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New Horizons and the Future Beyond (Space Stuff)

Discussion in 'Permanent Threads' started by Juice, Jul 10, 2015.

  1. Aetius

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    In Star Trek the planet Remus is tidally locked.

    Also in Interstellar, the first planet they visit has giant waves that are literally tidal waves; they are bulges in the surface of the ocean caused by the gravity of the nearby black hole. The planet itself is tidally locked, but oscillates ever so slightly, which is why the waves appear to sweep back and forth; they are actually stationary while the planet moves underneath them.
     
  2. Crown Royal

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    I like how people thought it was silly to have a shallow ocean planet with 4000-foot-tall waves. No, the filmmakers did their homework on this one. Accuracy is debatable to be sure, but it makes sense.
     
  3. Juice

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    Not only that, wasn't there also extreme time dialation on that planet too?
     
  4. Rush-O-Matic

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    Cool. Cool cool cool. I have not seen much Star Trek, other than the original series and various movies, and I haven't seen Interstellar. I have it in my Netflix queue, though. May have to bump it to the top.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Crown Royal

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    Yes. The movie is good at pointing out how time can be "stretched and squeezed", like how being close to a black hole turns one hour into seven years.

    Of course some things in the movie are dumb deus ex machinas, like how being sucked into an all-matter-crushing black hole magically transports you into time-changing tesseract.
     
  6. Revengeofthenerds

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  7. Kampf Trinker

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    SpaceX aims to send tourists on a week long trip around the dark side of the moon by 2018.

    The time frame is quite ambitious, but we're seeing the birth of what is likely to become a booming industry over the next 20 years.

    With him on the council of economic advisers, it'll be interesting to see the direction the government takes in space exploration. NASA has paved the way for a lot of innovation, but the necessity of it's scope and size is becoming increasingly blurred as the private industry is taking the reins. I wouldn't be surprised if the first man to land on Mars is funded by a company instead of a government.
     
  8. Kubla Kahn

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    While I give the dude props for ambition, you are one slip up and resulting disater away from setting civilian space exploration back another 30 years. Probably more a publicity than anything actually feasible, he seems pretty adept at these type of headline grabbing announcements. Get low earth orbit launches down to something mere semi-mortals could afford first, or your hyperloop, or your solar panel shingling.
     
  9. Nettdata

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    I disagree.

    The dude has some very, very ambitious goals for space travel and Mars colonization, and manned travel around the moon is one of the major milestones along that path. If it fails, he'll pick himself back up and keep going, just like he's done with all of his other "failures".

    The media is quick to jump on any failure like it's the end of the world, when it's not... a lot of times, failure is progress. Take a look at the vertical landings SpaceX has done... the failures were all doom-and-gloom in the media, but they weren't.

    They are getting very, very good at space travel, and I don't think this is as much of a gamble or challenge as some people think... I think this is his early version of the Tesla for space tourism. Very rich people will pay huge money to go out and gawk at the moon and come back, and that will help fund things. While that is happening, it will help to make things cheaper in the long run, until it might become affordable to "mere mortals".
     
  10. Kubla Kahn

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    I don't have an issue with him making the ambitious claims for publicity. I do think it seems premature given their successes as well as missed timelines as mentioned in the article. It may be easier now with the advancements in technology but just imagine The blowback if they lost people in space. The consequences, though maybe not fully deserved given the nature of the work, in the public eye would be disastrous. Imagine if apollo 13 was lost. Would we have even seen the shuttle program by the 90s?
     
  11. Rush-O-Matic

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    The disasters and deaths that NASA had made them work harder to succeed for the next time. They didn't stop when astronauts burned up on the launch pad, or the Challenger blew up. When an airline slides off the runway into icy waters, or falls from the sky, it doesn't halt air travel. They learn and advance and improve safety. I don't see why SpaceX would be treated differently.
     
  12. Nettdata

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    Interestingly enough, when the Challenger explosion happened it was a case of engineers trying to raise a technical concern and politics overriding that and forcing the launch.

    Musk has learned from that and has implemented an "anybody can stop the launch for any reason at any time" policy. During the last abort, he quoted the old saying, "it's better to be on the ground and wishing you were in space than being in space and wishing you were on the ground."

    I have much more faith in SpaceX to do things right than a government bureaucracy that is preoccupied with handling Trump and keeping (never mind growing) its budget.
     
  13. Kubla Kahn

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    You don't see why it's be different? The economics of sending a handful of super rich into space vs airplanes mass transportation and global economic impact? NASA was backed by the government budget and still was backed up Years when disasters happen. Listen I love what he's doing and hope he succeeds at everything he puts his mind to. Id just be more cautious in the 'you got to learn to crawl before you walk' aspect since he doesn't have total government funding if he fails. Public reaction might not be logical but it would be a reality he'd have to deal with.
     
  14. Nettdata

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    Public reaction had a direct affect due to the public money going into NASA. If anything, I'd call it an over-reaction, as well as a recognition that there were issues (political and technical) within NASA that had to be sorted out.

    SpaceX doesn't have as many of those concerns, except for things like the cancellation of the government ISS contracts.
     
  15. Kampf Trinker

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    I think if there was a malfunction that caused fatalities it would do a lot of damage to the reputation of SpaceX, and it would be awhile before people were willing the shell out the huge amounts of cash to be on the next run. Even in that scenario SpaceX has plenty of other ways they can make money while their reputation recovers from the fallout. If worst came to worst Musk could always just grease some palms to get more government contracts, which is what he's done in the past.
     
  16. Nettdata

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    How so? I'd like to see some sources on that.
     
  17. Kampf Trinker

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    That was a bit overstated. He's a frequent campaign donor, he gives to both parties and rarely publicly endorses a candidate. In this political climate, I highly doubt that's for ideological reasons. He's known for this quote:

    It's probably buying a seat at the table, rather than just getting the contracts. The falcon 9 outbid all the competitors so it certainly doesn't require anything super shady. He's not a huge donor relative to some competitors. In any case, he's very well connected, especially now that he's on the council of economic advisers and I'd imagine he'd still be able to make good money contracting from the government even if one particular launch gave SpaceX a hit on PR.
     
  18. wexton

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    https://www.theguardian.com/science...scientists-quebec-haematite-377bn-428bn-years

    Not space but science so close enough?

    Scientists say they have found the world’s oldest fossils, thought to have formed between 3.77bn and 4.28bn years ago. “If these rocks do indeed turn out to be 4.28 [bn years old] then we are talking about the origins of life developing very soon after the oceans formed 4.4bn years ago,” said Matthew Dodd, the first author of the research from University College, London.
     
  19. Rush-O-Matic

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  20. Nettdata

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