The Outer Space Thread

[Renegade7]

9 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Personally, I think we will turn Earth into a dystopian hellscape before the kind of things you all are discussing will be able to happen.

 

You mean like we're all dead and nature reclaims everything we built like we were never here?

 

I'd hardly call that a hellacape.

 

Once upon a time I saw this Disney movie when it came out called Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (don't judge me).  This conversation reminds me of the disconnect between the people that lived and grew up in the space station and thought earth was like.

 

Natural disasters, wars, trying to get away from all that them she goes to earth and big chunk of the movie is the culture shock from realizing at least the part of earth her aunt was wasn't nearly as bad as it made out to be where she was from.

 

Having said all that, I looked it up and the movie takes place in 2049.  A lot can happen in 25 years, disporia is not an uncommon reality for many people in the world right now, and we shouldn't underestimate people wanting something different or jus sick of all the crazy **** going on on earth.  Potential Mass Climate migrations I'm looking at you right now.

 

Cowboy Bebop is an example of a popular sci-fi anime where we colonized the solar system BECUASE of how fd up the Earth became.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

36 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Personally, I think we will turn Earth into a dystopian hellscape before the kind of things you all are discussing will be able to happen.

Yea, but even in that scenario there will be winners and losers. We have been through dark ages before and came out on the other side just fine.

[TheGreatBuzz]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

You mean like we're all dead and nature reclaims everything we built like we were never here?

 

I'd hardly call that a hellacape.

 

 

 

I was thinking more of the "nukes/plague/famine/whatever" that takes out enough of society that working on advancing space civilization will have to give way to how to eat today.

 

Or something along those lines.

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Yea, but even in that scenario there will be winners and losers. We have been through dark ages before and came out on the other side just fine.

 

There's a fundamental difference between the past and the present in terms of coming out of major set back.  With any set back, there is a decrease in population which causes a decrease in specialization which results in loss knowledge.  And loss of specialization today results in further disasters that will lead to a further spiral down turn.

 

I think I've talked about this here before, but if you consider something like Thanos' snap.  The nuclear industry does not have a 50% over capacity in workers.  You lose 50% of those workers that specialization is going to lost.  There will almost certainly be corresponding nuclear plant meltdowns, further environmental deterioration, and loss of life.  The same thing is true for things like oil rigs.  You'll see the failure of some oil rigs, leaking oil, and environmental consequences.  Any prior major societal breakdowns didn't come with the same consequences.

 

The other thing that has helped in the past was abundant and cheap fuel for the given technology.  Having pretty major societal break down actually helps when your main source of energy is burning trees because trees will regrow.  The coal mines that fueled the industrial revolution with relatively easily accessible and cheap fuel are not coming back on any sort of relevant time frame.  Essentially every modern way of generating energy in a way that is very efficient is based on global market of goods, technology, and skills that if fails we don't have the energy to rebuild.

 

The other thing that becomes an issue is that I'm a useful biochemist.  But my skills are pretty much completely dependent on essentially post 1980 technology and a corresponding international trade and technology market.

 

It isn't hard to imagine where there is some sort of event (e.g. large scale nuclear war), loss of life and power (electricity not political or something like that) generates further disasters and loss of life a corresponding loss of knowledge and the human population finds itself in what is essentially a pre or early-industrial condition without the access to (affordable and efficient) energy to boost itself back out.

 

(I think the combination of things in this thread then give us an answer to the Fermi Paradox.  We don't see advanced species exploring space because it it didn't make economical sense for them to do so.  And when society collapses, like us, they've used all of the energy sources that low technology societies can use to build up.  And you get stuck.  Even if you retain some of the knowledge of what society was building back up gets really hard because of things like in our case there isn't coal that can easily be dug out by axe, pick, and man power to generate the energy to run the machines you need to build back up.  The fossil fuels that were used to build up are gone, aren't coming back any time soon, and gave us one shot to build to where we are.  A slip back down to where they are needed again, and you aren't coming back.)

Edited February 25 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

Interesting turn here...

 

On one hand, having the notes for how we got to this point should matter in the context we built this advanced society in the first place without them before we could make them for someone else in case the whole thing fell apart.

 

On the other, it fascinated me watching documentaries about the dark ages and how in the early part there were clear remnants what essentially was a more advanced civilization then them (talking specifically about Ancient Rome versus Western Europe after the fall of the western half of the Roman empire). 

 

I do believe us humans are adaptable enough to hang around even if our civilization is wiped along with damn near all of us to have a chance to try again.  How long that would  takeis debatable, for sure.

 

Optimist, I do believe we figure out **** out, and the real question is how much irreparable damage do we do in the meantime.

Edited February 25 by Renegade7

[Corcaigh]

‘Islands of Abandonment - Life in the post human landscape’ is a good book looking at different parts of the world that humans have been, and then left. And how nature has done in the absence of humans in reclaiming the land. Some areas very highly polluted, including the Chernobyl exclusion zone, some due to natural disasters.

 

There’s also the interesting discussion of what population for Earth is sustainable. A lot depends on the consumption choices we are willing to make, but current behaviors are not sustainable for sure.

 

Oh, and that spinlauncher has enormous technical difficulties to overcome before it is useful. Such as how to survive travelling at Mach 6 at ground level atmospheric pressure. We talked about it before I think and Jabberwocky invited us to compose haikus. And humans will never survive the g-forces associated with a launch.

[Destino]

Anyone know if all these failed or flawed attempts to land on the moon will have an impact on the Artemis timeline? As I understood it in phase 1 a whole bunch of equipment was to land in the moon before advancing to the crewed phases. Doesn’t seem like that part of things is going well 

[Skins24]

21 minutes ago, Destino said:

Anyone know if all these failed or flawed attempts to land on the moon will have an impact on the Artemis timeline? As I understood it in phase 1 a whole bunch of equipment was to land in the moon before advancing to the crewed phases. Doesn’t seem like that part of things is going well 

I don't think these attempts will have much of any affect, as these are all under CLPS - Commerical Lunar Payload Services - and some fails were expected...

 

VIPER though, planned for later this year, is the biggest (contracted) so far, and I believe most tied to Artemis (they're sending a rover which could be used by future manned crews.) We need that one to go smooth.

 

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

On 2/25/2024 at 3:14 PM, PeterMP said:

 

There's a fundamental difference between the past and the present in terms of coming out of major set back.  With any set back, there is a decrease in population which causes a decrease in specialization which results in loss knowledge.  And loss of specialization today results in further disasters that will lead to a further spiral down turn.

 

I think I've talked about this here before, but if you consider something like Thanos' snap.  The nuclear industry does not have a 50% over capacity in workers.  You lose 50% of those workers that specialization is going to lost.  There will almost certainly be corresponding nuclear plant meltdowns, further environmental deterioration, and loss of life.  The same thing is true for things like oil rigs.  You'll see the failure of some oil rigs, leaking oil, and environmental consequences.  Any prior major societal breakdowns didn't come with the same consequences.

 

The other thing that has helped in the past was abundant and cheap fuel for the given technology.  Having pretty major societal break down actually helps when your main source of energy is burning trees because trees will regrow.  The coal mines that fueled the industrial revolution with relatively easily accessible and cheap fuel are not coming back on any sort of relevant time frame.  Essentially every modern way of generating energy in a way that is very efficient is based on global market of goods, technology, and skills that if fails we don't have the energy to rebuild.

 

The other thing that becomes an issue is that I'm a useful biochemist.  But my skills are pretty much completely dependent on essentially post 1980 technology and a corresponding international trade and technology market.

 

It isn't hard to imagine where there is some sort of event (e.g. large scale nuclear war), loss of life and power (electricity not political or something like that) generates further disasters and loss of life a corresponding loss of knowledge and the human population finds itself in what is essentially a pre or early-industrial condition without the access to (affordable and efficient) energy to boost itself back out.

 

(I think the combination of things in this thread then give us an answer to the Fermi Paradox.  We don't see advanced species exploring space because it it didn't make economical sense for them to do so.  And when society collapses, like us, they've used all of the energy sources that low technology societies can use to build up.  And you get stuck.  Even if you retain some of the knowledge of what society was building back up gets really hard because of things like in our case there isn't coal that can easily be dug out by axe, pick, and man power to generate the energy to run the machines you need to build back up.  The fossil fuels that were used to build up are gone, aren't coming back any time soon, and gave us one shot to build to where we are.  A slip back down to where they are needed again, and you aren't coming back.)

nuclear meltdowns and oil spills sound scary, but over the course of centuries they won’t effect much based on similar disasters in the past (which of course we have mitigated to some extent).
 

Ethanol can be grown… and it doesn’t take much more to produce ethanol than Meade. So perhaps we would become a biofuel based energy economy until we rediscovered nuclear power.
 

The broader point being that you are limiting mankind’s ingenuity and available substitutes.
 

And what do you mean relevant time line? The dark ages was 500 years… 

Edited February 27 by CousinsCowgirl84

[PeterMP]

7 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

nuclear meltdowns and oil spills sound scary, but over the course of centuries they won’t effect much based on similar disasters in the past (which of course we have mitigated to some extent).
 

Ethanol can be grown… and it doesn’t take much more to produce ethanol than Meade. So perhaps we would become a biofuel based energy economy until we rediscovered nuclear power.
 

The broader point being that you are limiting mankind’s ingenuity and available substitutes.
 

And what do you mean relevant time line? The dark ages was 500 years… 

 

Biofuels aren't very economical now and even with today's technology and engineered plants, their equivalence to fossil fuels is at best questionable.  And the fossil fuels we're extracting today for the most part are much more expensive and require more technology than the ones that were extracted at the start of the industrial revolution.  Even today nuclear only makes sense in the context of having machines that run on relatively cheap fossil fuels to build nuclear power plants and the equipment in them.  Even today, if you said you had to build a nuclear power plant with limited fossil fuel usage, it be unlikely to work.

 

Human ingenuity has limits.  As anybody can see by looking at the problems in the world we haven't fixed.  Human ingenuity can't over come the laws of thermodynamics.  For a given mass, there are limits to how much energy it contains and how much of that energy can converted into work that even today appear to immutable.  So yes, I'm placing limits on human ingenuity.  Fossil fuels contain a lot of easily accessed energy per a unit mass.  Coal used early in the industrial revolution was relatively cheap and easy to access.  Transporting it made sense because it contained a lot of energy that allowed a lot of work to be done.  Ethanol per a mass unit doesn't easily nearly deliver the same energy or allow the same amount of work to be easily accessed.  Ethanol was common at the time of the industrial revolution.  There's are reasons why the industrial revolution was based on fossil fuels and not ethanol that are tied to the laws of physics and chemistry.

 

I can't completely discount somehow society will end up shaped very differently and somehow humans would over come the limitations of the lack of easy to access fossil fuels.  And I didn't.  I said it wasn't hard to imagine a situation where the current methods of producing energy collapsed, the global trade and technology network that modern economies and energy generation require collapse, and it isn't possible to get back to where we are.  Not that if there is a collapse it will be impossible to get back to where we are.  But it will be very difficult and so unlikely.  And much more difficult than in the past.  Recovering from the dark ages was relatively easy because they could keep using the same things for energy that they had been.  And the dark ages weren't really a global phenomena.  While Europe was in its dark ages, the Chinese were printing the first books.  Europe doesn't recover from the middle ages on its own.  But today it isn't hard to imagine where we do something where the whole world goes backwards and unlike the dark ages, it isn't just a regional thing.

 

There is no comparison between Europe recovering from the Middle Ages and recovering today from something like a large scale nuclear war.

 

I mean it will take hundreds of millions of years for there to be a build up of biomass and conversion into fossil fuels for there to be easily accessible fossil fuels at the scale there was at the start of the industrial revolution.

Edited February 27 by PeterMP

[China]

On 3/7/2021 at 7:53 PM, China said:

Large asteroid Apophis will safely fly by Earth on Friday

 

By Elizabeth Howell 4 days ago

 

Our solar system's most infamous asteroid will pass by Earth on Friday (March 5), and with a high-end telescope you can watch it as it safely whizzes by our planet.

 

 

We're talking about none other than asteroid 99942 Apophis, which will come even closer to Earth on April 13, 2029, when it passes through the zone of high-altitude satellites. But even then, Apophis won't hit Earth as some had predicted — so instead, let's focus on what science is coming from these flybys.

 

The near-Earth asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) across and was discovered in 2004. Initial early estimates suggested there was a small chance of Apophis hitting Earth in 2029, but scientists ruled out that possibility after looking at archival images, NASA said. 

 

Apophis' closest approach Friday will be at 0.11 astronomical units (an astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and the sun, or roughly 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers). While the flyby is close in astronomical terms, Apophis will remain at a distance of 44 times the distance between the Earth and the moon.

 

Your best chance to see it may be early on Saturday (May 6), when Unistellar Optics coordinates a citizen-science campaign to observe Apophis around the time it gets closest to Earth. From the perspective of viewers in parts of the U.S., between roughly 12:55 a.m. EST and 1:04 a.m. EST (0555 GMT and 0604 GMT), Apophis will pass in front of a star. The broad sweep of terrain where the event will be visible extends through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, and perhaps some bordering areas as well. A map and more details on calibrating a Unistellar eVscope are available in a  a company blog post.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

Astronomers Confirm Giant Asteroid 'Apophis' Will Not Hit Earth

 

A few years ago, astronomers ruled out the chance of a potentially hazardous asteroid named Apophis redirecting and hitting Earth as it whizzes by.

 

That's a huge relief. But we weren't entirely out of the woods. We've seen, thanks to the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, that it's possible to change the orbital course of an asteroid by smacking it with something.

 

There are a lot of space rocks floating around out there in interplanetary space. What if one of them collided with Apophis? What if it knocked Apophis off its current course? What if the new trajectory was a collision course with Earth?

 

Well, you can relax. Astronomers Paul Wiegert of Western University and Ben Hyatt of the University of Waterloo in Canada have projected the orbits of over 1.3 million known asteroids in the inner Solar System and reached a comforting conclusion: Not a single asteroid is going to collide with Apophis in the next few years.

 

"Given how closely Apophis will pass Earth, there is a possible risk that a deflection from its current trajectory may move Apophis closer to impacting us," Hyatt says.

 

"Hypothetically, another asteroid colliding with Apophis could cause such a deflection, motivating us to study this scenario however unlikely it may be."

 

Apophis was discovered in 2004, and immediately assessed as a potential threat. Early projections suggested it had a very worrying 2.7 percent chance of slamming into Earth on its 2029 flyby.

 

That was ruled out pretty quickly, but Apophis' orbit brings it to an Earth flyby every eight years. It took until astronomers made new precise measurements of the asteroid's position during its 2021 flyby to rule out the possibility for the foreseeable future.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The 12th Commandment]

[China]

Voyager 1 Is Sending Incomprehensible Gibberish To Earth And NASA Is Concerned

 

The little space probe that could—Voyager 1—has started to worry its NASA handlers and earthbound fans. Following a few technical close calls, the spacecraft has been sending unintelligible gibberish since November of last year. This behavior is still without a fix and could be an ominous sign for the this 47-year old spacecraft.

 

It's easy to forget that the pioneering space probe Voyager 1 that's currently over 15 billion miles away (in what we call "interstellar space") is nearing 47 years old. After all, along with its near twin Voyager 2, it has far outlived its service brief and has continued to provide scientists with new discoveries and vital information for future space programs.

 

Both crafts have had their fair share of issues due to old age and glitches of which the teams at NASA have been able to get ahead of. However, since November 2023 Voyager 1 has been communicating with Earth in alternating ones and zeroes (rather than proper binary), basically gibberish to the teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). This means that Voyager 1 can't relay science data such as environmental information that could help the team diagnose the anomaly. 

 

Compounding on the matter is that scientists have been stumped for a fix or a way to reset the affected system(s). According to Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager, assures that the team has been scouring old manuals and trying to "get into the heads of the original developers and figure out why they designed something the way they did" to find a solution. 

 

Appropriately, in order to fix nonsensical codes from an aging machine, the team has had to be careful in the methods they've attempted. However, Dodd says that as they run through a list of possible fixes, they may have to start sending commands to Voyager 1 that are riskier. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[Bang]

Maybe there's dust on it.

 

Send the Enterprise.

(Look, I still think Star Trek The Motion Picture has one of the coolest sci-fi plots ever.)

 

~Bang

[PokerPacker]

2 hours ago, Bang said:

Maybe there's dust on it.

 

Send the Enterprise.

(Look, I still think Star Trek The Motion Picture has one of the coolest sci-fi plots ever.)

 

~Bang

It's nice when they can make a plot that doesn't require a villain.  Though it does lose a little bit of style points for being a bit of a repackaging of The Changeling.

[Destino]

 

[Skins24]

Successful liftoff!

Hopefully they actually try to land it this time.

 

 

edit:

lol, looks like another nope (at least for the booster) *sigh*

 

edit #2:

Complete success for the ship though! Nice job.

Edited March 14 by Skins24

[Destino]

Booster crashed but the ship full of orphan children and puppies has made it to space. The next phase is to release them through the payload door.

 

theres a chance my information is not entirely accurate.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, Skins24 said:

Successful liftoff!

Hopefully they actually try to land it this time.

 

 

edit:

lol, looks like another nope (at least for the booster) *sigh*

 

edit #2:

Complete success for the ship though! Nice job.

I was not aware they were trying to land/catch the booster yet? 
 

Big success over all!

[China]

Why Are There So Many Emergency Warnings About This Year's Total Solar Eclipse?

 

t probably hasn't escaped your attention that this year, on April 8, a total eclipse will pass through North America. The eclipse should be a spectacular one, coinciding with the solar maximum.

 

"In 2017, the Sun was nearing solar minimum. Viewers of the total eclipse could see the breathtaking corona – but since the Sun was quiet, streamers flowing into the solar atmosphere were restricted to just the equatorial regions of the star," NASA explains. 

 

"During the 2024 eclipse, the Sun will be in or near solar maximum, when the magnetic field is more like a tangled hairball. Streamers will likely be visible throughout the corona. In addition to that, viewers will have a better chance to see prominences – which appear as bright, pink curls or loops coming off the Sun."

 

The eclipse should be visible from Mexico to Canada. The path of totality – the area where people will see a total solar eclipse – is wider than in 2017, as the Moon is closer to Earth due to where it is in its orbit, meaning more people will see the Sun's corona. NASA even noted that, with luck, they may even see a coronal mass ejection during the eclipse. 

 

The eclipse, of course, is not dangerous to people on Earth. In fact, all the Moon is doing is briefly protecting us from harmful UV rays, like a giant, rocky parasol. So why have there been so many warnings this year about the eclipse? As well as asking people to stock up on fuel, food, and water, various emergency officials have warned that schools should close and residents should stock up on supplies for pets as well.

 

Simply put, it is due to the expected increase in tourists associated with the eclipse, piling pressure onto local transport and emergency services, which are not designed to cope with such an influx. Advice is to stock up beforehand to reduce the number of cars on the road around eclipse day. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

11 hours ago, China said:

Why Are There So Many Emergency Warnings About This Year's Total Solar Eclipse?

 

t probably hasn't escaped your attention that this year, on April 8, a total eclipse will pass through North America. The eclipse should be a spectacular one, coinciding with the solar maximum.

 

"In 2017, the Sun was nearing solar minimum. Viewers of the total eclipse could see the breathtaking corona – but since the Sun was quiet, streamers flowing into the solar atmosphere were restricted to just the equatorial regions of the star," NASA explains. 

 

"During the 2024 eclipse, the Sun will be in or near solar maximum, when the magnetic field is more like a tangled hairball. Streamers will likely be visible throughout the corona. In addition to that, viewers will have a better chance to see prominences – which appear as bright, pink curls or loops coming off the Sun."

 

The eclipse should be visible from Mexico to Canada. The path of totality – the area where people will see a total solar eclipse – is wider than in 2017, as the Moon is closer to Earth due to where it is in its orbit, meaning more people will see the Sun's corona. NASA even noted that, with luck, they may even see a coronal mass ejection during the eclipse. 

 

The eclipse, of course, is not dangerous to people on Earth. In fact, all the Moon is doing is briefly protecting us from harmful UV rays, like a giant, rocky parasol. So why have there been so many warnings this year about the eclipse? As well as asking people to stock up on fuel, food, and water, various emergency officials have warned that schools should close and residents should stock up on supplies for pets as well.

 

Simply put, it is due to the expected increase in tourists associated with the eclipse, piling pressure onto local transport and emergency services, which are not designed to cope with such an influx. Advice is to stock up beforehand to reduce the number of cars on the road around eclipse day. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

National Guard will be deployed for total solar eclipse on April 8

 

A massive influx of visitors has some states readying the National Guard for the April 8 total solar eclipse.

 

At the request of local emergency management officials, the Oklahoma National Guard will have members of the 63rd Civil Support Team available to assist local governments during the eclipse, including working with first responders with additional HAZMAT responses if needed.

 

Lt. Col. Jabonn Flurry, commander of the 63rd CST, said as many as 100,000 visitors are expected in McCurtain County, Oklahoma.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Chew]

13 hours ago, China said:

The eclipse, of course, is not dangerous to people on Earth. 

 

 

[Renegade7]

[Renegade7]

[Renegade7]

Already seen a total eclipse when I went to South Carolina with my Uncle couple years ago...

 

Kids too young to pull them out to path of totality this time, but man, it's really cool listening to wtop and tracking reactions across the country.

 

I moved a meeting at work today so folks could check it out if they wanted to.