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Thread: The SPAAAAAAAACE Thread

  1. #91
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    NASA's really good at underestimating its probes...

  2. #92
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    I was listening to npr when they were talking about this, and they played a tone that they use to judge solar winds, and how it changed when it exited the solar system. It turned all high pitched, and i just got goosebumps, cool stuff!!!

  3. #93
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fixer808 View Post
    NASA's really good at underestimating its probes...
    Indeed. I'm only sorry I won't be around to hear what they'll have to say for themselves when V'Ger shows up.

  4. #94
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    I was wondering if this URL would've been perfect for this thread. It goes up to the Sloan Great Wall.

    http://htwins.net/scale2/
    Last edited by Halo Infinity; 11-12-2014 at 09:01 AM.

  5. #95
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    Huge day for private sector space exploration.

    First, Orbital Sciences became the second private company to dock a craft to the ISS with its cygnus.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/29/cargo-ship-reaches-space-station/2890699/


    Then SpaceX (who was the first) launched their improved Falcon 9 v1.1 with a new payload fairing that successfully delivered a Canadian space weather satellite into orbit. They also tested reigniting their stage one rocket during reentry as a step towards eventually landing their rockets and reusing them. No word yet as to how the re-ignition test went.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24326413


    Elon Musk just gave an update on the re-ignition test.

    "Rocket booster relit twice (supersonic retro & landing), but spun up due to aero torque, so fuel centrifuged & we flamed out"

    "Between this flight & Grasshopper tests, I think we now have all the pieces of the puzzle to bring the rocket back home."
    Last edited by themethatyouknow; 09-29-2013 at 03:47 PM. Reason: New shit has come to light, man

  6. #96
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    Just finished watching the first episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Such a stunningly beautiful show to watch. I was blinking back tears at the end.

  7. #97
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    Spoiler alerts, dammit!!

    I'm excited, it doesn't air for another 2 hours here!

  8. #98
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    Here's evidence for detection of gravity waves and perhaps proof that Guth's model of the inflationary universe is correct. Here's a piece from Nature that gives some background on gravity waves, but I can't tell if it's behind a pay wall.

  9. #99
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    The primordial gravity wave news is very cool. I eagerly await reviews by other experts. If the observations hold up it's the final confirmation of general relativity, direct evidence of universal inflation, and the first sign of quantum gravity.

    In other space news: in the '90s I worked for the Canadian Space Agency. I was the environmental test engineer for the joints on the Canadarm2 which is on the ISS.

  10. #100
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timinator View Post
    In other space news: in the '90s I worked for the Canadian Space Agency. I was the environmental test engineer for the joints on the Canadarm2 which is on the ISS.
    Whoa really? I just read "An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth" by Chris Hadfield who Installed Canadarm2. It seemed like the CSA really took pride in their role in adding that piece to the station.

  11. #101
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    Well, that was our baby, the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The original Canadarms on the shuttles were both successful and iconic, so Canada felt it had both a track record and a precedent to meet.

    The "hand" of the new arm (the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, or SPDM) is very cool too.

    I miss working in the space industry.

  12. #102
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    This is pretty big news.

  13. #103
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    Found this by chance. It strikes me that although this is one of the coolest things humanity has ever done, I never remembered to look for it in the internet. Anyway, here is the full content of the Voyager golden record:


  14. #104
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    Holy crap! just watched the Orbital Sciences Anteres rocket blow up on a live stream. Bad times

  15. #105
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    ^Gaaaaah, the last one of those I watched live a couple of months back went off without a hitch. I guess that's good and bad, depending on what side you're on.

    Watching that launch today was like seeing those old time 50s/60s clips where the rockets just blow up, or they go up a little and blow up, etc.
    Pretty entertaining.

    Hope the astronauts have enough Tang to last until the next resupply.

  16. #106
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    This is a neat Wired article on how they generated the images of the black hole for Interstellar. Kip Thorne, an astrophysicist who specializes in general relativity and who (along with with Misner and Wheeler) wrote Gravitation, the go to textbook for general relativity, developed the equations to describe an black hole with an accretion disk around it. The visual FX people used those equations to create a simulation. Gravitational lensing does some really weird shit, leading to a really cool halo effect around the black hole. They're even going to publish a few scientific papers on the work.

  17. #107
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    http://new.livestream.com/accounts/362/events/3544091

    Live webcast from the ESA mission control of the Rosetta comet landing.

  18. #108
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    Ted Cruz has been chosen to oversee NASA.

  19. #109
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    Sorry, but one more time, Ted Cruz?!

    It's like making Ted Nugent the head of the EPA.

  20. #110
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    I've been seeing a lot of photos lately that purport to be of huge structures...buildings and such...on the moon.

    Then i saw this new documentary about aliens on the moon on the syfy channel.

    Is it possible that we put structures on the moon, and that we have been there more times than NASA has let on, and people are claiming that the structures are alien in origin so that anyone discussing images like these would be ridiculed?

    Take a look at this

    Why, at no point in the documentary, does ANYONE say that the structures may be man made?
    I don't doubt that there is other life in the universe, but that being said, i damn sure don't think they've set up shop on the moon.

    The military, however...that's a different story

    So what do you guys think? Are ALL of the pictures just optical illusions and such? Is EVERYONE lying?

    I just don't know what to think about this. We had planned to build a military base on the moon (project horizon.)

    Then we just stopped going.

  21. #111
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    This is awesome. Five years' worth of solar images in different wavelengths presented as a timelapse.


  22. #112
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    For everyone who thought Mars still has flowing water, you were correct!

    Cydonia Springs Water, yum.
    Last edited by Jon; 09-28-2015 at 11:19 AM. Reason: changed "that" to "who"

  23. #113
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    Facepalm this like there's no tomorrow, please.

  24. #114
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    Holy shit, did they purposely pick the two dumbest fucking idiots to oppose Bill Nye, or what? That was awful and painful to watch.

    Bill Nye was so good at throwing shade back though. Love that dude.

  25. #115
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    "what's 40%?"

    "Less than half"

    Haaaaaahahaha

  26. #116
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  27. #117
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    Cool stuff. The fact that the possibility of alien megastructures is even being considered, however unlikely, is so surreal!
    Last edited by Alexandros; 10-15-2015 at 09:07 PM.

  28. #118
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    so NASA has just announced that they've discovered a set of 7 earth-sized planets orbiting a "nearby" star (40 light years away) in a system they're calling Trappist 1

  29. #119
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  30. #120
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    This is a pretty neat Goldilocks zone illustration for TRAPPIST-1 (from Nature):


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