Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby NathanLoiselle » Wed Nov 15, 2017 11:45 pm

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:They discovered another exoplanet, Ross128b


Is it mellow and enjoys painting landscapes?
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby SandTea » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:59 pm

Some other galaxy threw a rock at us. As far as I know this is the first detected interstellar object to whizz by. It also has an odd appearance. Space is cool.

‘Oumuamua is a cigar-shaped, 800-meter-long asteroid, red in color, with a surface similar to comets and organic-rich asteroids found elsewhere in our solar system, according to the astronomers. Little is known about its composition. But its existence is, for now, exciting enough.


'Oumuamua is of Hawaiian origin meaning “a messenger from afar arriving first.”

When astronomers examined and measured the object’s movements, they were stunned. The object didn’t originate in our solar system. It had come from somewhere else, and had traveled through interstellar space for who knows how long to get here


In some fun news, A flat earther is about to probably kill himself. Homemade steam powered rocket time! Ironically he has to use "ball earth" math to make it a success.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby SandTea » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:10 am

Double post but. I mean, c'mon. right?

Michigan meteor. And parts have been found


Oh man, there is so much. Water on Mars, a lost satellite, black holes burping, that sweet NASA vid about orion, the controversy over the first black female astronaut to live on the ISS being put off her mission and some admittedly awesome corporate space stuff.

I think I got everything linked properly.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby IamNotCreepy » Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:32 pm

An object assumed to be a meteor fell into a wheat field in an Indian village. Residents took pieces of it home as a souvenir.

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Unfortunately, just like in Joe Dirt, it turned out to be ...

Spoiler: show
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby RatElemental » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:38 am

SandTea wrote:In some fun news, A flat earther is about to probably kill himself. Homemade steam powered rocket time! Ironically he has to use "ball earth" math to make it a success.

I'm not entirely convinced that guy isn't just pretending to be a flat earther to get flat earthers to fund the rocket projects he already wanted to do.

What ever became of that launch anyway?
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby cmsellers » Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:41 pm

I've been thinking about this for awhile, ever since I read "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan. And like Egan, I don't think we'll ever settle outside of the Solar System in the flesh (or at least not before the sun turns into a red giant, if we somehow make it that long).

There are at least four reasons I have for thinking this. The first is the Fermi Paradox. If it were feasible for intelligent life to colonize other star systems then it should have colonized Earth. Of course there are solutions to the Fermi Paradox to be sure, but I would say tha tit establishes a presupposition against extrasolar colonization.

The second is that biological organisms are incredibly finicky. Humans have issues trying to adjust to circadian cycles far off 24 hours, I can't fall asleep with low air pressure, even on Earth. Hell, there are places on Earth that are uninhabitable. I suspect that we'd develop all kinds of physical and psychological issues. If we stay in the Solar System, we can either solve them with help from Earth or send people who develop those issues back to Earth. Outside the Solar System? Not so much.

The third is that by the time we develop the technology to make interstellar travel feasible, we'll have the technology to colonize other parts of the Earth. If we need even more space after that, we can build cities at LaGrange points we can colonize Mars and the Jovian moons, we can build cities in Saturn's atmosphere.

And this brings me to my fourth point: old science fiction assumed constant population growth. However once you reach US levels of affluence, population growth falls, and eventually so does total population. Now, we might achieve biological immortality eventually, which would guarantee population growth, but given that people tend to become more conservative (in the personality sense) as they age, a society composed mostly of immortals is not going to go gallivanting off into space.

I do think that some colonization of the rest of the Solar System is likely. Space cities at LaGrange points, in orbit around Earth, or in independent orbits seem likely. Pretty much anywhere else in the Solar System except Jupiter seems like a plausible location for at least manned research stations. I don't think it's imperative that we do this, I think that our natural curiosity will make us do it nonetheless.

And for the same reason, I think that we will eventually send umanned probes to other star systems with the goal of returning to Earth with information. We've already sent off unmanned probes without such a goal. We might even send probes with people in them, if we perfect the art of cryogenics, I can't imagine a generation ship exploratory vessel being deemed ethical.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby IamNotCreepy » Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:55 pm

I think you are discounting mankind's adventurer spirit. There were people racing to Antarctica, just because. True, people did not settle there, but they lacked the technology to do it.

In the next couple of hundred years, interstellar travel won't probably be feasible, but what about 1000 years from now? Travel and terraforming may become easy enough that people will go exploring just to see what else is out there.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby cmsellers » Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:02 pm

I'm not discounting the possibility that humans will visit other star systems, indeed "Wang's Carpets" presents just such a possibility. And I said that curiosity will likely drive us to establish permanent space colonies within the Solar System.

But looking at your Antarctic example: oly Argentina has tried to colonize Antarctica. And their settlements on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most temperate part of Antarctica, have so far failed. Anywhere off Earth is going to be far less hospitable than that. And Argentina only tried to settle Antarctica because it claims part of it. Any interstellar colonies would be too far away to effectively govern.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby Marcuse » Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:30 pm

cmsellers wrote:I'm not discounting the possibility that humans will visit other star systems, indeed "Wang's Carpets" presents just such a possibility. And I said that curiosity will likely drive us to establish permanent space colonies within the Solar System.

But looking at your Antarctic example: oly Argentina has tried to colonize Antarctica. And their settlements on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most temperate part of Antarctica, have so far failed. Anywhere off Earth is going to be far less hospitable than that. And Argentina only tried to settle Antarctica because it claims part of it. Any interstellar colonies would be too far away to effectively govern.


I don't think Antarctica is a good example though, given most countries have signed a treaty to protect Antarctica and not recognise any new territorial claims upon it. Most of the countries with existing territorial claims are signatories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System

I think that the problem with space colonisation outside the solar system is that it's more or less "throw people into the black and hope for the best". We'd have no way of even knowing if they were there, dead, or what for a long time. Even if we gave them tech to be able to speak to us in a reasonably quick fashion we'd be out of range to help or support them. It'd be more or less a suicide mission.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby cmsellers » Wed Jan 24, 2018 7:48 pm

Then look at the Canadian High Arctic. There, during the Cold War the Canadians moved several Inuktitut families to the far north of Canada in an attempt to reinforce Canada's claims to the region. Even though it's possible for Inuits to live there as there's plenty of seals and polar bears to eat, and even though the natives engage in sport hunting tours and ecotourism, those towns established by Her Majesty's government have been declining in population. Without the continuing support of the government of Canada I doubt they'd remain there at all.

On the other end of the scale, some projections suggest that the Persian Gulf region may become uninhabitable without air conditioning, something which is currently subsidized by the oil wealth of the region. Likewise, oil money permits desalinization plants along the Persian Gulf, where fresh water is otherwise scarce.

We can make these areas habitable because they're on our planet. They're still fairly close to ideal conditions to us, and we have the whole planet to draw on support settlements in Ellsemere Island and Dubai. This would become more difficult elsewhere in the Solar System, and impossible beyond it.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby RatElemental » Wed Jan 24, 2018 11:27 pm

I think you're also discounting the role evolution would play in this. Even without health issues from being in a different star system that degree of separation in populations can easily lead to diversions into two different species.

That's why the aliens are silent, we haven't evolved into them yet.

Or have we?!
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby SandTea » Thu Jan 25, 2018 1:41 am

Rocket Lab put a disco ball in orbit that will be able to be seen with the naked eye. They call it 'Humanity Star'.

Image

"The whole point of the program is to get everybody looking up at the star, but also past the star into the Universe, and reflect about the fact that we’re one species, on one planet," Beck told Ars in an interview before the launch. "This is not necessarily part of the Rocket Lab program; it’s more of a personal program. It’s certainly consistent with our goal of trying to democratize space."


The company intends the object to be visible to the naked eye, all across the planet. "Most people will be familiar with the Iridium flares, and this has got much, much more surface area than an Iridium flare," Beck said. "In theory, it will be easy to find." Such a "flare" occurs when the solar panels or antennae of an Iridium communication satellite reflect sunlight onto the surface of the Earth.


The "iridiun flares" part is just about how we can see the sun reflect off the ISS and other solar panels, in case it wasn't clear.

There is a website set up to track when it might be around you and I've heard March will be a good time to spot it for the US.

Also, if you're worried about space debris, it'll come down and burn up in the atmosphere in around 9 months.

It is a sort of "in theory" thing but launching a "disco ball" has technically been done before, albiet with non artistic purposes.

Spoiler: show
Image


This space art does convince me that one day a company might be able to put up a big ol' billboard on our tidally locked moon for the right price. I just hope it's something cool and not like a shampoo still.

EDIT___

Didn't see this at first. Sorry.
random_nerd wrote:I'm not entirely convinced that guy isn't just pretending to be a flat earther to get flat earthers to fund the rocket projects he already wanted to do.

What ever became of that launch anyway?


I have come around to that thinking but here is the latest update. He's going to launch on private land because the bureau of land management wouldn't let him last time. A whole 1800ft is the goal... Bruh, just hop on a commercial flight.

EDIT___X2- to address the actual topic (sorry)
I'm still hoping we invent/discover a Stargate though. Then we could find habitable places that would be technically close.
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby CarrieVS » Thu Jan 25, 2018 1:49 pm

SpaceX have successfully test-fired the engines of their Falcon Heavy rocket, which is kinda cool.

If you're not up to speed with the latest in rocket development, this may be useful context
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby satan_n_stuff » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:32 am

Marcuse wrote:I think that the problem with space colonisation outside the solar system is that it's more or less "throw people into the black and hope for the best". We'd have no way of even knowing if they were there, dead, or what for a long time. Even if we gave them tech to be able to speak to us in a reasonably quick fashion we'd be out of range to help or support them. It'd be more or less a suicide mission.

How exactly does this make it different from the rest of human history?
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Re: Spaaaaaace Exploration and Human Progress

Postby DoglovingJim » Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:58 am

satan_n_stuff wrote:
Marcuse wrote:I think that the problem with space colonisation outside the solar system is that it's more or less "throw people into the black and hope for the best". We'd have no way of even knowing if they were there, dead, or what for a long time. Even if we gave them tech to be able to speak to us in a reasonably quick fashion we'd be out of range to help or support them. It'd be more or less a suicide mission.

How exactly does this make it different from the rest of human history?

Sounds pretty much like whenever we did colonize something.
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