Space stuff thread

[z3r010]

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[Anak]

I see google has a new search icon in the upper left corner to celebrate:

and when you click on it, it opens to this on their search page:

 

[mjf]

The exoplanet discovery is fascinating. I think they are going to try and estimate the planets atmosphere - I don't know how they do that. Being "only" 40 light years away you'd want to be looking for non naturally occurring em radiation. The signals would have been generated as early as 1976.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yep John I saw this on the news last night - am fascinated by how they detect these systems and how they actually find what they are composed of.

The fact that they are so far away is a bit daunting though as in how they speculate if and when humans could be living there and given the physics of doing that it might take some time

 

[mjf]

I don't think human beings would be going there soon but life may exist on those planets. Electromagnet radiation is a basic physical phenomenon and not a human invention. An advanced form of life would probably get the hang of it.

Traveling to distant worlds is for future physics and engineering where you don't physically move from A to B to get from A to B.

 

[chefduane]

So he probably flew over where I was born (born after the war of course) and Tim my son has actually built radio control aircraft for some years now and one was a P-51 Though these days being married has cramped his style if you know what I mean because building them these days is VERY expensive.

Those and the Spitfire both beautiful aircraft and we used to go to a place called Temora out here to watch the old war birds fly - and there is nothing like hearing that Merlin V12 roaring past eh?

He was stationed at Bodney. Part of the Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney. P51D PE-V 441-3849 "Little Buster II" The first Mustang he flew was the B model with the Allison in it. Marginal power at low altitude and gutless at higher alts. The D had the RR Merlin and lookout sister!! Chase 109's and 111's all day, and at altitude. Ditched one in the North Sea off Ipswich once but a Brit mine sweeper saw the ditching and came around and picked him up. Thanks Limeys!!!

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Interesting Duane me I come form the south - Sussex and the nearest airfield during the war was at Biggin Hill it is in rural Kent or was should I say because now it has been swallowed up by Greater London

Some pics in this London Biggin Hill Airport - Wikipedia

It must have been exciting for your father as well as scary too but I think they all did a truly brave thing in them days.

 

[A Guy]

Humans continue the way we are, we'll need to leave the planet at some point, and will need a replacement. Better find an Earth II at some point...

A Guy

 

[Anak]

Solar Eclipse in the Southern Hemisphere....

Humans continue the way we are, we'll need to leave the planet at some point, and will need a replacement. Better find an Earth II at some point...

A Guy

I agree, IMHO; We should of had cities on the Moon and Mars by now, damn politicians, too little, too late!

~~~ ~~~~ ~~~
​

In other news...Solar Eclipse in the Southern Hemisphere./NASA

Start 12:10 UTC
End 17:35 UTC
February 26, 2017

There is a small red dot in the middle of the shadow. Animation courtesy of the NASA link.


Time and Date: February 26, 2017: Annular Solar Eclipse

 

[chefduane]

Interesting Duane me I come form the south - Sussex and the nearest airfield during the war was at Biggin Hill it is in rural Kent or was should I say because now it has been swallowed up by Greater London

Some pics in this London Biggin Hill Airport - Wikipedia

It must have been exciting for your father as well as scary too but I think they all did a truly brave thing in them days.

Yes, I agree and thanks for the kind comments. I always remembered my father as just my dad, but if you think back to '41-'44 or so my dad would have been 20 or 21 and the USAAC says 'Ok son, here is a P51, go protect the good guys and shoot the bad guys..." Pretty daunting for a kid of 20 or so years old. But its kinda' like a 25 year old F-18 pilot of today - and that's what amazes me about what my father did back then.

Google Earth has RAF Bodney located west of Watton and north of Brandon off A1065.
Wiki: RAF Bodney - Wikipedia

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yes mate I did actually Google that and I shall message you as not to wreck the thread

 

[Anak]

Putting Space Exploration in Perspective.....

Humans continue the way we are, we'll need to leave the planet at some point, and will need a replacement. Better find an Earth II at some point...

A Guy

I agree, IMHO; We should of had cities on the Moon and Mars by now, damn politicians, too little, too late!

Heard this on the local news the other day....

Why do we explore? In the days of Magellan, Columbus and da Gama, undoubtedly the average person thought it was foolish to risk lives and spend large amounts of money to find out what was beyond the horizon. Those explorers didn’t find what they expected, but their explorations changed the world....

....The most often-used argument against space exploration is that we should use that money to alleviate problems here on Earth. But that argument fails to realize that NASA doesn’t just pack millions of dollar bills into a rocket and blast them into space. The money NASA uses creates jobs, providing an opportunity for some of the world’s brightest minds to use their talents to, yes, actually benefit humanity....

....NASA’s annual budget for fiscal year 2009 is $17.2 billion. The proposed budget for FY 2010 would raise it to about $18.7 billion. That sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but let’s put it in perspective. The US annual budget is almost $3 trillion and NASA’s cut of the US budget is less than 1%, which isn’t big enough to create even a single line on this pie chart....[see source for chart]

A few other things to put NASA’s budget in perspective:

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin mentioned recently that US consumers spend more on pizza ($27 billion) than NASA’s budget. (Head nod to Ian O’Neill)

Miles O’Brien recently brought it to our attention that the amount of money Bernie Maddof scammed with his Ponzi scheme ($50 billion) is way bigger than NASA’s budget.

Americans spend a lot of money on some pretty ridiculous things. Returning to that oft-used phrase about spending the money used in space to solve the problems on Earth, consider this: *

Annually, Americans spend about $88.8 billion on tobacco products and another $97 billion on alcohol. $313 billion is spent each year in America for treatment of tobacco and alcohol related medical problems.

Likewise, people in the US spend about $64 billion on illegal drugs, and $114.2 billion for health-related care of drug use.

Americans also spend $586.5 billion a year on gambling.

It’s possible we could give up some other things to help alleviate the problems in our country without having to give up the spirit of exploration.

*the numbers used here are from various years, depending on what was readily available, but range from the years 2000 and 2008.

Source: http://8 Ridiculous Things Bigger Than NASA’s Budget | www.universetoday.com

NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2017 is $19.0 billion and the House is willing to give 19.5B with the Senate 19.3B but, there are stipulations that go along with that increase that affects NASA's original budget, and with the new administration's view on privatizing it will take a lot longer to get "where no one has gone before".

 

[mjf]

I think many people aren't captivated by space exploration or more importantly science in general. I'm certainly not one of them.
It is like the decline of the Roman empire - "Bread and Circuses". Just give me my iPhone.

 

[Anak]

Hmm....

I imagine you enjoy taking pictures and video with your iPhone, I do with my phone; If we had never ventured into space all of us would still be using a kodak brownie, and using landlines for communicating with family and friends.

NASA developed integrated circuits that were used in the Apollo Moon program and that lead to computer microchips, and without that there would have been a delay in creating the circuits that run our phones and the CCD [charged couple device] that takes our pictures.

Related:
Apollo 11 moon landing: top 15 NASA inventions

 

[mjf]

My reference to an iPhone was intended as a somewhat cynical comment - I don't own an iPhone. I like photography and use my Nikon DSLR.
Never mind NASA I worked for one of the most successful Labs in the world - Bell Labs (I don't think I contributed much). What did the US do - effectively close it down. Actually a Bell Labs scientist shared the Nobel prize for the invention of the CCD sensor and other Bell Lab scientists for the development of the transistor + 6 other Nobel prizes.
Good luck NASA.

PS: These are just statements of fact.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yep well I tend to agree that science is of more benefit to us all and I was just viewing the other day smart watches that took pictures for heavens sake. I was also surprised that these devices were using CPU's that had clock speeds at around 530Mhz which just a few years ago we thought was really fast in the old computers we used to use as is memory now and storage and all in the small space of a watch!

Now I know it all sounds pretty good travelling to other places and settling down there but being a bit of a pessimistic realist I think that unless we overcome the problem of travelling at close to the speed of light it does look a rather despondent picture - given the fact that our Sun is going to decline gradually over the next few billion years and what is now the Earth is going to be swallowed up by that decline. Plus I guess all life will be long gone before that happens. But on the bright side it is going to be a long time before that takes place and perhaps there may be some bright spark who comes up with a solution.
The sad part is that I will not be around to see such changes

 

[torchwood]

So who remebers this baby,


Roy

 

[Anak]

I've never had the pleasure to watch it on TV, but isn't that the Liberator from the Blake7 series?

 

[Anak]

Photos From The Web...

The Firefox Nebula:

Source: Bad Astronomy
Picture by: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and H. Schweiker (WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF)

Edit: Adding enhanced Firefox picture wife found on facebook courtesy: The Space Academy



A time lapse of spacex 9 launch then landing:

Source: Eight minute long exposure of the Falcon 9 CRS-9 launch & landing from Jetty Park | Reddit

 

[z3r010]

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