02 Jan 19
@sonhouse saiddid you see the photo? It looks like a blurry eggplant. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ultima-thule-flyby-new-horizons/579244/
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-healthy-spacecraft-nasa-historic-flyby.html
First good news from NASA to kick start 2019.
We should be launching hundreds of these probes.
02 Jan 19
@wildgrass saidI can only assume you are coming from it sarcastically. That photo, if you had dug into it just a bit, was taken from 1 million miles away. It passed at around 2000 miles at closest approach and the bit rate is only 500 bits per second at 5 odd billion miles away, a decent rate considering the signal is coming in at minus 190 Dbm.
did you see the photo? It looks like a blurry eggplant. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/ultima-thule-flyby-new-horizons/579244/
We should be launching hundreds of these probes.
So take your sarcasm elsewhere.
05 Jan 19
@sonhouse saidIt would be pretty amazing if there was a real eggplant floating around in space 3 billion miles away.
I can only assume you are coming from it sarcastically. That photo, if you had dug into it just a bit, was taken from 1 million miles away. It passed at around 2000 miles at closest approach and the bit rate is only 500 bits per second at 5 odd billion miles away, a decent rate considering the signal is coming in at minus 190 Dbm.
So take your sarcasm elsewhere.
Yes I was being slightly sarcastic. I understand the immense technical achievement, of course, but it highlights how incremental our extraterrestrial discoveries are without well-funded space exploration programs.
If I was old enough to gamble in 1989, I would have bet money that in 30 years we would have at least a few people living on the moon.
17 Jan 19
Back then the moon landings were considered a stunt that beat the Soviets to the punch and after we proved that point the politicians lost interest, a big mistake as it turns out. We COULD have had colonies on the moon way before now if the pinheads in government realized what we really had done.
I believe Nixon was quoted as saying we don't need that sci fi stuff anyway.
Smart guy.
17 Jan 19
@sonhouse said...and now China is the first in the world to grow plants on the moon.
Back then the moon landings were considered a stunt that beat the Soviets to the punch and after we proved that point the politicians lost interest, a big mistake as it turns out. We COULD have had colonies on the moon way before now if the pinheads in government realized what we really had done.
I believe Nixon was quoted as saying we don't need that sci fi stuff anyway.
Smart guy.
Well done!
17 Jan 19
@ponderable saidJeff Bezos should team up with Elon Musk to get one of those giant Amazon warehouses up there. There'd be a self-sustaining community in no time.
...and now China is the first in the world to grow plants on the moon.
Well done!
18 Jan 19
5 edits
@sonhouse saidBut wouldn't that be a huge waste of time money and resources that could be much better spent on other things?
a big mistake as it turns out. We COULD have had colonies on the moon way before now
And why would any sane person want and choose to permanently live in what is in effect a baron hostile desert far FAR worse than Death valley, which AT LEAST has a breathable atmosphere, as compared to staying in the relative paradise of planet Earth? -I think that would just attract the nutters.
19 Jan 19
@humy saidI think it would attract scientists.
But wouldn't that be a huge waste of time money and resources that could be much better spent on other things?
And why would any sane person want and choose to permanently live in what is in effect a baron hostile desert far FAR worse than Death valley, which AT LEAST has a breathable atmosphere, as compared to staying in the relative paradise of planet Earth? -I think that would just attract the nutters.
People spend months to years in the ISS. People spend years on Antarctica. Are they insane?