and before the security Council as well.
This is all just my opinion, as well.
What went wrong with what?
They're probably both complete bunk. Obviously people will (and should) grasp at any straw that would allow us to violate all known standards and acquire ULTIMATE POWER over the universe, but actually holding your breath for any such thing is a grand waste of time.
(because neutrinos interact with atomic nuclei only very weakly)
Unfortunately, we retain And Yet It Moves all the same. Let's hope it's not an easy gateway to ultimate power though, since China is doing their space test first.They'll probably just falsify it. :P
"Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the Moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well; this time, to stay."
While I do like the commercialization (since it would bring a big push), I don't quite like the fact he's trying to do so by forming a Confederacy of Independent Systems, surely this will bring trouble to the Republic.
As long they don't build up a droid army we'll be fine."Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the Moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well; this time, to stay."
While I do like the commercialization (since it would bring a big push), I don't quite like the fact he's trying to do so by forming a Confederacy of Independent Systems, surely this will bring trouble to the Republic.
Inter-system politics is something that will happen eventually.
It's no different from having a bunch of colonies on Earth, except their in space, and offworld.
Realistically though, considering the distances involved, there's going to be a degree of political independence.
Mars delenda est.As long they don't build up a droid army we'll be fine."Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the Moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well; this time, to stay."
While I do like the commercialization (since it would bring a big push), I don't quite like the fact he's trying to do so by forming a Confederacy of Independent Systems, surely this will bring trouble to the Republic.
Inter-system politics is something that will happen eventually.
It's no different from having a bunch of colonies on Earth, except their in space, and offworld.
Realistically though, considering the distances involved, there's going to be a degree of political independence.
"Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the Moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well; this time, to stay."Waaaait, cis-lunar... republican... what are they saying there?
While I do like the commercialization (since it would bring a big push), I don't quite like the fact he's trying to do so by forming a Confederacy of Independent Systems, surely this will bring trouble to the Republic.
"Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the Moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well; this time, to stay."Waaaait, cis-lunar... republican... what are they saying there?
While I do like the commercialization (since it would bring a big push), I don't quite like the fact he's trying to do so by forming a Confederacy of Independent Systems, surely this will bring trouble to the Republic.
"I believe all docking interfaces should be male-to-female connections, as Spacejesus wanted."
We need to keep the illegal immigrants off our clean virgin soil... well, er, dusty regoliths, spacers go home!"Fortunately, the Space Launch System and Orion will start testing in 2018. This system, with a commercial lander, could quickly place machines and robots on the Moon to begin the cis-lunar economy. With the right presidential guidance, humans could return in short order as well; this time, to stay."Waaaait, cis-lunar... republican... what are they saying there?
While I do like the commercialization (since it would bring a big push), I don't quite like the fact he's trying to do so by forming a Confederacy of Independent Systems, surely this will bring trouble to the Republic.
"I believe all docking interfaces should be male-to-female connections, as Spacejesus wanted."
a native-lunar economy. ie an economy that was lunar to begin with.
It was a starwars joke.I am proud of being so ironic that my ironic misunderstanding forced an explanation, yes.
- CIS (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Confederacy_of_independent_systems)
- The Republic (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Republic)
You monsters forced me to explain the joke! I hope you are all proud and happy! >:(
Abstract
Organic compounds occur in some chondritic meteorites, and their signatures on solar system bodies have been sought for decades. Spectral signatures of organics have not been unambiguously identified on the surfaces of asteroids, whereas they have been detected on cometary nuclei. Data returned by the Visible and InfraRed Mapping Spectrometer on board the Dawn spacecraft show a clear detection of an organic absorption feature at 3.4 micrometers on dwarf planet Ceres. This signature is characteristic of aliphatic organic matter and is mainly localized on a broad region of ~1000 square kilometers close to the ~50-kilometer Ernutet crater. The combined presence on Ceres of ammonia-bearing hydrated minerals, water ice, carbonates, salts, and organic material indicates a very complex chemical environment, suggesting favorable environments to prebiotic chemistry.
No, unfortunately.
Nemesis? (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28Asimov_novel%29?wprov=sfla1)
Neato! Hopefully we can get some of our space telescopes to examine them for a long period and get some spectral analysis of the planets themselves.The US Kepler telescope has in fact been observing the same system since late 2016. It's data will become available on the 6th of march.
The Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/22/thrilling-discovery-of-seven-earth-sized-planets-discovered-orbiting-trappist-1-starGiven the age it is weird that it rotates as slowly as it does, but that would lead one to think it is unlikely to flare much if at all, though we're still investigating the causes of stellar flares.
The thing though is that they'd likely be tidally locked, which would make things harsher for life, but certainly not impossible. However, given that the planets orbit so closely together, I wonder if the perturbations would be enough to keep them rotating.
Also, is that star a known flare star? Red dwarf stars are notorious for throwing massive flares.
Yeah, 100 years is the estimated for the Alpha Centauri system which is around 4 light years away, this one is 39-40 light years away.This is weird but kinda more exciting because it isn't just a red dwarf, it's a young and very cool dwarf at the lower end of the Red Dwarf scale, 2550~ Kelvins and 0.08 Solar Masses when Red Dwarf stars can go up to 4000 Kelvins and 0.5 Solar Masses.
edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1 The star is apparently a very young star, only about 500 million years old, so, if there IS life on there, the most we could expect to find is something resembling the primitive life forms that evolved on early Earth. There's evidence that life started extremely quickly, so, chances are good we could find something there, given the right conditions.
A neat possibility would be if one of the planets had a large enough moon to keep the night side from freezing entirely due to tidal smushing, so the atmosphere didn't end up snowed out and frozen in place.
Don't think there would be enough light reflecting off the other planets to influence life cycles much, but it could probably have a similar sort of influence that full moons and new moons have on nocturnal hunting I think?
Ninja.http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39034050This has been the topic of the past 10 posts.
They found a small star 40 light years away that has 7 Earth-like planets in inner orbits, at least three should be in the habitable zone of that star. The star's low intensity means that we can see them clearer so they're hopeful that can get spectrography readings for what's in the atmospheres. That star is a really good research candidate.
By 10 others.Ninja.http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39034050This has been the topic of the past 10 posts.
They found a small star 40 light years away that has 7 Earth-like planets in inner orbits, at least three should be in the habitable zone of that star. The star's low intensity means that we can see them clearer so they're hopeful that can get spectrography readings for what's in the atmospheres. That star is a really good research candidate.
I doubt there are moons around the tidally-locked planets. Over large amounts of time, moons end up tidally locked to planets, but if the planet is already tidally locked then the the only places that the moon could still be gravitationally bound the the planet and still be tidally locked would be the Lagrange points which aren't especially stable (or close to the planet).The Earth is not tidally locked to the Moon which is tidally locked to it.
I doubt there are moons around the tidally-locked planets. Over large amounts of time, moons end up tidally locked to planets, but if the planet is already tidally locked then the the only places that the moon could still be gravitationally bound the the planet and still be tidally locked would be the Lagrange points which aren't especially stable (or close to the planet).This system hasn't had a large amount of time yet, it looks to be like half a billion years old apparently.
There's no way you could plop anything into any Lagrange point and expect it to stay there.I agree with this, and said as much, and therefore assume you weren't replying to me.
The dynamic stability of L4&5 is only a solution of a restricted 3-body problem, and this system doesn't qualify as such.Ditto.
A moon that actually orbits a planet would have to be within its Hill sphere, so a bit closer than L1&2. Since a moon that is tidally-locked to a planet which is tidally-locked to its star would have to be in either of those points, it tells us that:I disagreed on this point, omitting to give the main reason to assume that a freely orbiting (whether or not tidally-locked) moon would tidally drag the planet (towards spinning at the rate of once per local 'lunar month', sidereally, I think that is), to at some point counteract the slower solar-tidal-drag (once per solar year, likewise). In an otherwise stable and long-lived (three-body!) solution, the ultimate convergence would be upon a rate of spin somewhere between the two (probably related to ratios of the masses; distances seem to cancel out, in my basic headcalculations...)
- there can't be such a moon in this system
- any moons the planets might actually have will orbit them closer than L1&2, which means they will orbit faster than the planet rotates, which means that the moons are destined to collide with any planet that might have them, within geological timescales*That's a point I can't argue with. The faster Earth is lending orbital velocity to the Moon and sending it outwards, but 'getting close to annual rotation' planets are doubtless buying back the potential. That'd be fun to watch, the proximity rendering the moon-mass no longer stable as a whole body, creating a close ring that eventually starts to bombard around the equator, with various other interesting after-effects to both lithosphere and atmosphere. Maybe.
This in turn means that either the planets don't have moons, or will eventually not have moons.Eventually, the Earth wouldn't have a Moon, if not for Sol's middle-age spread getting in on the act and disrupting things.. In a multibody system, already with suspected resonances, an equivalent time-scale might well rearrange any moons there are (assuming that at least one of the planets isn't a conglomeration of 'spare moons', or proto-moon/proto-planet/prior-collision-debris that (literally!) gravitated towards a meeting at some suitable resonance), but there could be a temporary arrangement (on stellar terms) that can still inspire and even outlast a pretty sharpish civilisation.
Also, a tidally locked planet wouldn't necessarily have its atmosphere snow out. Venus experiences days longer than its years, yet its atmosphere essentially rotates approximately every 4 Earth days. Thermodynamics drives global winds from the warmer day side across the cooler night side and back.
A planet experiencing such constant, strong global winds presents challenges of its own to life, but not insurmountable I think.
Also, a tidally locked planet wouldn't necessarily have its atmosphere snow out. Venus experiences days longer than its years, yet its atmosphere essentially rotates approximately every 4 Earth days. Thermodynamics drives global winds from the warmer day side across the cooler night side and back.The surface pressure and sheer mass of the atmosphere itself means there isn't going to be much variation due to the small amount of sunlight making it through the cloud decks, unless you let the atmosphere relax and collapse down onto the surface it's going to fuckhot down there.
A planet experiencing such constant, strong global winds presents challenges of its own to life, but not insurmountable I think.
Hell, this system is so young and in such a dense neighborhood that it's hard to know how things like bombardment cycles will work out, was there a wisp of cometary material that already got stolen/kicked inwards, is there stuff out there which is falling inwards as we speak, are there moons and asteroids getting chucked across the system, at this age the Earth still had issues with fucking magma raining out of the sky from the big cloud that the moon was coalescing from as I recall, who knows what interesting shit is happening over on TRAPPIST-1 right now?Also, a tidally locked planet wouldn't necessarily have its atmosphere snow out. Venus experiences days longer than its years, yet its atmosphere essentially rotates approximately every 4 Earth days. Thermodynamics drives global winds from the warmer day side across the cooler night side and back.The surface pressure and sheer mass of the atmosphere itself means there isn't going to be much variation due to the small amount of sunlight making it through the cloud decks, unless you let the atmosphere relax and collapse down onto the surface it's going to fuckhot down there.
A planet experiencing such constant, strong global winds presents challenges of its own to life, but not insurmountable I think.
But that doesn't answer my question. People are saying a tidally locked moon is impossible without L points, but a moon that's only tidally locked to the tidally locked planet, then it's able to orbit at any speed and distance (within reason, OFC), so long as its rotation matches up with its orbital period.It'll need to be very close, the Hill Spheres (where the planet gravity dominates) of such a densely packed system aren't going to be very big, outside of those orbits the moon will be orbiting the star, to have it approach stability then you'd need to plunk it on the L1 or L2, but the rest of the system doesn't help this idea since it's got so many bodies in such a narrowly constrained system of orbits in the first place.
Hey look, the moon exists! We should do stuff with it!
Hours beforehand, NASA announced they're considering putting people on their currently planned as unmanned capsule test around the moon... Next year.
Next year could be great.
I figured you were talking about Venus, though I missed that it's only the upper atmosphere which rotates quickly, the lower atmosphere doesn't move anywhere nearly as much.
Maybe we can send Trump. He can be used as the lift source.That is the smartest thing I've ever heard anybody say since I saw a friend of mine tell one of his sisters friends that he would happily give her shirt back in exchange for her bra.
Well yeah? We are gonna build our own space thread with blackjack and hookers.
In fact forget the thread! :P
Now. On topic. Which are the real, real implications of a space economy as currently proposed. I mean legally. Also which are the real motivators behind, besides turism and maybe a few rare elements from the moon. I'm talking about the moon.
But then, why launch from the Moon instead of constructing your sci-fi scale interplanetary ships in orbital space directly? On the Moon, you're still sitting at the bottom of a significant gravity well, but you don't have enough gravity to actually ensure the health of your local workers without additional measures. You don't have the mineral resources of Earth, and you can't tap a convenient NEO that may have the heavy elements you need in abundant supply much more easily on the Moon than you could on Earth. You also get to worry about that lovely sharp lunar dust getting into everything; your entire construction area needs to be safed against it unless you want to worry about damaged gaskets, sealing, wires, fine lenses, and so forth.
EDIT:
Ah, at any rate, my own thoughts. I see the moon being primarily a resource-extraction industry at the very most, albeit one primarily focused on relatively light elements: helium-3, oxygen, water, and (on the heavier side) aluminum and maybe iron. It's generally believed that short of a trip out to the outer planets, the Moon is the most convenient source of helium-3 in the inner system. This, however, requires effective cold-fusion to make any use of 3He; most present uses for the isotope aren't really worth the cost of going to the Moon and back. Even as a power source, it's questionable if it's worth the cost. A space economy is likely going to be centralized in Earth orbit with possible occasional forays to near-Earth objects or even the asteroid belt for the foreseeable future. While resource extraction is going to be major due to the wealth of accessible resources available in certain types of asteroids, zero-G manufacturing does have significant promise. Power generation is also a possibility: without gravity, tremendous solar arrays can be constructed without the structural support necessary on Earth, and without occlusion by weather or the planet itself, can operate continuously, but the question then becomes if efficiency losses from power transmission from orbit to the ground outweigh this.
Why the hell is Brianna Wu running for congress.
Has amurica truly entered the age of ridic politics with Trump?
Inb4 alex jones for senator.
Why the hell is Brianna Wu running for congress.
Has amurica truly entered the age of ridic politics with Trump?
Inb4 alex jones for senator.
Who is she?
Here's the thing. Yeah, you could build things in orbit, but where are those resources coming from? Asteroids could work, if you could get those back, but most of them are WAY out there. If you're launching from earth... well, we're already doing that, and it's expensive and slow. (See ISS).You're correct that most asteroids are not near Earth, but that's because of the sheer amount of asteroids out there. There are more than 14 thousand near-Earth asteroids, just counting those that we know about. There are 1786 potentially-hazardous objects, which are defined as asteroids or comets that approach the Earth to within 0.05 AU and have a diameter of at least 100-150 metres and should probably be considered for redirection at some point even if they don't contain useful resources; there are even more that are smaller than that. It's become known in the last decade as well that asteroids are regularly captured by the Earth even without human involvement before eventually leaving Earth's gravity well for the Sun, such as 2006 RH120, whose 2006 capture sparked interest in this phenomenon. Estimated yields from even a single such S-type asteroid can contain tremendous amounts of metals, including not only iron, but also those that cannot be found easily on the Moon at all such as platinum or gold for electronics. You really don't need *that* many, at least in the timescale of an early space economy where the Earth-Moon system is still the be-all and end-all of exploitation with Mars at the most distant hinterland (Earth itself will likely always be a metropole for the solar system, short of terraforming Venus/Mars, but that's another question entirely).
The moon has resources, even if it's just iron. Hell, even if it's just rock. I don't know about the strength of the material or how it'd work in space, but if you just carved out a cylinder from lunar basalt, weight be damned it'd be cheaper to launch that from the moon than likely any conventional launch from earth to get ANYTHING of equivalent size into orbit.
Build a magnetic catapult on the surface and you've got most of the way into orbit. Just a small amount of thrust to circularize and you could launch almost anything for only the cost of the electricity.
The only problem is infrastructure. Self replicating machines would be my choice but . Launch a handful, they build more, then they build manufacturing structures and/or habitat for humans.
You can dig underground on the moon. The biggest risk for significant times off of earth is radiation and the most cost efficient way to deal with radiation threat is to dig deep. Lunarcrete is cheap because it's in situ.
So... SpaceX just announced they're gonna send two private citizens on a trip around the moon... Next year.
Hours beforehand, NASA announced they're considering putting people on their currently planned as unmanned capsule test around the moon... Next year.
Next year could be great.
You remind me that I recently saw this (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170227120243.htm), about rocky material in a binary ('Tatooine'-style) system...
I find it intriguing that suddenly people are calling for NASA to just cancel the SLS because spacex can do it instead.
However the spacex module to be sent would weigh approximately 1/3rd of the weight of the payload sent to the moon by the SLS (according to a source I read. validation of that would be nice?) because it doesn't have to land or even achieve orbit. So hopefully people figure that out eventually.
Though it does raise the question. If they (spacex) start doing their mars shuttle thing in the next decade, would they then just use it to ferry back and forth stuff to the moon while they wait for transfer windows? That would surely have the ability to get to and land on the moon, and often.
Moonbase anyone?
You can dig underground on the moon. The biggest risk for significant times off of earth is radiation and the most cost efficient way to deal with radiation threat is to dig deep. Lunarcrete is cheap because it's in situ.
Alternatively, one could use lava tubes, which would be HUGE on the Moon, big enough to fit a city inside, so, plenty of space. The tricky part though is finding one.
This is now my phone background.CassiniJuno sent home the first high resolution close up images of Jupiter. It looks pretty. The image has been tilted 90 degrees.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So where do I sign up to become a space dwarf?
I am all for this.
On the other hand, even without magma, we could probably dig deeper on the moon than on Earth as the overhanging rocks weigh less.Actually, the problem with digging deep (for humans) on earth is air pressure. That isn't a problem on the moon.
On the other hand, even without magma, we could probably dig deeper on the moon than on Earth as the overhanging rocks weigh less.Actually, the problem with digging deep (for humans) on earth is air pressure. That isn't a problem on the moon.
I suppose it is the relative speed we perceive ourselves to be moving in relation to other objects. So, assuming that we can build two spaceships that can move at 50% c, and we have them do a full speed flyby past eachother, would each one see the other as moving *at* c, since their relative speeds are additive to their observations?
Though another thing I don't get about time dilation, is that since light is moving at c, time is not moving for the light photon at all. If a photon is created, and it travels 100,000,000 light years across the universe until it hits an object, then obviously a hundred million years passed from our perspective, but from the photon's perspective that entire journey happened instantaneously... How is that possible, how can something experience no time, but also be able to move? I feel that there is something really fundamental I'm missing here.
snip1. We're always measuring velocity against something else. This is not specific to special relativity - works the same in the more mundane, 'Galillean' relativity. I.e. there's no such thing as velocity without some reference point, in the same way as there's no distance without specifyinig what you're measuring it against.
No time passes for photons. From their point of view as it wereThere's no such thing as their point of view, though. See above.
My point still stands.How? It doesn't make sense otherwise.
Is... is movement, and by extention all the space that that movement takes place in, an illusion?
NASA to announce a new slate of Kepler exoplanet discoveries today. (Actually, they're streaming it live now. (https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive))
EDIT: 10 new planet candidates in habitable zones, 3-4 of those around G-class stars.
DOUBLE-EDIT: This is the final batch from the first Kepler mission.
TRIPLE-EDIT: 49 planets in the habitable zone with a mass <1.8 Earths. This is out of 0.25% of the sky, and with a 1/200 chance that a given planet is transiting its star from Earth's POV. That leaves room for a hell of a lot of planets still out there.
tldr; Pot is life, man.NASA to announce a new slate of Kepler exoplanet discoveries today. (Actually, they're streaming it live now. (https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive))
EDIT: 10 new planet candidates in habitable zones, 3-4 of those around G-class stars.
DOUBLE-EDIT: This is the final batch from the first Kepler mission.
TRIPLE-EDIT: 49 planets in the habitable zone with a mass <1.8 Earths. This is out of 0.25% of the sky, and with a 1/200 chance that a given planet is transiting its star from Earth's POV. That leaves room for a hell of a lot of planets still out there.
Well, the organic proto-molecule for amino acids and DNA is literally a Carbon Dioxide acid attached to itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicarboxylic_acid) (There's no mention of pure 2-COOH but pot-smoking hippies isolate it all the time so they can get to their cannabinoids so it's definitely there), so it's looking more and more likely that carbon-based lifeforms are plentiful. probably.
I meant more along the tides. Are tides important for developing life?
Direct overhead for an observer is "zenith".That one I knew, but I was derping because I was seeing azimuth in my head but that's just the angle from north along the horizon, which I thought was called something besides just horizon, but I guess not.
The WOW! signal has a plausible source which was recently discovered to be a funky interaction between comet debris and the solar wind, as I recall. Using hyperaccelerated protons to communicate would be silly anyways, and they'd still get slowed down by the mush of interstellar space being much denser when you're whizzing through it at high fractions of c.That would be silly. Not sure that's even ever going to be a thing, though.
Why would other races want to talk to other races, though?If by (the second) "to" you mean "with", why would they, and we, not? It'd answer those questions raised about the necessity of the Moon, and all kinds of other stuff... "Hey, you guys... So you say your personal organic chemistey is based on Element 14, not Element 6... So what's your environment like, to have that work out for you?"
The MUCH more realistic option is to just move the Earth.
It's not very realistic, but you know, whatever might work. Assuming we're still around to be bothered about it.
Except you're proposing that we create extra material. Unless you think that there's two objects the size of what, Venus? Maybe the physical size of Mars, if not the weight?Calculate the volume of 2 objects 5056 km in radius vs 1 x 6371.
KIC 8462852 has dimmed again.They're powering up the Starkiller.
Hahahaha damn autocorrect. What's weird is that it's in spanish and I'm sure hand is not a spanish word.Not today it isn't, but maño na?
If a Jupiter-sized (Or larger) planet got flung into space, its moons could conceivably have life similar to what we might hope to find on Europa---supported by volcanic vents on the ocean floor, which are themselves created by the tidal forces of the large planet's gravity flexing the moon.With large enough moons and a deep enough atmosphere you'd have a few million years possibly before the KH heating died out.
Probably the best method would be using earth to give gravity assists to millions of asteroids, slowly changing earth's orbit. Especially since you can give a gravity assist multiple times.You naive fool, all we need is Archimedes with a really long hammer...
Probably the best method would be using earth to give gravity assists to millions of asteroids, slowly changing earth's orbit. Especially since you can give a gravity assist multiple times.You naive fool, all we need is Archimedes with a really long hammer...
"Archimedes Really Long Hammer" sounds like an excellent name for a big asteroid.Or an edgy rock song. Space rock.
Space rock, you say? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqL7Yllgeew)"Archimedes Really Long Hammer" sounds like an excellent name for a big asteroid.Or an edgy rock song. Space rock.
I was thinking the title sounded more like a song by the Beltles.Space rock, you say? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqL7Yllgeew)"Archimedes Really Long Hammer" sounds like an excellent name for a big asteroid.Or an edgy rock song. Space rock.
(silently titters at the highly absurd notion of an interstellar scramjet, that is fusion powered, and uses a huge magnetic ram scoop to suck in interstellar hydrogen for fuel.)
It's usually referred to as a ramjet. I suspect that if you could get it moving fast enough it would work even with lowered densities, but it needs fuel to get to speed, but it needs speed to get fuel. Paradox!
Can't wait to see it in action! When are the prospective dates?
Opportunity has now been roving the surface of Mars for 5000 days.
Quite impressive, for a rover that was made to last 90 days.
Juno takes some sexy french girl photos of Jupiter, oh myy. (http://www.sci-techuniverse.com/2017/11/nasas-1-billion-jupiter-probe-just-sent.html)
That's not necessarily bad as Starver hinted at. If there's no crazy wind and there's hot and cold then there must logically be a steady temperate band.
~~~
Also a quibble, the article says that a certain unwanted pattern only occurs in planet with less than 12 days rotational period. However, it doesn't actually state that all planets with less than 12 days rotational period have that feature.
I mean, maybe, but we only have the wording of one pop-science article summarizing some research to go on. If we take that too literally then we're probably ascribing more rigor to the article than it warrants.
That's going to cause some difficulty in actually reaching the "underground" stage.Or help...
I mean we still crash probes on Mars because differences over measurements units. (Everyone should use metric system).The most successful nation at getting probes to Mars is India, by the way...
Yep. Do it 40 years after everyone else and only launch one: abuse those percentage success rates for fun and profit. ^_^I mean we still crash probes on Mars because differences over measurements units. (Everyone should use metric system).The most successful nation at getting probes to Mars is India, by the way...
Makes you think!
Not while we still have the treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons in space and exploding nukes in space. The concept of using them as propulsion is already well studied and conceptualized, just that we wouldn't be able to use one with the current treaty.
Hey if we use enough nukes we could get the planet spinning again, and it would take millennia for it to slow down again. Instant day/night cycle and even out the climate.???
Other more realistic concern is getting the nukes safely beyond our orbit. High altitude nuclear explosions and fallout are far more pressing.
Perhaps a combination of high acceleration railgun and some ion engine could do. That or nuclear propulsion.
I request you calculate the moment of inertia of the earth, and then look up/calculate the amount of energy contained in nuclear bombs, and tell me if that is enough to give the Earth a tangential radial velocity of 1000mph.
Spoiler alert:
It won't be.
I request you calculate the moment of inertia of the earth, and then look up/calculate the amount of energy contained in nuclear bombs, and tell me if that is enough to give the Earth a tangential radial velocity of 1000mph.
Spoiler alert:
It won't be.
I said enough nukes. i covered that already.
Fusion, yo.
Fusion, yo.
The fission part of it is only a detonator, there's no practical size limit on hydrogen bombs, and no shortage of materials.
Actually, I'm wondering what would happen if you added drag to a planet. You see, the planet is currently spinning once every 10 days, it's just synced with it's orbit of the star. So to get a "day" you don't necessarily need to speed up the planet, you can in fact get the same thing by slowing it down, more effectively. in fact, it sounds like a good way to steal energy from this planet/star system, you use the kinetic energy from the planet, thus slowing it down, but then the planet/star's tidal forces speeds it back up.
That's about as reasonable as slowing down Jupiter by throwing more New Horizons past it.https://what-if.xkcd.com/146/ is the link you probably wanted to give/direct to.
You should go look at XYKD, they cover the sort of energy loss you're talking about. Although, I do have a question: How do you propose to extract from the rotational energy instead of the orbital velocity (As covered in the XYKD article I'm talking about)
Nanotube filament solid gas(s) sent in explosive nuclear warheads towards the red planetWaitwhatnow?
Say we were able to condense atmospheric gases within a carbon filament/nanotechnology bound instrument, and sent them off alongside with a controlled amount of emitted radiation. As per the article, the hypothetical I'm guessing is that it would restore life to it's original state hopefully, but then it's an oxymoron as well as the sun itself is not what it used to be, so therefore trying to 'terraform' it into an original state rather than artificial one(even though the methods would be artificial and man made themselves) /could/ be redundant, but I was just exploring the option.That's about as reasonable as slowing down Jupiter by throwing more New Horizons past it.https://what-if.xkcd.com/146/ is the link you probably wanted to give/direct to.
You should go look at XYKD, they cover the sort of energy loss you're talking about. Although, I do have a question: How do you propose to extract from the rotational energy instead of the orbital velocity (As covered in the XYKD article I'm talking about)
Warning: Do not attempt to drink keyboard-unfriendly beverages whilst reading. (Unless you happen to have a beverage-friendly keyboard. Then go ahead!)Nanotube filament solid gas(s) sent in explosive nuclear warheads towards the red planetWaitwhatnow?
Say we were able to condense atmospheric gases within a carbon filament/nanotechnology bound instrument,Ummm, okay. Not sure how/why. Is the filament nature (which would be highly oxidised bucky-tubes, I presume) actually more useful than merely being cooled down into Dry Ice blocks, or something?
and sent them off alongside with a controlled amount of emitted radiation.Why radiation?
As per the article, the hypothetical I'm guessing is that it would restore life to it's original state hopefully,Are you thinking "life concentrates certain isotopes of carbon" with "certain isotopes of carbon will aid life"?
but then it's an oxymoron as well as the sun itself is not what it used to be, so therefore trying to 'terraform' it into an original state rather than artificial one(even though the methods would be artificial and man made themselves) /could/ be redundant, but I was just exploring the option.I remain lost. Or you do. But I'll stick with it being me, for now, and give you a fair chance to correct my intrinsic wrong-headedness.
A much simpler plan would be to just darken Mars (across as much of the electromagnetic spectrum as possible, not just the visible spectrum). If it's less reflective then it would retain more heat, making it habitable. This would also improve atmospheric pressure without any extra gas needed.https://xkcd.com/1504/
(passim)Your proposal is kind of incomprehensible, but I get the feeling you seem to think that releasing methane would be good for the possible life on Mars? Which is actually the opposite of the case, if methane is being produced as a waste molecule – that would be like saying that humans release CO2, so filling a room with CO2 would make conditions better for the humans in it.
There are a few huge problems with carbon-dating on Mars.
First, Carbon dating is only meaningful to around 50,000 years. Carbon-14 decays, so really old samples won't have meaningful amounts of it.
Second, Carbon-14 is made when a neutron hits Nitrogen-13. And Mar's atmosphere lacks the nitrogen we expect on Earth. So Carbon dating on Earth relies on the fact that stray Neutrons are bombarding Nitrogen atoms and replenishing the Carbon-14 in the atmosphere at a reasonably steady rate, while carbon locked in a dead organism retains only the Carbon-14 which it had at the time of death, and which slowly decays.
Third, we'd need calibration tables for the Carbon-14 concentrations in the air going back thousands of years, which we usually get from ice-cores in places like Antarctica.
Hence, the technique can't really be generalized to Mars, or to times long ago. At least not with Carbon dating as we know it.
There are a few huge problems with carbon-dating on Mars.
First, Carbon dating is only meaningful to around 50,000 years. Carbon-14 decays, so really old samples won't have meaningful amounts of it.
Second, Carbon-14 is made when a neutron hits Nitrogen-13. And Mar's atmosphere lacks the nitrogen we expect on Earth. So Carbon dating on Earth relies on the fact that stray Neutrons are bombarding Nitrogen atoms and replenishing the Carbon-14 in the atmosphere at a reasonably steady rate, while carbon locked in a dead organism retains only the Carbon-14 which it had at the time of death, and which slowly decays.
Third, we'd need calibration tables for the Carbon-14 concentrations in the air going back thousands of years, which we usually get from ice-cores in places like Antarctica.
Hence, the technique can't really be generalized to Mars, or to times long ago. At least not with Carbon dating as we know it.
I gotta challenge this on at least one point. Adding a neutron to Nitrogen-13 makes it Nitrogen-14. You'd need to add a proton to N-13 to make it C-13 and then a neutron to C-13 to make it C-14
I didn't have time to respond yesterday.
Reelya, did you SERIOUSLY attempt to say that by attempting to generate drag from something moving WITH the planet, we could somehow change the planet's rotation????
That is not how the laws of physics work.
Ah, as is asserted more succinctly above. Though, I'd add the caveat that it doesn't even need to be a fast neutron: a simple thermal neutron seems to be enough to pop the proton right off. Epithermal on up to fast and ultrafast neutrons are not necessarily going to be absorbed as easily, oddly enough, which is why nuclear moderators are so important in certain fission reactors. Slowing down the neutrons allows them to be more easily captured, continuing the reaction.Yeah, I meant that in a colloquial sense - as in "sufficiently energetic". Not necessarily literally a fast neutron, just one that's warm enough.
Friction does slow rotation. That's how tidal effects work. Friction is an energy transfer.No. Sorry.
think about it this way, objects in the atmosphere are slowed by friction with the atmosphere, you can't do geo-synced orbit in the atmosphere, drag still slows you down. If a bit of ground sticks up, then it's not immune to that just because it's connected to the ground.
It's the solid Earth that's spinning, free moving matter like air only wants to move in a straight line. It's not spinning with the Earth, because that's not how molecules move.
I didn't have time to respond yesterday.
Reelya, did you SERIOUSLY attempt to say that by attempting to generate drag from something moving WITH the planet, we could somehow change the planet's rotation????
That is not how the laws of physics work.
Friction does slow rotation. That's how tidal effects work. Friction is an energy transfer.
think about it this way, objects in the atmosphere are slowed by friction with the atmosphere, you can't do geo-synced orbit in the atmosphere, drag still slows you down. If a bit of ground sticks up, then it's not immune to that just because it's connected to the ground.
It's the solid Earth that's spinning, free matter like air only wants to move in a straight line. So the atomsphere is not spinning, it's being dragged around by gravity. Adding more drag between the ground and the atmosphere will in fact slow the ground's spinning, because the ground is now pushing the air around more.
Here's the thing: You propose slowing down the orbit by using the "drag" inherent in the atmosphere.
Except, does the Earth get slowed down by pulling its atmosphere along?
And if it doesn't, but your hypothetical planet *would* be, why does the Earth not have 1000mph east winds as mentioned above?
It's late, so sorry if this doesn't really make sense right now. Trust me, it makes sense in my head and I'll explain it all later.
Um, the jet stream? It's not 1000mph or whatever silly speed, but it is a powerful current of air and east direction in the northern hemisphere.It's not "whatever silly speed". The Earth's rotation, tangentially, is actually 1000mph at the equator. So if that was what we were looking for, it would be.
Um, the jet stream? It's not 1000mph or whatever silly speed, but it is a powerful current of air and east direction in the northern hemisphere.It's not "whatever silly speed". The Earth's rotation, tangentially, is actually 1000mph at the equator. So if that was what we were looking for, it would be.
Reelya: at this point you have essentially taken every position along the spectrum of possible positions and I think nobody knows what you're actually arguing for anymore.
What? I've taken exactly one position. Show me where I contradicted myself?I can't because you keep editing your posts to substantively change what you're saying.
You said wind speed, not tangential rotating speed of the rocky orb. Jet Stream winds are still pretty fastI didn't say wind speed, but if you look at what I *did* say that the person who said wind speed was referencing, you'd see that we were talking about winds produced by the rotation of the rocky orb if the atmosphere was hypothetically not moving along with it.
What? I've taken exactly one position. Show me where I contradicted myself?
My main points were:
- atmosphere's don't "spin" by themselves, so if you had a no-friction planet, the atomsphere would not rotate.
- hence, the atmosphere needs energy to force the particles to change direction
- hence that energy came from somewhere
- the source of the needed energy is the planet spinning
- hence the planet loses energy by needing to keep the atmosphere moving around it
All of those add up to the same thing, that having more atmosphere or more drag between said atmosphere and a planet will slow it's spinning.
We are also assuming that there is no heat from other sources, like a sun.... Which means that our hypothetical atmosphere is now completely frozen. But if you want to break the laws of thermodynamics, then yes, that thought experiment works.
However, it's notable that Venus has an extremely slow rotational period, along with a really dense atmosphere. that took billions of years however. But not 10^18 years.
Just curious, where do you think the atmosphere is dumping its angular momentum to?
Even though it's not in a stable orbit, if the friction from the earth stopped instantly right now, the temperature of the atmosphere would keep it from collapsing, so it'd keep spinning.
The Earth is not in a stable orbit? Huh, I didn't know Jupiter was looming."it" here refers to the atmosphere, in keeping with the normal rules for pronouns in that situation.
Just curious, where do you think the atmosphere is dumping its angular momentum to?
The Earth is not in a stable orbit? Huh, I didn't know Jupiter was looming."it" here refers to the atmosphere, in keeping with the normal rules for pronouns in that situation.
Space, actually, as it boils off.Technically, that's not losing its angular momentum. You can't lose angular momentum to space, because space isn't a thing. It's just... particles fucking off with some of the angular momentum. Like assholes. Really, those particles are such jerks.
It has no significant effect on the momentum of the planet, for the reasons of mass differential that Culise outlined, but insofar as it technically happens, that's where the momentum goes.
Reelya: Okay. Here's the thing. If the atmosphere was exerting drag on the planet, we'd all be able to feel it. There would indeed be 1000mph winds around the equator. This is not the case. Therefore you can probably guess your analysis is wrong. And also the rotating atmosphere does have angular momentum.
However, it's notable that Venus has an extremely slow rotational period, along with a really dense atmosphere. that took billions of years however. But not 10^18 years.Major issue with that: Venus is *extremely* weird. Not only does it have a rotational period of 243 days, its rotation is also retrograde. Drag might be a decelerative force, but it wouldn't increase Venus's rotation in a retrograde direction. By the same token, its axial tilt is rather unusual at a mere 2.6° absolute off vertical. It is highly improbable that atmospheric drag is the fundamental reason for its unusual rotational behaviour. To add on with something you didn't mention yet, while Venus' rotational period has actually slowed down over the scant few decades that sum up the total history of human observation of Venus' surface, it's also not clear that this is being caused by its atmosphere and not, say, transfer of angular momentum between Earth and Venus for another hypothesized cause. It may also be possible that Magellan's instruments were off by a few minutes.
And sure, air has angular momentum, however, in air, at any time, you have particles traveling in every possible direction. This is what makes spinning gas different to a spinning rock. The spinning rock can be treated with a simplifying approximation because the motion of particles within the rock is small compared to the spinning velocity. Air is more complex than that and can't be treated exactly like an arbitrary spinning solid object.It totally can be and we do.
the atmosphere has a rotating frame of reference and therefore it has angular momentum.
Particles exist in their own local frame of reference only.Every particle is at rest in its own local frame of reference.
Well, a spinning fluid might stop spinning by friction. If angular momentum is conserved, then something carried that off. The only candidate is that the heat energy generated by the friction actually has the angular momentum.
Also, angular momentum is only conserved in closed systems, unless acted on by a torque. That's part of the definition. It has to be a closed system without any other forces acting on it. It's equivalent to the Newtonian mechanics statement that a particle will always travel in a straight line unless a force acts on it.Angular momentum is conserved in general - in an open system, it may seem to disappear from the system because it moves elsewhere. Which takes us back to my original question, where do you think the angular momentum goes?
Application of force can in fact change the angular momentum of a system. e.g. friction force changing the kinetic energy to heat energy. This would happen with or without the sun being there.The friction force is not an outside force, it doesn't carry away any angular momentum. Radiative heat transfer could, but that's a separate issue not involved here.
However, ignoring energy lost to heat generated by the tides, the angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system must remain constant.
The total energy is always conserved, but the kinetic energy does not have to be; kinetic energy is often transformed to heat or sound during a collision.
Rotating objects have rotational kinetic energy.
Rotational kinetic energy can change form if work is done on the object.
Energy is never destroyed, if rotational energy is gained or lost, something must have done work on it to change the form of the energy.
According to the new data, Venus is rotating 6.5 minutes slower than it was 16 years ago, a result that's been found to correlate with long-term radar observations taken from Earth.
...
One possible cause for the slowed spin is friction caused by Venus' thick atmosphere and high-speed winds. The motion of the atmosphere on Earth, for example, has been observed to affect the planet's rotation rate, albeit to a much smaller degree.
Is its rotation truly retrograde? I would class it as 'insufficiently prograde', given its orbit.However, it's notable that Venus has an extremely slow rotational period, along with a really dense atmosphere. that took billions of years however. But not 10^18 years.Major issue with that: Venus is *extremely* weird. Not only does it have a rotational period of 243 days, its rotation is also retrograde.
Heat energy is kinetic energy.
You're probably thinking of heat radiated as infrared photons, which can carry angular momentum, but in this case should also be symmetric; the tiny difference they would make (not enough to have the effect you claim) balances out anyway.
Also, why should emitted infrared photons be "symmetric"?Because they are being emitted in all directions equally because internal interactions are happening everywhere at the same rate.
Space is a huge heat-sink.Actually no, you can't conduct or even convect into it, so it's really hard to lose heat to space.
And it doesn't matter if you also get heat from the sun. Heat generated by friction from motion is radiated as heat energy. It isn't going to magically turn back into the same motion you had before just because you added more heat from the sun.Who said anything about the sun? Where are you even getting this? And again, there's no such thing as "heat energy". Heat is just kinetic energy. It's always the same motion because it is motion.
Again, IR photon is not a form of this energy, it is a byproduct of energy release from matter in such states trying to find a lower ground state through photon emission, the emissivity curve of which is well defined.Wait, were you trying to tell me that? I was wondering who you were explaining that to, but assumed it probably wasn't me because there was no reason in the world for you to think I didn't know that. If it was me you were trying to explain that to, yes, I am aware of that. That's why I explicitly separated "heat radiated as photons" from "heat energy" earlier.
Now, It could be that there is asymmetrical radiation of this energy if say, a planet is tidally locked with a star.We're actually talking about heat generated due to collisions between particles within the system, not heat radiated in from the sun.
Unlike six of the eight planets, Venus rotates clockwise on its axis when viewed from above theIs its rotation truly retrograde? I would class it as 'insufficiently prograde', given its orbit.However, it's notable that Venus has an extremely slow rotational period, along with a really dense atmosphere. that took billions of years however. But not 10^18 years.Major issue with that: Venus is *extremely* weird. Not only does it have a rotational period of 243 days, its rotation is also retrograde.
Sidereally, does it not still spin as expected of most significant bodies in the system? (Uranus being the notable exception.) Just slower than the apparent observable back-rotation of the Sun around it? And Mercury seemingly has a stretch in its orbit where the slow 'absolute' rotation (3:2 ratio) is outpaced by the 'sun falling behind it'.
Or maybe I'm wrong, I have a spinning head trying to visualise the various levels of relative spinning from the various observers one might involve.
Unlike six of the eight planets, Venus rotates clockwise on its axis when viewed from above theNo, I'm not mixing it up with Mercury (that kind of retrograde ('astrological' retrograde, shall we call it?) is also visible in Jupiter/etc), and my mention of Mercury was to link it to (venerio/mercurio)centric solar-retrgradiness, regardless of orbit-to-orbit observations that produce the parallax-induced illusions of counter-orbiting. Or whatever the actual terms may be. But, i.e., at perihelion, the close 3:2 relationship between Mercury's year and day is foiled by the planet swing past the Sun quicker than its steady(/ier) rotation and the Sun retrogrades (can rise back up from a sunset!) from a static Mercurial observer's POV.eclipticsorry, the solar system's invariant plane and hence is defined to move in a retrograde direction. Given your mention of Mercury, you may be confusing apparent retrograde motion of its orbit as viewed from Earth with Venus' retrograde rotation about its own axis.
By the bye, Uranus also has perfectly ordinary orbital motion, orbiting the Sun in a counterclockwise direction when viewed form above the ecliptic. Again, its rotational motion is what is unusual, rotating about its own axis in a retrograde direction.Not what I was getting at, with Uranus. The inclination is sideways (to the normal near-perpendicular-to-the-ecliptic angle seen elsewhere). Either slightly less than 90° and retrograde, or prograde but, because >90°, effectively retrograde. But, either way, totally swamped by the weird super-precessing/spiralling path the (standing-'on'-Neptune) observer would observe the Sun taking above their head. Celestial mechanics would either be more obvious to a Uranian, or much harder to derive than the way we managed to reimagine the prior epicyclic attempts to model things.
Then there's Mercury's apparent motion from the pov of earth, which sometimes reverses, which is also referred to as being in retrograde.I had a coworker that blamed any tech trouble he had on that.As I have found in my time as tech support, technology is literally magic and anyone who claims otherwise hasn't worked as tech support. Your coworker is perfectly justified.
No, I'm not mixing it up with Mercury (that kind of retrograde ('astrological' retrograde, shall we call it?) is also visible in Jupiter/etc), and my mention of Mercury was to link it to (venerio/mercurio)centric solar-retrgradiness, regardless of orbit-to-orbit observations that produce the parallax-induced illusions of counter-orbiting. Or whatever the actual terms may be. But, i.e., at perihelion, the close 3:2 relationship between Mercury's year and day is foiled by the planet swing past the Sun quicker than its steady(/ier) rotation and the Sun retrogrades (can rise back up from a sunset!) from a static Mercurial observer's POV.I think that may be possible. For instance, I can take a guess at the particular error you made by comparing it to, say, the problem of Earth. Now, you agree that our planet has both a prograde orbit and rotation, correct? Given that the sidereal rotation period of Earth is 23.9345 hours and the sidereal orbital period is 365.256 days (8766.14 hours), this results in a rotational angular velocity of 0.262516 radians per hour and an orbital angular velocity of 0.000716756 radians per hour. Now, if you just add these straight (since they're both prograde, after all), you get a total angular velocity of 0.263233 radians per hour, resulting in a total period of 23.86913 hours that very much does not match our actual solar day of 24 hours. On the flip side, by instead subtracting the orbital angular velocity from the rotational angular velocity, you do get the correct number of 24.0000 hours in an Earth solar day once you trim down to the appropriate significant figures.
After jotting the prior note, I spent a few moments entirely failing to confirm or deny my impressions that against the firmament Venus still spun the same way as its orbit, but slower.
The best I could do was confirmation that a Venusian year was 1.92 Venusian solar days. There's two solutions to that, before you go looking at actual figures (forward and backwards w.r.t. the tidally-locked spin-state), and (in my head) the one that matched the 240-odd Earth days (spin) vs 220-odd Earth days (orbit) was to be rolling around in the same direction. i.e., after 1 year, the Sun (by dint of being orbited) rotates around Venus once, and (by mental arithmetic) 330-odd degrees of spin-against-the-background happens, which seemed to me to give the slightly less than two effective (solar) days.
But I might have flipped a sign, somewhere.
It'd probably be funny to name it that, but nope, it's name is basically Hawaiian for 'first visitor from the stars' (that we've recorded that is). Literal translation though is 'a messenger from afar arriving first'. https://www.axios.com/the-first-asteroid-seen-from-outside-earths-solar-system-takes-bizarre-shape-2511132598.htmlClicked expecting dick, got cigar. Your move, Freud.
It's also got this long spindle shape, which is pretty unusual for an asteroid. The image is an artist conception of it.
It'd probably be funny to name it that, but nope, it's name is basically Hawaiian for 'first visitor from the stars' (that we've recorded that is). Literal translation though is 'a messenger from afar arriving first'. https://www.axios.com/the-first-asteroid-seen-from-outside-earths-solar-system-takes-bizarre-shape-2511132598.htmlClicked expecting dick, got cigar. Your move, Freud.
It's also got this long spindle shape, which is pretty unusual for an asteroid. The image is an artist conception of it.
Lol, not sure how you associated dick shaped with spindle shaped.Probably too much of Cracked.com's humorous "artist's conceptions". I kind of skimmed over the spindle part, focusing on "bizarre shape" in the link, instead. Article calls it a cigar.
Lol, not sure how you associated dick shaped with spindle shaped.
Because it is impossible to put something in orbit without everyone knowing.
Both because there aren't that many people that put things in orbit and because anyone can look up.
The current mehod for stealth spacecraft is to send it to orbit and blow it up, scratch it off publicly as an accident and have the payload be obscured from view by the explosion debris.
That is the current consensus, and there are some "failures" that are suspected to be working currently.
No clue why it hasn't been mentioned in the SPACE thread yet (Come on guys, show some enthusiasm), but the Falcon Heavy MIGHT launch today. Might.
Ixnay on the inxjay?No clue why it hasn't been mentioned in the SPACE thread yet (Come on guys, show some enthusiasm), but the Falcon Heavy MIGHT launch today. Might.
No clue either.
Nah, Musk is giving a press conference now.What if that's an android double! Secret side-project, freeing up him for the Musk2Mars Mission!
Well to be fair, the solar highway commission really DOES need to put up signs saying "Beware of flying rocks". :P
apparently falcon heavy's second stage burned too long. Now projected to cruise for several months before entering the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter.
Experts believe that the intense radiation of this region will cause degredation of the organic components of both the car and the suit, and speculate that the car could literally fall apart.
Assuming we still get camera feeds and telemetry from the second stage at that location, the weathering could be interesting to record and observe.
Falcon Heavy is rated (by SpaceX) at 63,800kg payload to LEO. The next closest currently available is the Delta IV heavy, which can carry 28,790kg to LEO.
Realistically though, the new rocket will definetly allow sattelites heavier than those launched now since the weight limit will be higher, which should open all sorts of opportunities. I don't know how much higher the weight limit is for the Falcon Heavy compared to the next biggest/most powerful rocket available.
I know SpaceX is planning an even more powerful rocket, dubbed the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket or, Big F'ng Rocket if you will).Followed by the Falcon Ginormous, Falcon Kaiju, and Falcon Super Tremendous Awesome High Power, or Falcon STAHP for short. :P
Seriously though, SpaceX plans for the BFR to be able to carry 250,000kg(!!) to LEO. That's a little over half the ISS's mass. Can you imagine being able to put the ISS in orbit in two trips?
Seriously though, SpaceX plans for the BFR to be able to carry 250,000kg(!!) to LEO. That's a little over half the ISS's mass. Can you imagine being able to put the ISS in orbit in two trips?
It's been considered before, actually, including as an option for a direct ascent Moon mission. Unfortunately, there's a size of chemical engine above which efficiency starts to drop, and banks of engines increase complexity and thus the chances of vibrational interference and simple mechanical failure. Ullage, sloshing and boil-off also get much worse as your fuel tanks get bigger.
Eventually it may well be more practical to just have the inevitable fight over nuclear space propulsion already and concentrate all the difficulty in one component (closed-cycle gas-core, ideally) rather than keep solving all the problems that crop up and worsen as rockets get bigger.
To me, the obvious solution is either a combination of launch-loop or lightcraft ground based first stage ascent, with nuclear final ascent. At least if we are talking "Super heavy lift vehicle launching a colony ship or permanent space habitat" type scenario. Those would get very infrequent launches (due to costs of building the thing to launch as well as the costs of launching it themselves), so nuclear propulsion is less of a long-term problem, especially very high up in LEO.
Would not stop themoronsNIMBY types from complaining about nuclear propulsion though. In terms of delta-v per pound it is very hard to beat old school proposal for Orion.
Launch Loop is basically a high tech trebuchet, with a wind-up before the pitch.
There are potentially fatal G-forces during the wind-up and pitch phases though, which makes them potentially troublesome for crew launch.
Railguns are also nice because you don't have to worry about Isp limitations of rockets.
And, of course, it's not possible to ship anything living....What if we pack them really good?
The water in the Martian underground lake is probably salty, otherwise it would freeze solid, even deep in the ground, Stofan says. And the salts are mostly likely made up of something called perchlorates, "which are very toxic to life here on Earth. But on Mars, who knows?"
Didn't they find liquid water on Mars, it was just that it was full of toxic salts or something? I thought that we found that when we were looking into those weird moving lines on the surface - they were subsurface flows of toxic water.
We should drill down and dump a bunch of extremophiles down there, for science.
We should drill down and dump a bunch of extremophiles down there, for science.
We should drill down and dump a bunch of extremophiles down there, for science.
“Being unable to find Martians already existing, we decided to make our own.”
Agreed. We need to make as certain as possible that Martian life is dead/nonexistent before we start dumping our own life there.
Besides, we need to save our extremophiles for Venus. I've always thought that we should send over a bunch of airborne photosynthetic bacteria and let them float over the Venusian clouds, eating away at the greenhouse below. Worst case scenario there is that we seed life to a second planet, ensuring that even if Humanity dies, life itself will last until at least the sun dies.
Agreed. We need to make as certain as possible that Martian life is dead/nonexistent before we start dumping our own life there.
Besides, we need to save our extremophiles for Venus. I've always thought that we should send over a bunch of airborne photosynthetic bacteria and let them float over the Venusian clouds, eating away at the greenhouse below. Worst case scenario there is that we seed life to a second planet, ensuring that even if Humanity dies, life itself will last until at least the sun dies.
Agreed. We need to make as certain as possible that Martian life is dead/nonexistent before we start dumping our own life there.
Besides, we need to save our extremophiles for Venus. I've always thought that we should send over a bunch of airborne photosynthetic bacteria and let them float over the Venusian clouds, eating away at the greenhouse below. Worst case scenario there is that we seed life to a second planet, ensuring that even if Humanity dies, life itself will last until at least the sun dies.
The problem is that the clouds of Venus don't contain many of the elements need to replicate the bacteria or algae, so you have to work out how that's going to work.
EDIT: One idea that I like is the proposal to pulverise the surface of Venus into rocks. If you do that to about 1km deep, then atmosphere would seep in and the CO2 reacts with the rocks oxides to form carbonates, with calcuations suggesting this would get the surface temepature down to 127c and the total pressure down about half. The best thing about this however is that it doesn't need to shift a ton of matter from somewhere else to achieve it, you just need some way to dig up the ground.
OK, but why bring life to Venus, if it's limited to extremophile bacteria?
Terraforming something for human life makes sense, but I don't actually see much value in introducing bacteria to a place for the sake of having bacteria there. It seems somewhat unlikely they'd ever develop beyond that stage into more advanced forms of life.
Agreed. We need to make as certain as possible that Martian life is dead/nonexistent before we start dumping our own life there.
Besides, we need to save our extremophiles for Venus. I've always thought that we should send over a bunch of airborne photosynthetic bacteria and let them float over the Venusian clouds, eating away at the greenhouse below. Worst case scenario there is that we seed life to a second planet, ensuring that even if Humanity dies, life itself will last until at least the sun dies.
The problem is that the clouds of Venus don't contain many of the elements need to replicate the bacteria or algae, so you have to work out how that's going to work.
EDIT: One idea that I like is the proposal to pulverise the surface of Venus into rocks. If you do that to about 1km deep, then atmosphere would seep in and the CO2 reacts with the rocks oxides to form carbonates, with calcuations suggesting this would get the surface temepature down to 127c and the total pressure down about half. The best thing about this however is that it doesn't need to shift a ton of matter from somewhere else to achieve it, you just need some way to dig up the ground.
Terraforming with railguns.
We can't evolve away our biology, but that doesn't mean that the bacteria can't evolve a system where the nutrients for those bonds are sourced from somewhere else, like life on the seafloor depending on dead microbes from the surface.
I could see sets of extremophilic bacteria on the surface of Venus feeding off of dead life from higher in the atmopshere, where the pressure and temprature aren't so silly. If there's enough life up there, it could start to absorb more sunlight and cool the planet too. Earth wasn't super habitable when life formed here you know.
Terraforming with railguns.
This is the wrong thread for railgun discussions
Pressure and temperature are solvable problems, yes, but missing elements really aren't.
I don't think it's ethical to terraform a planet unless you can establish it's lifeless. We can't fairly assume all life would have the same biochemistry as life on Earth. We're operating on a very poor sample size here.
I don't think it's ethical to terraform a planet unless you can establish it's lifeless. We can't fairly assume all life would have the same biochemistry as life on Earth. We're operating on a very poor sample size here.
I think it’s fairly easy to rule out a lot of planets as lifeless based on conditions, unless you subscribe to ideas like “living fully gaseous being in the atmosphere of star” fantasies that don’t even bother to propose a posible mechanism by which they could exist. Bacteria surviving from Mars’ wetter period living in subsurface icy water flows? Sure. Methane-based supercold life forms on Titan where it’s abdunantly available in liquid form? Sure. But all too often “life but nooot as we knooow iiit woOoOoo” is invoked to sidestep the fact that there’s no actual way for anything recognisable as life to form.
Doesn't Venus have a decent amount of hydrogen (obviously nowhere near as much as Earth, what with our oceans and shit) bound in heavier molecules such as sulphuric acid?
Some sort of extreme desiccant-type organism, a huge floating sail of those little packets we put in beef jerky, sucking hydrogen and oxygen out of clouds of acid and synthesizing H2O out of it to survive.
We have extremophiles that don't require oxygen or water to survive don't we? I need to look that one up.
Mars is definitely lifeless. The surface is coated with extremely potent carcinogens, not to mention our probes did not see anything suggestive of life. Also, very little volatiles. And even if there are some sort of bacteria, they are nonsentient, so we can terraform without worries. While all sentient beings should have rights, bacteria should not. If you really think it's bad to kill bacteria, go join the Jains, who do not drink yogurt because it would hurt the bacteria inside.
What's so wrong about preserving native life forms, especially when one has the technology to live in controlled, sealed environments? What prerogative is there to wipe out native ecosystems, however simple, to replace with our own?
And due to the monumental engineering challenges of terraforming, the sheer time and effort involved, sustainable artificial habitats will surely come along first. In fact, they'd likely be a prerequisite for any terraforming efforts.
And how do you even accomplish terraforming without a place for the terraformers to live meanwhile? It'd take a lot more than 3 generations to terraform a planet.
Everything it's just an elaborated way to day if we look at it from that perspective.And how do you even accomplish terraforming without a place for the terraformers to live meanwhile? It'd take a lot more than 3 generations to terraform a planet.
You don't. I'm not saying terraforming is a viable alternative to habitats; I'm saying that, even if there were a willingness to attempt either, both would inevitably be more elaborate ways to die in space.
There's nothing wrong according to you and me, we should strive for it. However if some of us, from the same planet, same species and heck, same hemisphere disagree over it, imagine the wildcard it would be another completely different train of thought. They could come "in peace", or "in war", or in "I don't really care but you are in my way", or "ughh look at those gross things, squash them before they get out!", or "Non electronic lifeforms found, hence no life forms present at all, begin converting all mass into more replicants"....
On the other hand terraforming could be attractive if you can get to the point it sustains itself for as long as you want/need (thousands or millions of years) as I.E. no one has to make sure Earth AC keeps running or the sewage pumps don't burn out. Of course that kind of tech and energy required would mean you probably have the means to make huge space habitats too.
But what if their religion prohibits such habitats? Or they see a low hanging fruit as xenoforming this planet won't be that hard and it will be suitable to harbor billions of our kind in just X amount of time?
Mining and lifting material out of a gravity well when there is a whole pile of orbiting rocks floating around past Mars is never going to be cheaper.
Gravity wells are terrible uses of material, but people don't do a good job of thinking about shit thirty years from now and the failure mode of a planet like this one is survivable.
Get yourself uploaded into a vacuum capable body and space is great.
I don't think sentience should be the cutoff. There's just too much to learn from studying bona-fide alien life.This is why I said we should study it, then consign the non-sentients to a habitat. Sentient life should have equal rights to humans, though. Non-sentients should only have rights if they do not get in the way.
Also, just a minor point of terminology, they wouldn't be bacteria, per se. Microbes yes, but bacteria are a specific kind of microbe.There's nothing wrong according to you and me, we should strive for it. However if some of us, from the same planet, same species and heck, same hemisphere disagree over it, imagine the wildcard it would be another completely different train of thought. They could come "in peace", or "in war", or in "I don't really care but you are in my way", or "ughh look at those gross things, squash them before they get out!", or "Non electronic lifeforms found, hence no life forms present at all, begin converting all mass into more replicants"....
On the other hand terraforming could be attractive if you can get to the point it sustains itself for as long as you want/need (thousands or millions of years) as I.E. no one has to make sure Earth AC keeps running or the sewage pumps don't burn out. Of course that kind of tech and energy required would mean you probably have the means to make huge space habitats too.
But what if their religion prohibits such habitats? Or they see a low hanging fruit as xenoforming this planet won't be that hard and it will be suitable to harbor billions of our kind in just X amount of time?
I think there's some confusion here: I'm not talking about hypothetical sentient aliens, I'm talking about us and how we might live in space. Though it should be noted that sustainable habitats are an absolute must for any species wishing to cross interstellar distances. If their religion prohibits them, then they're not going to be able to make the trip in the first place.
With space elevators in places like Mars and the moon the economics could work out, way cheaper than transporting a huge rock that hurls in space at God know which relative speeds and vectors. As long the resources are there of course. I think right now, or in the feasible future is more realistic to build an space elevator on Mars and mine whatever we can there than to move/mine asteroids from the belt.
I more often see the figure 1$ per pound. 100$ per pound is just about a 1/10 of what it costs now, IIRC. With a space elevation supposedly you can reduce that by a factor of a thousand.
So forgive me if this is already common knowledge but wouldn't a space elevator work with way less expense if it operated as a counterweight system? You bring stuff up and bring a equal amount down.
Carbon nanotubes are strong enough if we can extrude them in long enough lengths,
We must spread life as we know it, because that's the only one we are sure exists. And we should do it aggressively as long we don't find any other life
If you want to use a counterweight, you need to move the cable -- or at least a cable (and then we have to worry about how to couple the lift cables to the support cables.) That means the cable cannot taper, which vastly increases the cable mass that must be maintained.An energy only counterweight (work-recovery on descenders used to at least partly boost the energy input taken to move the risers - need not even be at the same time if there's a method of storage and discharge) would be not much more of a complication from a 100% 'fed externally' system. Given everything else.
You also need a station in the middle of the cable to switch from one counterweight to the other, since both ends of the elevator are pulled away from the middle, so now there's more mass and more hassle with vibrations up and down the cable.Any cable not missing the opportunity (and/or constructive necessity) to have a geostationary station in the 'middle', from which both ends (the long length of cable to Earth and the probably shorter length of cable tied to sufficient counterweight to keep things just taught enough and act as an 'outflinging' station, for fuel-saving interpkanetary launches out of a trapdoor) dangle is going to be set up for roping-counterweights exactly as you say (up from/down to Earth, down out/up in from orbit), regardless of whether it actually does.
Mining and lifting material out of a gravity well when there is a whole pile of orbiting rocks floating around past Mars is never going to be cheaper.
If you want to use a counterweight, you need to move the cable -- or at least a cable (and then we have to worry about how to couple the lift cables to the support cables.) That means the cable cannot taper, which vastly increases the cable mass that must be maintained.An energy only counterweight (work-recovery on descenders used to at least partly boost the energy input taken to move the risers - need not even be at the same time if there's a method of storage and discharge) would be not much more of a complication from a 100% 'fed externally' system. Given everything else.QuoteYou also need a station in the middle of the cable to switch from one counterweight to the other, since both ends of the elevator are pulled away from the middle, so now there's more mass and more hassle with vibrations up and down the cable.Any cable not missing the opportunity (and/or constructive necessity) to have a geostationary station in the 'middle', from which both ends (the long length of cable to Earth and the probably shorter length of cable tied to sufficient counterweight to keep things just taught enough and act as an 'outflinging' station, for fuel-saving interpkanetary launches out of a trapdoor) dangle is going to be set up for roping-counterweights exactly as you say (up from/down to Earth, down out/up in from orbit), regardless of whether it actually does.
Re: Expanding our population
There is no need to. Labor can be done by robots, which don't require much living space. Scientific research could be done by augmented humans collaborating with intelligent AIs. There is no practical need to expand our population on Earth. Other planets? Maybe. But not Earth.
Re: Expanding our population
There is no need to. Labor can be done by robots, which don't require much living space. Scientific research could be done by augmented humans collaborating with intelligent AIs. There is no practical need to expand our population on Earth. Other planets? Maybe. But not Earth.
But considering the rate of technological progress, I bet we will have most or all of those by the year 2150 or a bit later.Re: Expanding our population
There is no need to. Labor can be done by robots, which don't require much living space. Scientific research could be done by augmented humans collaborating with intelligent AIs. There is no practical need to expand our population on Earth. Other planets? Maybe. But not Earth.
That's quite a claim, seeing as we have no such AI, no such augmentations, and significant gaps in what robots can do.
But considering the rate of technological progress, I bet we will have most or all of those by the year 2150 or a bit later.Re: Expanding our population
There is no need to. Labor can be done by robots, which don't require much living space. Scientific research could be done by augmented humans collaborating with intelligent AIs. There is no practical need to expand our population on Earth. Other planets? Maybe. But not Earth.
That's quite a claim, seeing as we have no such AI, no such augmentations, and significant gaps in what robots can do.
I was not talking about the present. It is quite obvious that we do not have any of that.But considering the rate of technological progress, I bet we will have most or all of those by the year 2150 or a bit later.Re: Expanding our population
There is no need to. Labor can be done by robots, which don't require much living space. Scientific research could be done by augmented humans collaborating with intelligent AIs. There is no practical need to expand our population on Earth. Other planets? Maybe. But not Earth.
That's quite a claim, seeing as we have no such AI, no such augmentations, and significant gaps in what robots can do.
Defending arbitrary assumptions by pulling numbers out of your ass doesn't make them more realistic. I really don't care what some layman "bets" other people will build for him, let alone by when.
I was not talking about the present. It is quite obvious that we do not have any of that.But considering the rate of technological progress, I bet we will have most or all of those by the year 2150 or a bit later.Re: Expanding our population
There is no need to. Labor can be done by robots, which don't require much living space. Scientific research could be done by augmented humans collaborating with intelligent AIs. There is no practical need to expand our population on Earth. Other planets? Maybe. But not Earth.
That's quite a claim, seeing as we have no such AI, no such augmentations, and significant gaps in what robots can do.
Defending arbitrary assumptions by pulling numbers out of your ass doesn't make them more realistic. I really don't care what some layman "bets" other people will build for him, let alone by when.
Regarding stations on the cable: space elevators are not static structures. The lower terminus has to dodge storms, the upper terminus needs to handle orbital correction, and everything in between needs to be moved out of the way of space debris and satellites -- and that's just to keep the cable intact. If you want to stick a permanent crawler in the middle of that and absorb the additional complexity and expense of transiting things from one end of it to the other, that station is going to have to move with all of that, which does not bode well for keeping constant tension on the lift cables.Most plans (such as they are, still so speculative and requiring Handwavium production to get further) assume a bedrock-anchored base and engineering a way to resist any likely equatorial weather events. Those that don't may employ an oil-rig-like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-submersible_platform) bottom-end (on land, I've seen Inverted World-like railtrack-crawlers, overlaid upon the suitably prepared terrain) to give 'wiggle', but it's a near glacial movement compared with the 'ideal' movement of hundreds of miles, to skirt to one side of a storm's predicted path, within a handful of days, of something likely much more massive than the loaded STS Crawler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter). For the bottom end, 'dodge' is an optimistic description of what could be done.
What about a magnetic rail launch? Perhaps a bit too G-strenuous for humans but still cheaper than rockets.
What if they don't appreciate life beyond theirs? What if they don't recognize us as life by other kind of values or even by methodology? What if they don't care? Technological progression doesn't mean they can be "mean spirited" or simply don't care. Or worst what if they consider carbon based life/bipeds/creatures with only two eyes/whatever an affront to their Gods? Alien motivations probably could be really alien to us. They could come and kill off exactly half planet and then expect us to be grateful and join them in doing so to the next planet and bolt in horror when they see us trying to nuke their ships or something.
I mean, there's always the terrible NIAC Phase II study (http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/472Edwards.pdf)I'm reading it, and my brain is melting!
Gasoline engines don’t work well in space where there is no air and wouldn’t have the required range
It's Sputnik all over again! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45194333)
It's Sputnik all over again! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45194333)
So here's the thing. If it's actually plausibly a weapon (which is a long shot), then it's still worthless. It can't do anything without being seen, and it can't approach anything without it being obvious that it is doing so.
Even a really, really impressive projectile weapon can't reach high enough speeds to actually hit anything the satellite isn't already rendezvousing with, and orbital maneuvers are obvious and slow.
99.99% chance this is just a standard spy satellite. The only other thing it could be that is useful is a nuclear weapon to be used against a ground target, but why? Especially considering that that we already HAVE jillions of nukes ready to go already.
We must not allow a nesting doll gap.
Only thinking that where there's one impact, there could be another. Not yet creating a leak, or indeed a cabin leak not being the danger this other one brings, but something else.
(I also really don't want to end up being a Cassandra, just thought it needed more said than the link text. Should be Ok, though. And there's plenty of other unrelated things that could go wrong before now and then, so..? Darn.)
Little Dutch boy needed on Space Station? (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45364155)
(Well, hopefully the capsule will be ok for re-entry, with no echoes of Komorov or the Soyuz 11 crew.)
Little Dutch boy needed on Space Station? (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45364155)
(Well, hopefully the capsule will be ok for re-entry, with no echoes of Komorov or the Soyuz 11 crew.)
How do they know it's a rocky fragment (ie, micrometeorites) and not one of the zillions of pieces of orbital debris zipping around?
I think the question relates to the bit that says...How do they know it's a rocky fragment (ie, micrometeorites) and not one of the zillions of pieces of orbital debris zipping around?
A particle doesn't need to be rocky to be a micrometeoroid. The term covers all bits of stuff in space in a certain size range (usually <1 g) , both natural and debris.
It is thought the damage was caused by the impact of a high-speed rocky fragment flying through space.Someone, at some point (maybe in the news department, but maybe actually in Mission Control) has said that it is (likely to be) rocky. Which makes it a micrometeoroid unless we've been sending rocks into orbit.
However, recent Russian news reports have shown that the problem was, in fact, a manufacturing defect. It remains unclear whether the hole was an accidental error or intentional. There is evidence that a technician saw the drilling mistake and covered the hole with glue, which prevented the problem from being detected during a vacuum test.
Russian space chief vows to find “full name” of technician who caused ISS leak (https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/russian-space-chief-vows-to-find-full-name-of-technician-who-caused-iss-leak)QuoteHowever, recent Russian news reports have shown that the problem was, in fact, a manufacturing defect. It remains unclear whether the hole was an accidental error or intentional. There is evidence that a technician saw the drilling mistake and covered the hole with glue, which prevented the problem from being detected during a vacuum test.
On its initial premier, the film was shown without the ending and a competition was set for the viewers to solve the mystery of who the murderer or murderers were. The conclusion of the film was shown several days later, with the contestants eliminated one by one until the winner correctly identified the killer or killers. The final 30 minutes of the film was shown at a later date when the mystery was solved.
Elon Musk has another BFR presser. Apparently going well. Announces the first passengers for a circumlunar flight.They're totally going to do drugs, drink absinthe, and fuck one another while over the Moon.
It's a Japanese clothing designer, Yusaku Maezawa, along with a number of artists he wants to haul along with him. He's apparently bought out the whole BFR.
Reality is weird.
Compare this to the history of air travel; first, it's an extravagant luxury for the rich and/or of industrial and military interest, and over time, costs fall and accessibility rises, till today where most people in the first world (I would say nearly all) could fly on a plane at least once in their lives if they really wanted to.
Compare this to the history of air travel; first, it's an extravagant luxury for the rich and/or of industrial and military interest, and over time, costs fall and accessibility rises, till today where most people in the first world (I would say nearly all) could fly on a plane at least once in their lives if they really wanted to.
Or don't, because quite unlike air travel there's nowhere to go. Everything it is profitable to do in space at scales that actually drive costs down can be done more cheaply, safely, and most importantly less massively by robots.
Compare this to the history of air travel; first, it's an extravagant luxury for the rich and/or of industrial and military interest, and over time, costs fall and accessibility rises, till today where most people in the first world (I would say nearly all) could fly on a plane at least once in their lives if they really wanted to.
Or don't, because quite unlike air travel there's nowhere to go. Everything it is profitable to do in space at scales that actually drive costs down can be done more cheaply, safely, and most importantly less massively by robots.
What's the point in going on a vacation, to see the grand canyon, niagara falls, yellowstone park? I mean, there's plenty of pictures taken of them already. I can just look at those much more cheaply.
Compare this to the history of air travel; first, it's an extravagant luxury for the rich and/or of industrial and military interest, and over time, costs fall and accessibility rises, till today where most people in the first world (I would say nearly all) could fly on a plane at least once in their lives if they really wanted to.
Or don't, because quite unlike air travel there's nowhere to go. Everything it is profitable to do in space at scales that actually drive costs down can be done more cheaply, safely, and most importantly less massively by robots.
Colonization
Colonization
Where of, and paid for by who and for what reason?
It's not just ratings. It's the entire life support system and attendant shielding and heat load. Not only is there no reason to build and test these for automated spacecraft, there's also zero incentive to build the capability to carry them -- of which the added mass is arguably the simplest component to handle of many -- into the hardware launching them.Unless you're saying we're never going to send people into space again and live entirely planetbound, with theoretical robots doing theoretically everything we might ever want to do, we're going to need to keep developing rockets that can transport people into orbit. I doubt spaceflight will ever be entirely human-free.
In a sense, the cost of spaceflight is so high because it's presently necessary that every flight be entirely self-supporting; we need rockets that can reach space from a stationary pad and carry everything required along with them because it's not profitable to leave anything up there for their use. That need not be true of robotic spaceflight for scientific and industrial purposes, but the things rich idiots need to take joyrides and publicity stunts are different, and therefore become economical to supply on an ongoing basis and attendant lower per-flight cost only if there are enough rich idiots to make them so. Air travel at least had the benefit of being uniquely useful for shipping to people in otherwise inaccessible locations and needing a human in every plane and therefore every plane capable of carrying humans. Space travel has neither those uses nor those restrictions.
It's not just ratings. It's the entire life support system and attendant shielding and heat load. Not only is there no reason to build and test these for automated spacecraft, there's also zero incentive to build the capability to carry them -- of which the added mass is arguably the simplest component to handle of many -- into the hardware launching them.Unless you're saying we're never going to send people into space again and live entirely planetbound, with theoretical robots doing theoretically everything we might ever want to do, we're going to need to keep developing rockets that can transport people into orbit. I doubt spaceflight will ever be entirely human-free.
In a sense, the cost of spaceflight is so high because it's presently necessary that every flight be entirely self-supporting; we need rockets that can reach space from a stationary pad and carry everything required along with them because it's not profitable to leave anything up there for their use. That need not be true of robotic spaceflight for scientific and industrial purposes, but the things rich idiots need to take joyrides and publicity stunts are different, and therefore become economical to supply on an ongoing basis and attendant lower per-flight cost only if there are enough rich idiots to make them so. Air travel at least had the benefit of being uniquely useful for shipping to people in otherwise inaccessible locations and needing a human in every plane and therefore every plane capable of carrying humans. Space travel has neither those uses nor those restrictions.
Both SpaceX and NASA have indicated plans to land people on mars and colonise, and SpaceX already have sharply driven down launch costs. They're only going to get lower.
What trekkin is getting at:
There is nothing on the moon that is terrifically valuable that cannot be much less expensively obtained, processed, and used right here on earth. As such, there is no real ECONOMIC reason to go to the moon (other than its strategic locality for other space operations).
Because of that, WHY would people relocate their families, WHY would businesses go there, et al.
You have to think in those terms, not star-struck optimism.
What trekkin is getting at:
Space elevator/launch loop would take care of it.
Too bad those are beyond our capabilities right now, IIRC both require material qualities we don't have.
Or don't, because quite unlike air travel there's nowhere to go. Everything it is profitable to do in space at scales that actually drive costs down can be done more cheaply, safely, and most importantly less massively by robots.
It's not just ratings. It's the entire life support system and attendant shielding and heat load. Not only is there no reason to build and test these for automated spacecraft, there's also zero incentive to build the capability to carry them -- of which the added mass is arguably the simplest component to handle of many -- into the hardware launching them.
In a sense, the cost of spaceflight is so high because it's presently necessary that every flight be entirely self-supporting; we need rockets that can reach space from a stationary pad and carry everything required along with them because it's not profitable to leave anything up there for their use. That need not be true of robotic spaceflight for scientific and industrial purposes, but the things rich idiots need to take joyrides and publicity stunts are different, and therefore become economical to supply on an ongoing basis and attendant lower per-flight cost only if there are enough rich idiots to make them so. Air travel at least had the benefit of being uniquely useful for shipping to people in otherwise inaccessible locations and needing a human in every plane and therefore every plane capable of carrying humans. Space travel has neither those uses nor those restrictions.
I've seen a number of sources say that mining helium-3 on the moon would be profitable and worth exporting back to Earth, but I'm pretty skeptical. It definitely doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would make such an endeavor really economically viable, anyway, unless I'm way underestimating how much helium-3 there is on the moon. Maybe lunar installations would make sense as processing facilities or stepping stones to asteroid mining, but that also needs us to develop the tech to mine asteroids first.Space elevator/launch loop would take care of it.
Too bad those are beyond our capabilities right now, IIRC both require material qualities we don't have.
I know I'm getting a little off topic here, but I'm not convinced a space elevator would really help either. A launch loop, maybe, since I'm not really familiar with that. Anyway, a space elevator's big issues, even if we could build one, are capacity and speed. Most design proposals I've seen have climbers that take days to get to space. So, if it takes, say 3 days to climb, that's about 120 trips per year. You now need to send about 650,000 people per trip to break even, divided by however many elevators and climbers you have. It's going to take a ridiculous capacity to reach a break even point.
All speculative numbers, of course, but I'm just trying to show the scale of the problem.
I've seen a number of sources say that mining helium-3 on the moon would be profitable and worth exporting back to Earth, but I'm pretty skeptical. It definitely doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would make such an endeavor really economically viable, anyway, unless I'm way underestimating how much helium-3 there is on the moon. Maybe lunar installations would make sense as processing facilities or stepping stones to asteroid mining, but that also needs us to develop the tech to mine asteroids first.
Space elevator/launch loop would take care of it.
Too bad those are beyond our capabilities right now, IIRC both require material qualities we don't have.
I know I'm getting a little off topic here, but I'm not convinced a space elevator would really help either. A launch loop, maybe, since I'm not really familiar with that. Anyway, a space elevator's big issues, even if we could build one, are capacity and speed. Most design proposals I've seen have climbers that take days to get to space. So, if it takes, say 3 days to climb, that's about 120 trips per year. You now need to send about 650,000 people per trip to break even, divided by however many elevators and climbers you have. It's going to take a ridiculous capacity to reach a break even point.
All speculative numbers, of course, but I'm just trying to show the scale of the problem.
It's not just ratings. It's the entire life support system and attendant shielding and heat load. Not only is there no reason to build and test these for automated spacecraft, there's also zero incentive to build the capability to carry them -- of which the added mass is arguably the simplest component to handle of many -- into the hardware launching them.
In a sense, the cost of spaceflight is so high because it's presently necessary that every flight be entirely self-supporting; we need rockets that can reach space from a stationary pad and carry everything required along with them because it's not profitable to leave anything up there for their use. That need not be true of robotic spaceflight for scientific and industrial purposes, but the things rich idiots need to take joyrides and publicity stunts are different, and therefore become economical to supply on an ongoing basis and attendant lower per-flight cost only if there are enough rich idiots to make them so. Air travel at least had the benefit of being uniquely useful for shipping to people in otherwise inaccessible locations and needing a human in every plane and therefore every plane capable of carrying humans. Space travel has neither those uses nor those restrictions.
Oh no. Life support, and the need for return fuel, amongst other considerations, makes robot missions and human missions VASTLY different fish.
A robot can handle G forces from turns, acceleration burns, etc--- that would turn a human into pink goo[..]
Instead of a single carriage going up the elevator, instead, imagine a "circular" train track, spiraling up the thing. At the top and the bottom the track goes half-way around the circumference of the elevator, which is where pick-ups and dropoffs happen. The train is continuous operation at a slow but reliable pace. You could mass-transit stuff into and out or orbit that way.
Oh no. Life support, and the need for return fuel, amongst other considerations, makes robot missions and human missions VASTLY different fish.
A robot can handle G forces from turns, acceleration burns, etc--- that would turn a human into pink goo[..]
I'm not sure if you're replying to me... please note that I said a human brain, not a human. And ignoring ethical concerns- given you've cut out someone's brain and stuck it in a probe. How much hardware do you actually need to recycle waste into sugars and vitamins and hormones and...
Well, probably quite some. But how much will it mass?
On a side note, how do human brains rate compared to computers, as spaceship cores? Ignoring the psychological and ethical problems, brains are very efficient computers that last for decades. How much mass and power would life support and shielding would a brain need per unit of computation compared to a computer? I know the power efficiency is many orders of magnitude better, but how about mass efficiency?
I guess this leads into a more general point about organic computers vs. silicon.
You don't need a human brain to build a human brain.Can a computer make a human brain? 3-d printing human brains is the future
I was referring exclusively to wierd's comment on the sensory information processing bit, not in general. In general, the human brain is probably still superior.To be fair though, it is a bit of an odd one. Sorta like how a human brain could calculate the speed, velocity and its expected path of a ball being thrown directly at it, and subsequently coordinate a response to avoid being hit in the face with said ball, all faster than a mechanical computer - but chances are most people would not be able to describe that mathematically in the same way a computer could with any comparable measure of speed. You'd need some way to convert all that biological processing power into a format that is usable with machines innit, a sorta brain interface
After all, the human brain can build a computer, but a computer can't build a human brain (or another computer) without a human to tell it exactly how.
This is why you should be psyched (and pissed at all the delays) for the Webb and excitedly looking forward to it eyefucking your skull with SCIENCE!Here's the problem. To completely simulate our universe, we need a computer half the size of the universe (even with data compression). And that thing would collapse into a really big black hole. Not a good idea.
Long term: near Earth is fairly easy, we'll fuck around up there as long as we're able, moon isn't much harder.
If we can keep our shit together long enough to visit Mars and Venus we can probably work up a justification to set up cloud/canyon bases and I wouldn't be surprised to see an asteroid or two pick up some business/military oriented inhabitants.
Afterwards if we don't end up retreating back to the ground we'll probably end up on a long term project of turning as much shit as we can into computing shit, I like the term computronium there. If we keep at the computronium project we'll need to start taking apart planets and whatnot, maybe even get really exotic and start shit like starlifting material from the sun, but the end goal will be a shell of smart matter grabbing all the energy from the sun, using that energy, and passing waste heat on to further shells until the sun looks like a dim hazy infrared source from another star.
Why not go to other stars?
We might but people will probably get mad about wasting potential computronium which could be used to simulate a universe just like this one accurately enough to see what it is like at the next star or any other star, or any number of other universes, because physics sucks like that, sorry.
I think that's just with todays technology, in the far future, who knows how advanced the capabilities will get.No, those are fundamental physical restrictions. You cannot infinitely compress data, there is a hard limit for data compression.
In fact, there's a short story I recall reading online not so long ago that uses this "it's turtles all the way down" idea, where all-but-one all-but-one of the chain of 'realities' simulating themselves are shown to be merely recursive simulations (although where we start isn't that one that isn't in the middle of a chain), but I can't easily find it right now.
To experience an accurately simulated version of another star you need to handle the volume experienced and any such volumes that might be immediately/have been recently visited, doing this at a fine enough granularity to break any efforts at testing whether or not it is real wouldn't require every particle and every event and every possible interaction and so forth to be modeled at the same resolution.I think that's just with todays technology, in the far future, who knows how advanced the capabilities will get.No, those are fundamental physical restrictions. You cannot infinitely compress data, there is a hard limit for data compression.
It would still require... a lot of computronium to accurately simulate an entire solar system, much less a universe.To experience an accurately simulated version of another star you need to handle the volume experienced and any such volumes that might be immediately/have been recently visited, doing this at a fine enough granularity to break any efforts at testing whether or not it is real wouldn't require every particle and every event and every possible interaction and so forth to be modeled at the same resolution.I think that's just with todays technology, in the far future, who knows how advanced the capabilities will get.No, those are fundamental physical restrictions. You cannot infinitely compress data, there is a hard limit for data compression.
Most importantly, said simulation of the trip/local star environment will never begin to approach the energy expenditures involved in actually flinging a lump of matter--even one as perfectly condensed into a self-aware probe as it gets, much less one containing plumbing and air cleaning for a single fragile ape--from here to the actual star in question.
Exactly the one I mean (with realisation I hadn't recalled it perfectly, but good enough to know that it is the one I meant).In fact, there's a short story I recall reading online not so long ago that uses this "it's turtles all the way down" idea, where all-but-one all-but-one of the chain of 'realities' simulating themselves are shown to be merely recursive simulations (although where we start isn't that one that isn't in the middle of a chain), but I can't easily find it right now.
There's this: https://qntm.org/responsibility
I mean, assuming we're not allowing flight plans like "coast on a trickle of laser energy from solar arrays on mercury until we hit a fraction of a 1% of the speed of light and reach our destination so far in the future that it is no longer the closest star and hasn't been for kiloyears" which would be much cheaper in terms of energy/matter costs.Helpful diagram for planning..?
Very few people seem to realize the real problem with simming a universe inside a sim, that being the first sim needs to simulate that 3rd one as well, the farther you go, the worse it gets, until eventually the real universe can no longer keep up with the demand, and the system breaksDepends. Maybe the "ultimate universe simulator" is an ultra-quine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing))?
That is one of the various charts that popped into my head while I was pondering slowboating it out to a nearby star, yup.I mean, assuming we're not allowing flight plans like "coast on a trickle of laser energy from solar arrays on mercury until we hit a fraction of a 1% of the speed of light and reach our destination so far in the future that it is no longer the closest star and hasn't been for kiloyears" which would be much cheaper in terms of energy/matter costs.Helpful diagram for planning..?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Sadly, the laws of physics seem hell bent on telling you that "slow boating it" is the only way you are gonna get there. :(Or you could "fast moon it" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999)!
It's not as if the asteroids don't contain ice which can be used to create rocket fuel on-site to get back home.
Exactly the one I mean (with realisation I hadn't recalled it perfectly, but good enough to know that it is the one I meant).
Relevant Isaac Arthur video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-3DjxhGaUg&vl=en)
He argues that we have plenty of rock on Earth, and therefore if Earthnoids import metals it would be in a refined form, not as raw ore (except maybe in early days when you might need to bring it to a moon or LEO for refining ops). His argument shows up around 9:24 in the video. He also talks about profit and legality.
I quite like how all the talk is "We can't do it now so it probably won't be feasible in the future". I'm not saying let's get on it right this second that's crazy.
But the fantastic surplus of earth-rare metals and glut of even common earth metals means it's a resource which shouldn't be overlook, especially considering that by doing so will help conservation efforts in every location where we mine (read: everywhere)
There is at least one business actively looking into getting up there as we speak.
Regarding the simulation bit, you don't need to simulate this universe. Hell, I'd say that any self-simulation will be inherently larger/slower; otherwise you have some serious fundamental issues with notions of computing, because you'd get improvements through self-simulation resulting in infinite improvement.
The key is to not simulate our universe, but to simulate a universe which occupies a complexity class that can be simulated from our own universe in some sub-linear form. Remember, our universe is BQP. Strip out quantum physics and we're squarely in P. We know, naturally, that P is a strict subset of BQP (Shor's algorithm, etc.); all that we have to do is properly constrain this hypothetical universe such that it maximizes the power that BQP has over P. Should be easy to make it sub-linear that way.
In short, simulating our universe from within our universe is stupid because self-simulation is not sub-linear in performance and size. Rather, we need to simulate universes that occupy a lower complexity class than our current universe. Only then is it feasible.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-02-29snipsnip
If there is a simulation tree/stack, then eventually each simulation will be identical to the one that preceded it -- that's the only stable state.
61st from the bottom! (http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-02-29)
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-02-29snipsnip
Here's the problem with generating an universe exactly like ours, but without the little parts: the little parts are required in the early stages.Hand-wave it away by programming in a fast early expansion, maybe, under the cover of universal opacity? Sure, it might leave a few data artefacts from the small seed structure that translates across the entire later universe, but who within your simlated universe is going to notice all those anomalies, literally across the entire sky?
Okay, so I've got a legitimate question here-
While the human brain doesn't adapt to sudden G forces, more really dealing with it in a gradual capacity, how would we as humans operate something that could travel near or at the speed of light?
Wouldn't we basically become gradually more concentrated forms of energy, rather than mass?
And if so, could that hypothetically be the counter-balance measure inherently needed for space travel? As isaac newton said, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so where exactly lies the danger? Is it moreso in the fact that of what we do know on earth we couldn't survive that kind of acceleration at the rate of which it was going, but what if in zero-G this just means we traverse in accelerating forms of energy assuming that x is being a near-FTL or FTL starship, wouldn't Y be the universes natural way of allowing that to happen?
Because(and a lot of this may be wrong. please correct me, as this is the field I'm interested in) in quantum superpositioning and quantum mechanics we can see with the most simplest of experiences that change happens due to observance. So if we figured out predictive quantum mechanics-meaning we can know for sure x is where x is in the positioning, so that must mean y is stable. Does any of this make sense, and if it does, how could it apply to space?
obviously as you accelerate towards the speed of light you become more energy than mass(right?)No
You do not turn into energy. At all. Ever. End of story.
HOWEVER: The energy you invest in attempting to accelerate yourself (i.e., firing a rocket to accelerate) starts increasing your mass. This makes you accelerate slower...and slower...and slower, approaching infinity as you approach the speed of light. You can never reach the speed of light because of this. It's a complicated topic and there's no replacement for learning it yourself, from someone more knowledgeable than a bunch of forumgoers.
Anyway, I'd suggest looking through some books and possibly looking for the TV series (one season) Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It's a tour through modern science with Neil deGrasse Tyson and it covers relativity in a couple places IIRC, as well as pretty much every other topic of interest in modern science.
However, due to the uncertainty principle, our universe already does not have the little parts. We still cannot simulate it, due to the ridiculous amount of memory and processing power required. It will not be doable, ever, due to the simple fact that a system cannot simulate an identical system without it taking up 100% of the system.Here's the problem with generating an universe exactly like ours, but without the little parts: the little parts are required in the early stages.Hand-wave it away by programming in a fast early expansion, maybe, under the cover of universal opacity? Sure, it might leave a few data artefacts from the small seed structure that translates across the entire later universe, but who within your simlated universe is going to notice all those anomalies, literally across the entire sky?
(Also, you can probably poke into the data stack and housekeep away almost half of the matter produced from the original energy, so that it doesn't just all annihilate back into energy again. Fascinating to watch, but really slows the FPS down and then you miss out on all the more interesting stuff in your UniverseGen.)
Your brain straight up ignores all sorts of different motion.
Locate the sun, turn and face south and point at the sun with your left hand, then point your right hand straight out from your shoulder sideways. You're hauling ass that way at around 100,000 kph while the whole solar system plows through the galaxy tipped up so we're kinda heading towards Vega last I checked at something like 720,000 kph and then we can go into our motion through the Laniakea Supercluster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENyyRwxpHo) or relative to the microwave background.
You aren't aware of any of your motion within those different frames of reference, are you?
You go around the Sun every year and I left out that you're doing up to a grand kph east as the planet spins, none of these motions stand out because your brain developed in a situation where zeroing them out is useful. Being able to counter for the local drop of a thrown spear due to gravity is useful, being able to identify any of the tiny influences it may feel from the Pisces Complex on our Supercluster is not.
Frame dragging is applicable when you're actually rotating with a body, we're not rotating with Sag A* like that.
Your brain straight up ignores all sorts of different motion....now spin counterclockwise (https://xkcd.com/162/). Wheee (https://xkcd.com/815/)eeee! (http://time.com/3211142/xkcd-randall-munroe-what-if-book/)
Locate the sun, turn and face south and point at the sun with your left hand, then point your right hand straight out from your shoulder sideways.
Oh, I thought it was a copypasta, it flew all over the place. Can't find it anywhere tough.If it wasnt copypasta, it should be. Repost it elsewhere!
Yeah, there's not much difficulty in achieving lightspeed travel (except for maybe some optics computing problems, but I think it can be adjusted for.) It just takes a good amount of time to accelerate to a good fraction of light speed.
The NASAsphere of probes and scopes is dwindling.F
Just in the last week, NASA has confirmed that Kepler is dead (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html), Dawn is dead (https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/), and Opportunity may be buried (https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8364/update-on-opportunity-rover-recovery-efforts/). :'(
Opportunity may be buried (https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8364/update-on-opportunity-rover-recovery-efforts/). :'(Just biding its time. Just biding its time... (https://xkcd.com/1504/)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibByF9XPAPgThanks for sharing that. I felt a rare moment of pride for our species: This was us, in this moment of time.
Hello. This is Humanity, speaking to ourselves, or whoever else may be listening...
Desejo-lhe boa sorte, mas alguém inteligente o bastante para guiar os anões provavelmente não precisa disso.Translation for those interested: I wish you good luck, though someone smart enough to guide the dwarves might not need it.
ENEM is easy. "Hard Sciences" university teachers are hard.
Because they don't want to be teaching in the first place.
Also because only some of them speak portuguese.
And only some of those bother to actually speak it.
No I don't have anything against those areas, why do you ask?
Everyone keeps saying that to me... I wonder how Am I gonna do when I get there... I usually have good relationships with my teachers!Basic schooling teachers tend to care, most of the time.
There was one that I even got to make out with her! Honestly I don't know how that happened... It just happenedBut this is not a good thing in any way shape or form. Just... no.
There was one that I even got to make out with her! Honestly I don't know how that happened... It just happenedBut this is not a good thing in any way shape or form. Just... no.
Age doesn't matter. Teachers and students getting intimate is not ok an is a terrible breach of professionalism.There was one that I even got to make out with her! Honestly I don't know how that happened... It just happenedBut this is not a good thing in any way shape or form. Just... no.
She was young. Don't worry, I wasn't desperate for grades. And also, It was on the Goodbye party so technically, she wasn't my teacher anymore... but still, I don't know how it happened, I was blackout drunk...
Age doesn't matter. Teachers and students getting intimate is not ok an is a terrible breach of professionalism.There was one that I even got to make out with her! Honestly I don't know how that happened... It just happenedBut this is not a good thing in any way shape or form. Just... no.
She was young. Don't worry, I wasn't desperate for grades. And also, It was on the Goodbye party so technically, she wasn't my teacher anymore... but still, I don't know how it happened, I was blackout drunk...
And it sounds like the point that it was happening was after the teacher/student relationship was officially over.
IN SPACE NEWS! Our little robot geologist makes touchdown in a few day!
Here we are! (https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/timeline/landing/summary/) Looks like it's set for the 26thHella cool. I didn't even know about this particular mission.
InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat TransportSomeone put a lot of time and effort into that acronym.
There are worse offenders in the industry. E.g. OSIRIS-REx, or H0LiCOW.QuoteInSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat TransportSomeone put a lot of time and effort into that acronym.
There are worse offenders in the industry. E.g. OSIRIS-REx, or H0LiCOW.QuoteInSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat TransportSomeone put a lot of time and effort into that acronym.
I think the acronymisation trend might have started as a marketing trick to help with public outreach and/or acquiring funding. By now they're probably just trolling.
I was just pointing out that at least some of the high velocity changes our planet undergoes are imperceptible to us, because of our being part of earth's reference frame.Human acceleration detection threshold by sensation is roughly 0.2g (2 m/s2); anything below that and you're not likely to notice if you don't have a visual frame of reference.
Even if the centripetal acceleration were high, well above that 2 m/s^2 (I'll take your word for it being the limit), you wouldn't feel it, because the only kind of gravity you can feel is tidal gravity. I.e. the deviations from uniformity of the gravitational field.I don't think that's quite correct - maybe I'm misunderstanding you? What we feel isn't non-uniformity of a gravitational field. What we feel is internal stress fields.
That's all correct, but not what I meant. In what you describe, it's not gravity that we feel, but the stresses in our body induce by the surface acting to push us away from the free-fall geodesic - there's an agreement, but that's also kinda the point. That's not gravity. Gravity, where the field is uniform, accelerates all parts of the body equally, so there are no internal stresses to produce sensory (prioproceptive) response. With the absence of such stresses, i.e. in free fall, gravity is undetectable.Even if the centripetal acceleration were high, well above that 2 m/s^2 (I'll take your word for it being the limit), you wouldn't feel it, because the only kind of gravity you can feel is tidal gravity. I.e. the deviations from uniformity of the gravitational field.I don't think that's quite correct - maybe I'm misunderstanding you? What we feel isn't non-uniformity of a gravitational field. What we feel is internal stress fields.
When you stand on the ground, there is a stress field set up in your body which results in your acceleration with respect to the ground to equal zero (assuming your'e standing). This is in an essentially uniform gravitational field; there is no meaningful change in the field over the distance of a human body. When in free fall - also essentially in a uniform gravitational field - you feel weightless because there is no internal stress field any more.
Im pretty sure a rapidly-changing gravitational field would be noticable, because the direction you were being pulled in would change constantly and you'd puke and fall over because the balance thingies in your ear have a fit.That's only because what accelerates you is the car seat/seatbelt/floor, the whole assembly, acting on parts of your body (bum, legs, back, etc.).
if you're driving along in a car at a steady 10 m/s, you arent going to notice any acceleration, but if the car rapidly changes direction drastically, you'll sure feel that change in velocity.
While your inner ear might not notice, your muscles sure might. That would include your heart. If you bounce local gravity up and down 10%, you will lose coordination, as the energy needed to lift limbs will be constantly changing 10%. Likewise, you might notice strange flutters in your heart rhythm, as your blood gets easier to pump, then harder to pump again.That's only if you're standing on some kind of ground. I.e. when you're not in free fall. So what you feel is due to gravity, but it's not gravity.
Astronomers have found a star that was likely born in the same stellar nursery as our Sun. The newfound sibling is only the second ever to be identified.
Hey I don't think anyone else in the thread picked up on this one:
http://astronomy.com/news/2018/11/astronomers-find-a-solar-twin--a-star-that-looks-almost-exactly-like-our-sunQuoteAstronomers have found a star that was likely born in the same stellar nursery as our Sun. The newfound sibling is only the second ever to be identified.
They've found a "nearby" star that's a dead ringer for our own sun in terms of age, composition, and trajectory through the galaxy. It's possible that it was born from the same gas cloud that our own sun formed out of.
While your inner ear might not notice, your muscles sure might. That would include your heart. If you bounce local gravity up and down 10%, you will lose coordination, as the energy needed to lift limbs will be constantly changing 10%. Likewise, you might notice strange flutters in your heart rhythm, as your blood gets easier to pump, then harder to pump again.That's only if you're standing on some kind of ground. I.e. when you're not in free fall. So what you feel is due to gravity, but it's not gravity.
The distinction is not cosmetic.
For our purposes we can reduce the human body to two unconnected, stationary points floating in empty space at a set distance. Asking for whether this human-lite can sense anything due to any sort of acceleration means asking if the distance between the two points changes. This is a justifiable simplification, because whether we're talking about structures in the inner ear, or muscle tension, or blood pressure - all of these rely on one part of the body being accelerated w/r to some other part.
In a uniform gravitational field the nett acceleration between the two points is zero - so it doesn't sense anything. In a uniform field which changes with time identically at all points - there's also no sensation, because the nett acceleration stays 0.
If you add a surface that pushes with an extra force on one of the points but not on the other - the human senses it, but this is the result of that extra force we added in.
The only way a gravitational field can make the human perceive something is if the field is non-uniform, so that one point has different acceleration than the other, resulting in them coming together or apart.
If we then go back to the original discussion, of whether we can feel acceleration in orbit, then we should see that comparing human sensory thresholds with orbital acceleration is a red herring. Because it's not acceleration of the entire system towards the Sun or the planet that matters, but the differences in acceleration within the system. And on the scale of a human, those are way below even the already small numbers in McTraveller's post (I'm getting a difference of ~0.0000006 g for tides raised on a human by Earth, which are going to be the largest).
We call that thing at the center of the black hole the "singularity" of the black hole. This is a fancy term that is scientist-speak for "I dunno".
Most of our equations break down when we attempt to apply them across an event horizon or to the inside of a black hole, we just don't know what could possibly be in there or how it works.
I'm aware that at least some measure of time dilation has been proven (and it's even necessary to account for it with GPS calculations, due to one satellite second being slightly different from one earth second),Doubly so.
-snip-
Well, no. A gravitational singularity is simply a point where gravity is calculated to be infinite regardless of coordinate system, which is aphysical. It's a mathematical artifact, not a physical object, and functionally describes a region where quantum effects dominate over gravitational effects. You could as well argue that quarks are "scientist-speak for 'I dunno.'"
-snip-Yes, it's a mathematical artifact, probably. But we still don't actually know what is there and what it does, hence why the term singularity can be equally-well-used to apply to a point in space that we don't understand because the math breaks down. Besides, I'm paraphrasing (IIRC, maybe it was somebody else) Phil Plait when I use the words "singularity is a word for 'we don't know'", so, you know, if he thinks that's a valid way to summarize/simplify the concept of the center of a black hole I'm perfectly willing to just re-use his terminology, since I know far less about the subject than he does.
Mars InSight landing successful! We have another probe on Mars!
What do you guys think of the idea that the extra-solar object that sped through could have been a derelict light sail? If so, then it would be the smoking gun we're after.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf
The main weird thing that needs to be otherwise explained is why the thing started to accelerate once it was past the sun, rather than slowing down. These two Harvard astrophysicists think that could have been because of light pressure. Obviously, it's most likely someone comes up with a normal explanation for this, however if there is none, then it makes the possibility stronger that there are previous explorers out there.
If arxiv wasn't around it would be absurd but it is so important now that it is around.
Hey, the open access existing is arguably a result of arxiv legitimizing it.
There was a time when I would have agreed with you, but open access journals do what the *xiv set does with legitimate peer review instead of opaque and frequently apathetic moderation. Given the impetus *xiv had in creating open access, and the resultant migration of meh-tier articles there (and consequent enrichment of the *xivs with junk), one could say they were victims of their own necessary success.
Was waking up and missed that while reading, fighting a cold.The man-flu cometh.
Enlightening. I'll still keep 'toss into black hole' on my Evil Overlord Execution Methods list though.
Enlightening. I'll still keep 'toss into black hole' on my Evil Overlord Execution Methods list though.Well, surrounding a black hole is a quasar, the hottest and brightest things in the entire universe outside of supernovas
They're probably not getting back from that, certainly. If they are, you've got other problems!
They're probably not getting back from that, certainly. If they are, you've got other problems!
I'm curious what way out from within the event horizon you see that justifies saying they only "probably" won't return.
Or take the opportunity to increase your Evil Overlord powers in a similar manner. After all, you can't spell "opportunity" without (most of) "plot"!Prot: A plot of Asiatic polpotions.
You want to kill somebody with gravity? Feed him spoons of neutrino stars. Or drop it on the surface of one.Neutron I think you meant, my head hurts trying to figure out what a neutrino star would be like.
Well, surrounding a black hole is a quasar, the hottest and brightest things in the entire universe outside of supernovas; so before you can throw anybody into a blackhole for spaghettification, you'd have to quasar-proof them against what is something like 10 trillion degrees of heat they'd have to pass through first. I mean, that probably helps with the execution, but it's the spirit of the matter.
They're not some compact thing, they huge. Galaxy-sized. in fact, they were probably the precursors to modern galaxies.
They're probably not getting back from that, certainly. If they are, you've got other problems!
I'm curious what way out from within the event horizon you see that justifies saying they only "probably" won't return.
from inside the horizon, if they glance it JUUUUUUUUUUUUUST right.
Now, arguing that such a duplicate is in fact a duplicate, and not the original, is a bit like the quibbling about star-trek transporters being death machines or not. :P
and use that same math to calculate the odds of a person spontaneously tunneling out from inside an event horizon...feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!
They're not some compact thing, they huge. Galaxy-sized. in fact, they were probably the precursors to modern galaxies.
Quasars top out at around 106 AU in diameter, which is about 1/19th the diameter of even the smallest dwarf galaxies and about 1/2000th the diameter of the average 104-parsec galaxy. It's kind of lazy to say they're "galaxy-sized"
Last time I checked A GRB can be brighter instantaneously, this one was 1054 ergs~ or so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_080916C while this one here was less energetic it happened to be a little closer and aimed exactly at us so it was VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE AT THAT DISTANCE, and if you put it where the sun is (abs mag -27) it would have been unbelievably brighter (abs mag -67!!!!) though they don't specify the energy, just noting that it's got a lookback time of ~7.5 billion years vs 12.2 billion years for the other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_080319B, but these tend to be very brief events, and brightness can mean lots of things. If you're looking at it as energy over time, or power, then a GRB is a spike and gone, while a quasar in an active state can throw out GRB levels of power for thousands or millions of years.They're not some compact thing, they huge. Galaxy-sized. in fact, they were probably the precursors to modern galaxies.
Quasars top out at around 106 AU in diameter, which is about 1/19th the diameter of even the smallest dwarf galaxies and about 1/2000th the diameter of the average 104-parsec galaxy. It's kind of lazy to say they're "galaxy-sized"
More accurately they're brighter than an entire galaxy, not sure how much brighter off the top of my head. They're visually "larger than" / "the same size as" than the galaxy they're in due mostly to the way our detection systems (both eyes and telescopes) function.
Just sounds like time dilation mixed with handwavium? Never seen the movie, but the basic trimmed down answer is that time is another direction you are moving around in, besides the three you think of as being directions (centered on you, up/down, left/right, forward/backward, future/past) and there is a limit to how much you can move along any of those directions . If you speed up enough along a spatial direction it reduces how far you move along the temporal direction, so your local passage of time is reduced and you end up experiencing less time than your buddy who stayed at home while you zipped around across the galaxy. When you return home he's been dead for 150 years and one of his great great grandkids or some shit is there to greet you, though it's only been a couple of years from your perspective.
Yes, I do know that. My doubt is: The scientists at Earth, stated that they spent 50 years receiving signals and info gathered by the scientists on the planets. Now think about it, how much information would you gather in 50 years? A lot, right? So Earth knows a lot about the planets outside, but the thing is, it passed 50 years for people on earth, but mere days for the scientists on the planets. The scientists did not spend 50 years gathering info, so how did earth receive 50 years worth of data?
Hey, don't be like that. Your life never had any meaning in the first place!My most sincere thank you, and also... I'm sigging this
I thought the people on earth didnt have data about the planets because they could only get a plain “still here” signal through the wormhole or something plot-based
Didn't saw the movie, but i would guess the speed of the signal was distorted by the wormhole too.I thought the people on earth didnt have data about the planets because they could only get a plain “still here” signal through the wormhole or something plot-based
The paradox would continue, because then, earth received 50 years of "still-here" signals, while acctually, only a few days of signal has acctually been sent.
Japanese declare war on SPAAAAACE!!! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47818460)I thought it was going to be a repeat of India's bright idea to launch a missile at a satellite in Earth orbit, destroying it and potentially threatening the ISS with debris.
Or maybe it's just not worth it given the number/proportion of scenarios where the emergency is basically so quick there's no chance at all of doing anything about it. Cost/benefit actuarial analysis doesn't justify the space and weight needed, so they only have two each of the US and Russian 'spacewalk' suits, and would rely on their individual limited-protection 'travel' suit for any very brief episodes of depressurised exposure protection (no real thermal maintenance or micrometeoroid-armouring)..
Yes, when you're going to abandon your sort of Ok environment-inna-can for a planned period of swanning around in the somewhat less conducive expanses of space.
If/when your can clearly isn't going to do its job of delineating the two (and without a rather conspicuously busy Maxwellesque demon interfering, or a rogue Voyager probe returned with a heckova lot of assimilated capabilities, when things even out bestween the two it really won't do too much to improve the outside), there will be a plan of sorts, and even if it's not the First Immediate Action, some of the crew (depending upon precise circumstances and the options still open to to pursuit) may well be required to fast-track the suiting up process.
It is the fact that it rcannot be an option for everyone that I was commenting on, mainly.
matter screaming as it grinds together( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
*brings back vivid KSP memories* (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47879538)Bere-sheeit...
"We didn't make it, but we definitely tried"Fuck it, this is the kind of quote that belongs in a frame on the wall.
On the same subject, almost... KSP plane - make it bigger, loads of engines, a lot of wing, and don't forget the wheels. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47923697)
Oh, what's that? Local spacetime is distorted so that photons cant travel at the same speed?
It has been suggested that the nontrivial refractive index due to photon–photon scattering could induce a lensing effect in the neighbourhood of a magnetar (Shaviv et al., 1999).
How? What?
Quote"We didn't make it, but we definitely tried"Fuck it, this is the kind of quote that belongs in a frame on the wall.
To be honest, I kinda expect these missions to not actually happen. Call it a gut feeling but it seems like uplifting propaganda and nothing else. Even more so if Orange Trump fails to get reelected.
On the mission itself theres some info already on wikipedia Artemis program page (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program).
This at least makes much more sense than trying to get to Mars rigth away. The Moon should be our tutorial level.
Launch scrubbed for today.
Anyhow, today will be the first launch attempt for launcherone, from a converted 747. Plane is expected to take of at 16:30 UTC, with the launch window opening half an hour later.
Launch scrubbed for today.
Anyhow, today will be the first launch attempt for launcherone, from a converted 747. Plane is expected to take of at 16:30 UTC, with the launch window opening half an hour later.
A nice "learning experience" day for SpaceX today. :-\
Rockets are still unforgiving...
--snip--I giggled.
I mean, with a properly taught horse and good saddle it's literally just "stay on top, don't kick the sides unexpectedly, pull a bit on one side or the other to go that way, both to slow entirely" and gloves+mask would work for costumes.--snip--I giggled.
So, I was wondering what it should be called. British 'counterpart' to Galileo, so something like Newton?
I'm no expert in blowing up the sun.Your name would indicate otherwise, or you are more of a expert on sea stuff.
Huh, I always figured that if the sun ever started to cool off, causing Earth to freeze, you'd just send a group of mentally unstable people to suicide-bomb the sun with a nuclear bomb to make Earth warm again. Of course, the leader of these suicide bombers will need to stare at the sun the entire trip.That doesn't sound right. You'd need at least two such missions, in case the first one went wrong and decided to just sit in the Sun for a long time.
Here's a paper (https://www.scirp.org/pdf/CWEEE_2013071113213239.pdf) discussing the possibility of blowing up the sun with a targeted nuclear bomb in order to ? ? ? because ? ? ?That the journal is a predatory one should be a clue as to how legit the paper is. Half of it reads like 'facts about the sun' essay for school assignment, copied from Wikipedia. The other half is the authors making bunk claims (the rate of p-p reactions in the Sun is so low due to there being a weak interaction involved, not because of Coulomb barrier - which is also why no bomb uses it), referencing irrelevant figures (talking about p-p reaction rates but showing deuterium/tritium/helium-3 rates), basing arguments on sweeping assumptions (like, at one point they even say something to the effect of: 'we don't actually know how this works, but let's talk about the bomb delivery now'), and referencing random shit and own work (the bibliography is hilarious) - because the principal author appears to have already had this idea 40 years ago and is still going on about it.
I'm no expert in blowing up the sun, but it seems legit?
(Sandra or George, your choice).¿Por qué no los dos?
there's other ways Earth could have seeded life on Venus, I remember reading somewhere that even Chicxulub had enough force to put rocks in escape velocity, not to mention moon formation, other impacts we don't know about, etc.Yep, there are all kinds of reasons to think that basically the entire region around Earth's orbit is one gigantic biocontamination zone. Astrophysicists have known this for many years now.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-spacecraft-titan-years-fusion.amp
It'd be more helpful if they stopped daydreaming about how cool it would be and actually started working on a fission-powered rocket which could actually be built and tested and employed and made ready for the replacement of its power source with fusion, instead of waiting for someone to come hand them a fusion reactor to fill in the big black box that is the power source for their design.
-snip-
Well, they tried to do that already, with Orion, which was scrapped after a nuclear treaty, something about deploying multiple nuclear bombs throughout a whole vertical column of the atmosphere being undesirable or something. Besides I'm not sure that a nuclear fusion reactor is similar enough to a fission reactor in terms of weight, power output, power characteristics, fuel usage, required operating conditions, etc. that you can just make a fission reactor engine and then swap out a fusion reactor with some minimal adjustments and have the thing work.
If you end up (knowingly or otherwise) visiting an inhabitted exoplanet, be aware that your vehicle may not be strictly allowed, or at all welcome, by the local ordinances upon your arrival...
Tectonic activity angle sounds neat. What's goin on up in that moon?
Probably just nations getting eyes on each others' spy planes. Those you can't even let the world know that they exist, or they'll have some idea of what to look for. And weird shapes are an advantage since they can throw off things looking for the signature of a plane, ala the B2.Even if it's a known shape, it can be misinterpreted.
or evidence of tectonic activity.Who's speculating that? The Flat Earth Society? How would that even work?
Pieplate earth exerts uneven gravitation against pieplate moon, causing it to vibrate and get hot!
(bonus if they use math.)
Probably just nations getting eyes on each others' spy planes. Those you can't even let the world know that they exist, or they'll have some idea of what to look for. And weird shapes are an advantage since they can throw off things looking for the signature of a plane, ala the B2.Even if it's a known shape, it can be misinterpreted.
There was this photo I recall of a 'UFO' being refuelled by a USAF tanker plane. It was quite clearly a not-at-that-time-unknown F117a (at an angle similar to this photo (https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/an-american-f-117a-nighthawk-stealth-fighter-one-of-the-news-photo-1595446919.jpg), as I recall, except from underneath - an angle the tanker aircraft was clearly heading), but someone had decided to interpret it as a "flying saucer" by misinterpretting nose for one side, wing for the other, the other wing as the central bulge. It's not even as unconventional as the B2 (prime 'saucer' material, especially head on).
And videos taken by pilots (in planes travelling at speed, and not necessarily constant velocity - including direction) of othervl aircraft are subject to so much closing/departing changes even to steadily moving 'bogies' that all the pan/tilt/dolly/truck camera motion effects (which the remote viewer can't feel or appreciate the effects of) can utterly disguise the absolute motion, and heading, of the unknown airframe trying to being focussed (or, usually, 'blurried') upon. But if you "want to believe" (or want others to, by redubbing the pilot commentaries accordingly) it's far too easy.
You know I recall one aliens mystery thing mentioning Apollo astronauts supposedly seeing "camp fire" like lights and smoke coming off the moon and saying "oh yeh they're covering it up because it's clearly aliens". I wonder now, if that's what NASA's findings will be about, and if there's actually volcanic activity (could cause glowing lights on the surface and plumes of gas and ash ejecta that resemble smoke) somewhere on the surface their infrared systems picked up.
I remember that was the first thing that came to mind when we were watching that show. "Oh that sounds like volcanic activity, not aliens, you dipshits"
If we subscribe to flat moon theory, it makes sense as to how the moon nazis haven't been able to return from their banishment to the dark side of the moon yet
There is water on the moon’s surface and ice may be widespread in its many shadows, according to a pair of studies published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. The research confirms long-standing theories about the existence of lunar water that could someday enable astronauts to live there for extended periods.
For Services provided to, on, or in orbit around the planet Earth or the Moon, these Terms and any disputes between us arising out of or related to these Terms, including disputes regarding arbitrability (“Disputes”) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California in the United States. For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.
I forsee a Mars dotted with the estates of uber-wealthy libertarian tech magnates seeking safe harbor from all the Earth governments they've fucked with. John Galt of Mars.Quote from: Starlink Terms of ServiceFor Services provided to, on, or in orbit around the planet Earth or the Moon, these Terms and any disputes between us arising out of or related to these Terms, including disputes regarding arbitrability (“Disputes”) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California in the United States. For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.
On one hand, this is true. On the other, do not live on a planet. Never live on a planet. If you're in a gravity well you can't escape with compressed air, you've fucked up.
I forsee a Mars dotted with the estates of uber-wealthy libertarian tech magnates seeking safe harbor from all the Earth governments they've fucked with. John Galt of Mars.
Obviously the tax laws are going to go by mass, they're not that stupid.That'd be an interesting tax evasion concept. "Sir, the cost in fuel alone to climb above the ecliptic is seven times what he owes."
But also I'm on an out-of-plane asteroid so I'm not paying taxes and you can't make me.
Obviously the tax laws are going to go by mass, they're not that stupid.
Don't be silly LW. It will never actually be 0. Just very very close to 0. (Since every object with mass, very so gently gravitates to all other objects with mass. This means that your object's attraction to the scale you are using, would depress the scale slightly, thus making it always >0)
Just make sure you are legally based in the asteroid belt where everything weighs 0 kg.
Obviously the tax laws are going to go by mass, they're not that stupid.
@McTraveller: It's got to be green gas. Bright green flare (combustion? Copper compound?) drawing a green mist behind it (could be anything, including uncoloured mist still lit by the remains of the flare compounds).
..talking of samples, Chang'e 5 (Chinese sample-return mission to the Moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_5)) has been launched.
((Well, it makes a change from SpaceX stuff, although I also held off double-posting on several other things of note I now forget about. So obviously not of note.))
(edit: Lander/re-ascender now on the surface. Seems the Chinese media/officials were cautious about its success and only announced it later rather than blitzing with live news.)
Speaking of space, F for the Arecibo telescope. What was left of it collapsed earlier today, before they could do a controlled thing. Fairly unlikely it'll be restored anytime soon, if ever.
I already spent some time considering how I'd rebuild the structure.
Design-item #1, have more than three suspension pylons/linkages. Four is possible (but edgy), five would suffice, six would be optimal. It allows for the detensioning and (if necessary) restringing or even re-towering in the event of any single important failure, while still supported (if not quite as stabilised for high-precision reception/transmission).
The four-tower option would require two opposite legs to be capable of enduring the load as the counter-opposite ones were slackened (temporary swing-proofing anchorages set up just for lateral support). Six would be the best though.
And modern materials and hardware (and bridge-deck design experience in real/virtual wind-tunnels) ought to make the receiver platform lighter, stabler and less of a stress on the whole structure as well. A sleaker, more versatile and significantly more weatherproof design. A covered access walkway (as unused as it normally would be) might be handy, too.
And a set of smaller outlier dishes (that can be planned, but not funded until there's enough further slack in the funding if necessary) can directly be slaved in for VLBI/MERLIN-like purposes or retasked in pairs for binocular use, or singly for less fine sideline tasks like additional simultaneous Deep Space Network transeiving[1] tasks. But that's more wish-list than naturally assumed improvements and refining of the old infrastructure.
[1] A proper DTN link could easily involve a different antenna(-combination) setting up to retrieve a Newer Horizons-type craft's return signal from the one(s) that sent a schedule update to it in the first place.
"I say we land and nuke the entire orbit from ground level. It's the only way to be sure!"
If you have enough storage mass/volume for some sort of acid bomb to melt the entire satellite, couldn't that space just be a fuel tank with enough deltaV to deorbit the satellite?
If you have enough storage mass/volume for some sort of acid bomb to melt the entire satellite, couldn't that space just be a fuel tank with enough deltaV to deorbit the satellite?
Swapping a satellite for a glob of metal salts, hydrogen gas, and feck knows what other resulting compounds seems somehow worse.
If you have enough storage mass/volume for some sort of acid bomb to melt the entire satellite, couldn't that space just be a fuel tank with enough deltaV to deorbit the satellite?
Swapping a satellite for a glob of metal salts, hydrogen gas, and feck knows what other resulting compounds seems somehow worse.
I think MrRoboto75 was arguing for instead of an acid dispenser, the use of a fuel tank that could deorbit the satellite.
They already ARE-- the dumptruck is "earth's atmosphere"But doesn't itself brings another whole set of dangers too? The dump truck would be soft retrieval.
They already ARE-- the dumptruck is "earth's atmosphere"But doesn't itself brings another whole set of dangers too? The dump truck would be soft retrieval.
What if satelites start being designed with recuperation in mind? Like, the last year of its service life it manouver to be recaptured to an orbiting space dump truck?
Hold on, S, I think you’ve contradicted yourself there. You said a tiny magnet is able to pull an object against gravity, but you also said that magnets in space wouldn’t do that.I was qualifying 'for your purposes'.
Mmm, if we keep going like this there will be a customs on Mars.
A robot planet.
It feels so weird looking at terrain and thinking that's it's not on earth.
Perserverence landed, apparently safe. Next milestone is probably Ingenuity taking off...
Except each single one of the tiny ones won't necessarily explode every operating orbiter it touches. Again the total mass is smaller.
And I think a uniform cloud of small bits would be easier to clean up as well. Imagine catching a couple rabbits vs sweeping up a bunch of ants with a broom.
Actually I would say a uniform cloud of small bits is way more predictable as well. There'd be some set amount of abrasion that a spacecraft could reasonably experience on its way to orbit and in orbit that scientists could engineer for, rather than just hoping a big 'un doesn't strike it at random and blow it up.
Except each single one of the tiny ones won't necessarily explode every operating orbiter it touches. Again the total mass is smaller.
And I think a uniform cloud of small bits would be easier to clean up as well. Imagine catching a couple rabbits vs sweeping up a bunch of ants with a broom.
Actually I would say a uniform cloud of small bits is way more predictable as well. There'd be some set amount of abrasion that a spacecraft could reasonably experience on its way to orbit and in orbit that scientists could engineer for, rather than just hoping a big 'un doesn't strike it at random and blow it up.
I mean, you're free to say that. You're incredibly wrong, but you do you.
Large numbers of fast moving impossible to track small bits are orders of magnitude worse than larger, fewer, slower, predictable objects....to which bb effectively responded "on the contrary, I think...". And I'm not sure weird's clarification is any more convincing (though it should be) against that miscomprehension.
Develop force fields instead.
Develop force fields instead.
I see New Shepherd 4 worked well enough go be apparently ready to prepare for its first crewed launch, later next month... Probably worth an anticipatory note.lol @ "well enough"
Hey, everybody! It looks like Bezos is finally going to be able to send humans into space next month!
[1] Sometimes known as "Not even the most famous Michael Collins". Even right now, for me, the other one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Collins_(Irish_leader)) still leads on a trivial web-search![2] Who I just mistook for Phil Collins
There were plans put forward the other day to switch power supply/regulator/whatever units in Hubble to get it back up and Sciencing again. Which I must really follow up on.They succeeded, by the bye. The backup hardware is running normally and the sciencing has now resumed. (https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-044)
Just to mark, as if anybody isn't already more than aware, that Bezos became the second self-launching space-tourist today (if Branson counted as the first, the other day, give or take the whole Karman line thang...)
[...I believe I covered all this bit I snipped... Rather more tongue-in-cheek about pure robotic repair, but haptic feedback might be much more developed these days.]I also regret its retirement, though it arguably delayed other developments in the US space program (covered by the Soviet-as-was one, but even they did quite a lot for the arguably better Buran, which got just one unmanned flight before mothballed/roof-collapsed.
For all that the Space Shuttle had serious problems, THIS is the sort of capability it had. In order to replicate it you need more than a space capsule.
It's possible to build a vehicle on-orbit (which I wish somebody would do) capable of executing the plane changes and maneuvers and the like (ion thrusters to maneuver around, anyone? Just maneuver while there's no crew on board and the months it takes you don't matter) and carrying the airlocks and crew space and manipulator arms and EVA suits and spare parts and all.Which orbit? The one Hubble is in? Or what will eventually become the transfer-orbit to Hubble - hopefully to be met by the manned flight that still has to match it in the same trajectory as it is about to make its way to the Hubble rendezvous, then burn to match Hubble for everyone to work then reverse that to get everyone back to Earth (wherever you leave the repair-station, unmanned again)...
But back in the early '90s I predicted that the return to the Moon would be in 2019 (for various good reasons, as well as the obvious), so you could probably find a better prognosticator than me on this subject. ;)
China has filed a formal complaint with the US about Elon Musk, claiming his space launches endanger chinese sattelites.Did not they just made a live anti-satellite weapon test not long ago? They can go and eat a dick.
Did not they just made a live anti-satellite weapon test not long ago? They can go and eat a dick.No, that was Russia.
Russia did it (most recently) in November this year. India in March 2019.Did not they just made a live anti-satellite weapon test not long ago? They can go and eat a dick.No, that was Russia.
So far, the deployment of the JWST is going as smoothly as can be hoped for!
So, so very excited to see what sort of pictures we'll be able to get way out at the Lagrange point.
Then they can also go to heck if ever complain.Did not they just made a live anti-satellite weapon test not long ago? They can go and eat a dick.No, that was Russia.
So far, the deployment of the JWST is going as smoothly as can be hoped for!Apparently the thing is sensitive enough, that if it were placed on earth, it would be able to spot a bumblebee-sized heat signature on the moon. Out there in space, without atmospheric interference, it's going to give us amazing pictures, I'm sure.
So, so very excited to see what sort of pictures we'll be able to get way out at the Lagrange point.
Apparently the thing is sensitive enough, that if it were placed on earth, it would be able to spot a bumblebee-sized heat signature on the moon. Out there in space, without atmospheric interference, it's going to give us amazing pictures, I'm sure.
SpaceX is going to the Moon this year!...apparently, the person who said this was happening has recently changed his mind. It's actually a rocket stage that was used in the Chang'e 5 mission, from 2014. There's (further) expert agreement with this, though still some uncertainty.
An expended Falcon 9, left to drift in high orbit for half a decade, will hit somewhere on the far side on 4th March.
This is maybe a bit offtopic, but I guess this is the best place to put it.Absolutely Titan. (Moon of saturn, the only moon with an atmosphere. It has a weather system with rain of liquid methane.)
If you had the chance to visit any, I mean any place in the solar sytem for a full Earth day, where would you choose to go? You are guaranteed to come back home unharmed, and there is no travel time, you just appear there.
If its pure magic, would love to see what's under the ice of Europe.Presumably, Europeans. :P
Alternatively: Eurotrash :PIf its pure magic, would love to see what's under the ice of Europe.Presumably, Europeans. :P
If its pure magic, would love to see what's under the ice of Europe.
That sounds like the device that would be used to peer under the ice of Europa.If its pure magic, would love to see what's under the ice of Europe.
Eurovision.
I like to imagine there are aliens performing Eurovision songs.They do. Every year... Have you seen all those entries!
This TBH. Or yeah, Europa.This is maybe a bit offtopic, but I guess this is the best place to put it.Absolutely Titan. (Moon of saturn, the only moon with an atmosphere. It has a weather system with rain of liquid methane.)
If you had the chance to visit any, I mean any place in the solar sytem for a full Earth day, where would you choose to go? You are guaranteed to come back home unharmed, and there is no travel time, you just appear there.
Titan has smaller gravity (by ~7x) but a denser atmosphere (by ~1.5x). Which makes me wonder if you could fly there by flapping your arms hard enough.
Titan has smaller gravity (by ~7x) but a denser atmosphere (by ~1.5x). Which makes me wonder if you could fly there by flapping your arms hard enough.
With a few square meters of wing, yes. Though, you would get tired pretty quickly. Some Titan analogue of hang gliding would be pretty awesome.
Titan has smaller gravity (by ~7x) but a denser atmosphere (by ~1.5x). Which makes me wonder if you could fly there by flapping your arms hard enough.
With a few square meters of wing, yes. Though, you would get tired pretty quickly. Some Titan analogue of hang gliding would be pretty awesome.
Titan has smaller gravity (by ~7x) but a denser atmosphere (by ~1.5x). Which makes me wonder if you could fly there by flapping your arms hard enough.
With a few square meters of wing, yes. Though, you would get tired pretty quickly. Some Titan analogue of hang gliding would be pretty awesome.
Forget the flying. We all know that everyone actually just wants to swim in the fart lakes.
The researchers looked at a particular type of galaxy called giant elliptical galaxies, which evolved early in the universe and then became dormant. Dormant galaxies have finished forming stars, leaving little material for the black hole at their center to accrete, meaning any further growth cannot be explained by these normal astrophysical processes.
Comparing observations of distant galaxies (when they were young) with local elliptical galaxies (which are old and dead) showed growth much larger than predicted by accretion or mergers: the black holes of today are 7—20 times larger than they were nine billion years ago.
...
This is the first observational evidence that black holes actually contain vacuum energy and that they are 'coupled' to the expansion of the universe, increasing in mass as the universe expands
Odd final phrasing. Given the headline, I would have expected "the universe expanding as they increase in mass". Which rather calls into question the true causation/correlation they're trying to put forward.It's not odd. The causative chain goes like this: universe expansion - leads to - black holes gaining mass - leads to - acceleration of the expansion setting in.
(Also, they will stop/slow forming stars because of less remaining material available to, it won't be that the lowered star formation means a reduced amount of "new mass" to feed the holes, in any meaningful way.)But it does mean just that, at least in part. The accretion disc is mostly gas. Compact objects, like stars, are more difficult to accrete, as the can only drag through which they can feasibly lose orbital energy is gravitational. So depletion of interstellar gas quenches both star formation and black hole accretion. Additionally, there is tentative evidence of a feedback mechanism, where active galactic nucleus (i.e. accreting black hole) blows the free gas away through a number of processes, stopping both star formation and further accretion.
I shall read the full article later ("larger" is in size/extent, not mass, I assume, and they ruled out other reasons why later populations could be seen to be shifted up the scale a bit), when I have the time, but you'd have thought even the summaryised language on a science site wouldn't be so... confusing.Larger in mass. Which happens to necessitate increase the size, but it's the mass that's being measured and important for the proposed mechanism.
The new result shows that black holes gain mass in a way consistent with them containing vacuum energy, providing a source of dark energy and removing the need for singularities to form at their center.[/url]
...maybe I'm odd in actually prefering that there be a singularity, and finding it the neatest obvious solution. However beyond the usual maths/physics understandings.I clearly don't get this, properly. This sounds dangerously close to the "infill" version of the Steady State theory ("yes, things are clearly moving away from each other, but new stuff is spontaneously happening to fill the gaps..."). Maybe my head is in the wrong place, though.Odd final phrasing. Given the headline, I would have expected "the universe expanding as they increase in mass". Which rather calls into question the true causation/correlation they're trying to put forward.It's not odd. The causative chain goes like this: universe expansion - leads to - black holes gaining mass - leads to - acceleration of the expansion setting in.
I.e. it's not that dark energy causes expansion. In the FLRW model of the universe expansion would occur even without dark energy. The latter is not causative of the former. DE is almost negligible in the initial stages of the expansion.
I shall have to revisit it.
Any news on the new space race ?New? Well, Voyager 1 is still ahead, and not going to be passed any time soon. Pioneer 10 is about 26AU behind, in second place (and losing ground on first) but Voyager 2 is only in 3rd by about ¼AU and going almost a third as fast again as its nearest rival, so may well gain 2nd quite soon. Pioneer 11 trails these to hold a solid 4th, on paper, but New Horizons has so far reached half as far in nearly 17 years as the former has gotten in a full half century. Not actually much faster (currently about midway between the Pioneer velocities and those of the Voyagers) but sent on on a trajectory without so much deliberate loitering around the planets in the initial years of the mission
((Delphonso, I get the feeling that your adopted nation will probably ramp up the coverage when it's into less of a "catch up" mode. Getting a possible "space first" under the belt. But possibly also they have so much other need to keep the wide and diverse nation happy that while more Earthly matters are needing addressing/repressing to support the Party it is still a side-note to the rest of the news. It's not as ground-breaking as the Two Nukes One Satellite, even. Compare and contrast with NK currently internally shouting about its (military) missiles?))
Some things in space are limited by treaty for possibly obsolete reasons (not talking about the ban on weapons in space that should be expanded imo outside of the emergence of hostile aliens or space pirates to justify the massive expense). If that was changed perhaps it would give more reasons for encouragement to a nascent space industry to expand outward.
But that's a long time, with more than one down-to-Earth issue that could interrupt any (or all) country's(/ies') space ambitions. Or favouring them (you shouldn't ignore the likes of India, for example). And with around half a dozen or more prominant private launchers out there that might join SpaceX in getting from mere hardware delivery to manned missions in their own dight.
They're still looking for Planet X (actually Planet IX)Intetesting fact: The term "Planet X" was coined as being 'X for unknown', not 'X for Ten', as the theoretical next planet out from Neptune. This was from before (1906, vs 1930) Pluto came along and took up its temporary tenure as the ninth.
Also why isn't Pluto show on maps of the solar system anymore, I mean even though it's a dwarf planet that doesn't stop it from being a planet, it's just a small one.The answer's in the question. It's not a planet because it's a dwarf planet, in the current system.
I was meaning Dark Matter more in the "Humanity is too primitive to understand" context.Speak for yourself, I am developing the theory of everything :P What is in common between the forces behind dark matter, the illusive Planet X and our bearded friends? they are all small and mysterious. And where else would they be if not in the midst of the interstellar alcohol cloud stockpile. Worst of all we don't even realize that universe is suffering from late game lag.
... that's why yesterday's one day of work feels like two.You are on to something, Mondays.. are like black holes sucking away all the energy, could be that they are the source of dark energy?
another attempt today after the first launch attempt was scrubed.
Any bets on how long it will until a launch on how far will they get on their goal list? can't recall how many attempts where with flacon9 but there were many scrubs and later test flight before it made.
can't recall how many attempts where with flacon9 but there were many scrubs and later test flight before it made.
Well, it looks like the pad suffered very significant damage due to the power of all those engines lifting off. It left a huge crater below the pad.
link (https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649062784167030785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1649062784167030785%7Ctwgr%5E3c4f7f1364099ca5ec5e9c9c36c972f8b211ef30%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.nasaspaceflight.com%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D58671.180)
There are videos circulating of cars parked quite far away from the launch site getting obliterated by flying debris, possibly from that crater.
link (https://twitter.com/jerrypikephoto/status/1649052722698784771)
It might well be that the root cause for those engine failures is due to damage because of debris bouncing up and destroying the rocket, so not a design flaw of the engines themselves. Nevertheless, more seemed to fail later in the flight.
The rocket was much lower than it should be when separation should have occured, so the higher atmospheric density and different speed at that point may have been enough reason for that to fail.
It certainly was exciting to watch!
Musk should rename SpaceX to Kerboom Space Program
After the rocket exploded, Elon Muskit explained the reason of the rocket problem :
After the rocket exploded, Elon Musk said the team behind SpaceX was not expecting to see such a shark in the ocean, but the clown is a joke that keeps on giving.
After a rocket exploded on a test launch in Florida on Saturday, Musk tweeted, "Just heard the news. Apparently, a shark jumped out of the water and chased the submarine, which then exploded. It's pretty weird, but I guess that's what the ninja shark has to do to be a ninja shark."
He then followed up with a tweet saying, "I have no clue if this is true or not, but I think it's pretty damn cool."
I have no clue if this is true or not, but I think it's pretty damn cool. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2018
According to the International Shark Attack File, there have been 72 shark attacks in the United States this year
Good spot. They had this issue with launchpad dissolving in previous testing, clearly all the measures they used didn't help. I guess flame diverter is in the cards for next time.
Btw I now realized why the Starship designed for NASA to land on the Moon has none of the reusability features, because there is no way in hell it can launch again after landing on moon surface. I wouldn't be surprised if the landing create some sort of "shogun" effect. Any dream of reusability on Mars and Moon would require to build launch pad.
Everyone in the rocket space (no pun intended) who said that SpaceX should probably have a flame diverter was, surprise surprise, absolutely right. Although looks like this very first launch went and carved one out for them...
Starship has 6 engines, not 33 or whatever they're up to on Super Heavy. AND DOESN'T USE THEM ON THE MOON. It's going to use a set of additional engines (I don't understand the engineering decisions for Starship but oh well) near the top of the spacecraft so that it does not spray lunar regolith everywhere. It will be perfectly reusable and this is in the plans. The features it lacks are the Earth-recovery features: Heat shield, sea-level engines, grid fins, header tanks, etc. Lunar Starship lacks them because it doesn't need them, it will be reused in-orbit; flying back to Earth orbit and being refueled for another go out to the Moon, most likely.
Does anyone have a step by step overview of the current plan for land on the moon using starship HLS?From memory:
...Thanks!
SpaceX is building a new type of engine, running methalox, for the lunar landing engines on lunar Starship. They are not the same as the RCS thrusters used on-orbit on all Starship variants. They'll almost certainly be using the liquid component of the fuel and not the gaseous component since IIRC SpaceX is still going to use autogenous pressurization in Starship which would require them to not siphon off the gas components. That and it's just easier to pump the liquid propellants.
I hadn't heard that they weren't allowed to dig there; just that the wetlands made it a pain. Not sure what they'll do, maybe they'll give up and move to offshore launches lol. That or just dig themselves a lake.
My thinking is thatTo quote (from memory) the book Ignition!: "Space is a pretty good insulator, and when you have, in effect, a Dewar flask the size of the universe, you can store a low-boiling liquid a very long time". Yeah, they'll be able to keep more than enough LOX around for the purpose. Apollo was able to store liquid HYDROGEN of all things for the entire duration of every mission so storing the much-easier-to-store liquid methane/LOX shouldn't be an issue.
* Starship is going to spend around 10days flying to the moon and then on its surface. Absent dedicated cooling system all its liquid oxygen should boil off.
* In the absence of ground infrastructure on the moon, Starship would have to rely on the thrusters for both landing and launch.
* I recall that Starship would be using hot thrusters, and think that using the boiled off propellent can be used to fuel the thrusters. If after reaching the moon you have no use for the regular engines and huge proponent tanks, why not dual use them for this purpose
Sorry for the massive post but I like this stuff. And also I'm too tired to trim it down so have fun reading the disorganized thoughts of an exhausted madman :P
Space is a pretty good insulator but starship is not, as evident by the condensation and ice patches forming immediately upon prop load,Starship has good enough insulation for the purpose; remember that that is formed in air which conducts heat a lot more readily than vacuum and it's due to the substantial time it takes to load the Starship, which lets the whole thing cool down dramatically. Once in space, that stainless steel hull will reflect most of the sunlight striking it, while on the dark side the temperature in earth orbit is like 20 Kelvin or something like that? It's not quite the universal background 3 K but it's close.
The reaction control/attitude control (same thing) thrusters use the gaseous component of the tanks, but as far as I have heard the larger methalox thrusters that are going to use the liquid component to aid in thrust, because even in 1/6 gravity you do still need a good amount of force to land the 120+ ton (depends on how much fuel it's burned at this point) Starship on the lunar surface.
Autogenous pressurization is just "use the propellant to pressurize the propellant tanks" but IIRC the precise way SpaceX is doing it relies on the exhaust from their gas generators, which is a great place to get hot gas to pressurize the propellant tanks, which does bring along some CO2 and H2O because those are the products of the reaction. I could be wrong there, I'd have to go back to whatever EverydayAstronaut or Scott Manley video mentioned it.
Once in space, that stainless steel hull will reflect most of the sunlight striking it [..] They won't lose all their propellants no matter how long the mission goes.
There's pros and cons in all the different solutions to the pressurisation problem (including feeding 'waste' gases back in and using header-tanks), but I suppose I have to trust the people who have actually been building and launching these things (mostly) successfully as having done their homework/etc to do it in one of the least-worst ways... :PThis isn't an exercise in trust, but fun time of figuring something new with no up to date readily available documentation. Unless you are holding on me :P
Eventually the propellants (NOT just the oxidizer) will evaporate...but it will take a long time if the vehicle is designed reasonably. Also, the lunar missions planned for Artemis are I think 3-4 weeks total? Up to two on the ground plus a longer transit to and from Gateway.Do anyone have any info on Artemis mission (detailed is good, I enjoyed reading and going over the engine schematics before) same with any data that would allow to quantify how long is long time?
continues to be an important partner to AFRL as we build hypersonics capabilities and remove America’s dependence on foreign propulsion systems for launchhttps://spacenews.com/air-force-research-lab-to-fund-development-of-ursa-majors-rocket-engines/
Any notion of what foreign dependence they try to shave off? Two engines are mentioned 4k and 200k pound force, so some sort of missile smaller than MLRS, and some sort engine weaker than Raptor presumably for a small launch vehicle.They're almost certainly referring to Lockheed/ULA's Atlas V which uses RD-180s sourced from Ukraine and Russia. Between the war and the sanctions, both suppliers are no longer supplying, which means that once we use them up, there will be no replacements. Likewise, the Northrop-Grumman's Antares was a joint venture with Pivdenne Design Bureau in Ukraine. The Antares 100 uses AJ26s repurposed from Kuznetsov NK-33 engines imported in the 1990s, and the Antares 200 series was intended to use RD-181s manufactured in Dnipro. As such, the war and resulting disruption of production put the brakes on plans for the 200 series, and the replacement will use American-built replacements.
The engine would be used to build target vehicles simulating hypersonic missile threats.
I am confused these engine seem to be very different, both in size and thrust, from RD-180 and is far from being complete certified (or did I get my metrics wrong?). And USA already have the tried and true raptor, and several other space engines in various stages of completion/testing.Two different engines, two different roles. The Draper is the hypersonic missile engine to "build hypersonics capability". The Arroway is the staged combustion engine for medium and heavy launch vehicles to "remove America's dependence on foreign propulsion systems."
Meanwhile this articles says thatQuoteThe engine would be used to build target vehicles simulating hypersonic missile threats.
Japanese Moon Lander Crashed Because of a Software Glitch(I read it elsewhere, so not making effort to get beyond the NYT's RegisterWall... Presume same details, though.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/26/science/moon-crash-japan-ispace.html
Yes, but USA have funded both AR1 and BE-4 engine as replacement for RD-180 (https://www.americaspace.com/2016/03/03/air-force-funds-both-ar1-and-be-4-rocket-engine-development-to-replace-ulas-russian-rd-180/) close to a decade ago.Nothing's gone wrong with either, per se. The BE-4 is being used on the Vulcan Centuar (2 engines, first stage), and construction of the test vehicle is complete. The first static test was just called off earlier today due to a response delay from the engine ignitors (https://www.space.com/ula-vulcan-centaur-rocket-first-static-fire), but these kinds of hiccups are not unexpected. The AR1 is functional from what I've heard, but suffers from being a product in want of buyers; they lost the bid on the Vulcan Centaur, and while there was talk of Firefly adopting the engine for their next rocket (MLV, nee Beta), the company since went with their own in-house Miranda. As far as Ursa Major is concerned, presumably, the problem is that these engines were not made by Ursa Major and are not putting money in Ursa Major's pocket. That to them is the major benefit of the Arroway, a new entry for a competitive market. As far as the USAF is concerned, likewise: it's a sweetheart deal that the USAF can later hope to take advantage of. They've wanted for a while to develop rapid space launch capability to go from order to launch in 24 hours, and having an engine developed with their money is likely something they would be interested in to have an "in" for follow-up contracts if it is successful.
Is something gone wrong with that investment? And or what does Arroway engine brings to the table?
Alternatively could the statement about removing dependence on foreign propulsion refer to the Draper engine? What did the USA used so far in this role? Or what else can this engine be used for? (that might be relevant in say.. any logistical issues related to Ukraine war)
I had a soft-spot for the Dynetics ALPACA, but... hey. Mass problems.
Whatever that treatment is, AIUI the problem is that the current OST binds nations only, not private/corporate individuals outwith the aegis of such nations. Technically, a nation could internally coerce its own citizen/company to stick to the laws it wishes to obey, but there's limited possibility of any other country doing so. And already there was scope for the then-unforseen possibility of a non-govenmental effort being ...'allowed' to do things that the nation itself could not, and then 'oops, sorry" at the mosst on the international scene.I always knew Elon was going to beans it for humanity
... with a mass 33 times that of the Sun. And, in galactic terms, it's right next door at about 2,000 light-years distant, meaning it will be relatively easy to learn more
And, in galactic terms, it's right next door at about 2,000 light-years distantDear god, should we start panicking now or should we wait a bit then panic?
NASA Veteran’s Propellantless Propulsion Drive That Physics Says Shouldn’t Work Just Produced Enough Thrust to Overcome Earth’s Gravity
(https://thedebrief.org/nasa-veterans-propellantless-propulsion-drive-that-physics-says-shouldnt-work-just-produced-enough-thrust-to-defeat-earths-gravity/)
I'll believe it when they prove it, though.
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again.
Nope. Even if it was moving at 99.999% lightspeed directly at us, it'd take 2000 years to reach us. And it definitely isn't. This is like being in Europe and worrying about having your city destroyed by a volcano in Hawaii.QuoteAnd, in galactic terms, it's right next door at about 2,000 light-years distantDear god, should we start panicking now or should we wait a bit then panic?
Sounds like a wait then panic situation, even if the wait is thousands of years.Nope. Even if it was moving at 99.999% lightspeed directly at us, it'd take 2000 years to reach us. And it definitely isn't. This is like being in Europe and worrying about having your city destroyed by a volcano in Hawaii.QuoteAnd, in galactic terms, it's right next door at about 2,000 light-years distantDear god, should we start panicking now or should we wait a bit then panic?
This is like being in Europe and worrying about having your city destroyed by a volcano in Hawaii.Probably less so.
Well, it could have spectacularly exploded 1999 years ago and we just haven't observed the light from that event yet. Still pretty unlikely to affect us.Nope. Even if it was moving at 99.999% lightspeed directly at us, it'd take 2000 years to reach us. And it definitely isn't. This is like being in Europe and worrying about having your city destroyed by a volcano in Hawaii.QuoteAnd, in galactic terms, it's right next door at about 2,000 light-years distantDear god, should we start panicking now or should we wait a bit then panic?
Black holes can't explode. Nothing can escape from them.What if every single particle inside the event horizon happens to tunnel out at the same time? What then huh?
Not counting cheating by Hawking radiation.
Scully: Mulder, I know you love a good conspiracy theory, but I'm not sure where you're going with this one. Black holes are a scientific mystery, not a government cover-up.
Mulder: Hear me out, Scully. Think about it. Black holes challenge everything we think we know about physics. Maybe they're intentionally being kept mysterious to hide something bigger.
Scully: What exactly do you think is being hidden, Mulder? Black holes are perplexing because they push the boundaries of our understanding, not because of some elaborate cover-up.
Mulder: What if there's a whole new branch of physics that's being concealed? Imagine the implications if we could harness the power of a black hole or understand their true nature.
Scully: That sounds like science fiction, Mulder. The laws of physics as we know them are based on rigorous observation and testing. Black holes are a puzzle precisely because they challenge these laws, not because they're part of a grand conspiracy.
Mulder: But isn't it strange that we know so little about them? It's like there's a deliberate effort to keep us in the dark.
Scully: Sometimes, Mulder, the unknown is just that - unknown. It doesn't mean there's a conspiracy behind every cosmic phenomenon. Our job is to uncover the truth, not create wild theories.
Mulder: Fair point, Scully. Maybe I'm just seeing shadows where there are none. But mark my words, there's more to black holes than meets the eye.