Space

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  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    This is all just a conspiracy to raise money for better Photoshopping. Everyone knows it's turtles all the way down.

    lol. Sometimes I do believe exploration is a money pit because the way the objectives on grants are written. Basically they are given money to make educated guesses with no recourse if they are wrong except to say, "well, we know one place it isn't". They are doing another funding grant for the Endeavor, even though there has never been conclusive evidence they are even close to being on the right track to find it. They have mapped a lot of pretty seas though. So the conversation is, if it a continuing roose for funding, or legitimate exploration.
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  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    Ah I didn't know that about the funding. That does kind of suck.

    Yeah. The National Science Foundation does a lot of grant proposals for Solar and Planet Grants (SPGs), which now Pluto does not qualify for. It is an odd bias towards larger bodies, somehow believing they have more scientific discovery potential than small objects and bodies. Which is kind of moot with focus on asteroid Bennu lately and aligning a space craft with it for sampling. If you think about it might be one of the most significant achievements of man - to send a 10 foot probe 1 million plus miles from earth to align with the orbital trajectory of a 4.5 billion year old rock traveling over 63,000 miles per hour miles per hour through space and on a crash course with Earth in the next 100'ish years, with the intent to stick out a long arm and scoop up about 4 pounds of material off it and zip home.

    Cray Cray.

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  • RunHardBeStrong
    RunHardBeStrong Posts: 33,069 Member
    Timshel_ wrote: »
    Ah I didn't know that about the funding. That does kind of suck.

    Yeah. The National Science Foundation does a lot of grant proposals for Solar and Planet Grants (SPGs), which now Pluto does not qualify for. It is an odd bias towards larger bodies, somehow believing they have more scientific discovery potential than small objects and bodies. Which is kind of moot with focus on asteroid Bennu lately and aligning a space craft with it for sampling. If you think about it might be one of the most significant achievements of man - to send a 10 foot probe 1 million plus miles from earth to align with the orbital trajectory of a 4.5 billion year old rock traveling over 63,000 miles per hour miles per hour through space and on a crash course with Earth in the next 100'ish years, with the intent to stick out a long arm and scoop up about 4 pounds of material off it and zip home.

    Cray Cray.

    Wow. That is pretty amazing. I have been following and learning.... all very interesting.
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  • RunHardBeStrong
    RunHardBeStrong Posts: 33,069 Member
    BTW @RunHardBeStrong, what made you want to be an astronaut before?

    Honestly, I don't remember when it started. I was young. My dad and I would lay in the backyard most every night that we could and look at the stars. Talking about them, among so many other things. I just have forever been fascinated by all things space and all the unknowns out there. I just think it would be so amazing to see our world from a different view point as I travel thousands of miles away to see and learn so many things that so few people get to do. I still star gaze most every night and get my kids to do it with me.
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  • RunHardBeStrong
    RunHardBeStrong Posts: 33,069 Member
    BTW @RunHardBeStrong, what made you want to be an astronaut before?

    Honestly, I don't remember when it started. I was young. My dad and I would lay in the backyard most every night that we could and look at the stars. Talking about them, among so many other things. I just have forever been fascinated by all things space and all the unknowns out there. I just think it would be so amazing to see our world from a different view point as I travel thousands of miles away to see and learn so many things that so few people get to do. I still star gaze most every night and get my kids to do it with me.

    That's awesome! Did you get any good pics of the supermoon recently? I only have my iphone for pictures so it just looks like a street lamp lol. Quite bright though

    LMAO! Same. It was so cool though. I don't know if you looked at the moon the night after the supermoon. There was a really cool ring around it. I had never seen anything like it before. I haven't googled it yet, I need to. I also was too lazy to get out my camera equipment and get some good pics. I should have done that too. I won't get that opportunity again.
  • nukephysics
    nukephysics Posts: 406 Member
    Timshel_ wrote: »
    Ah I didn't know that about the funding. That does kind of suck.

    Yeah. The National Science Foundation does a lot of grant proposals for Solar and Planet Grants (SPGs), which now Pluto does not qualify for. It is an odd bias towards larger bodies, somehow believing they have more scientific discovery potential than small objects and bodies. Which is kind of moot with focus on asteroid Bennu lately and aligning a space craft with it for sampling. If you think about it might be one of the most significant achievements of man - to send a 10 foot probe 1 million plus miles from earth to align with the orbital trajectory of a 4.5 billion year old rock traveling over 63,000 miles per hour miles per hour through space and on a crash course with Earth in the next 100'ish years, with the intent to stick out a long arm and scoop up about 4 pounds of material off it and zip home.

    Cray Cray.

    Wow. That is pretty amazing. I have been following and learning.... all very interesting.

    Just for the sake of argument...the grant money used to fund space exploration and discover new technologies have greatly benefited our lives. Where do you think we would be today without medical imaging? CT scans were developed for space imagery, and now it's used to save peoples lives.
    http://www.care2.com/causes/5-things-we-have-thanks-to-space-exploration.html
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  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    BTW @RunHardBeStrong, what made you want to be an astronaut before?

    Honestly, I don't remember when it started. I was young. My dad and I would lay in the backyard most every night that we could and look at the stars. Talking about them, among so many other things. I just have forever been fascinated by all things space and all the unknowns out there. I just think it would be so amazing to see our world from a different view point as I travel thousands of miles away to see and learn so many things that so few people get to do. I still star gaze most every night and get my kids to do it with me.

    That's awesome! Did you get any good pics of the supermoon recently? I only have my iphone for pictures so it just looks like a street lamp lol. Quite bright though

    LMAO! Same. It was so cool though. I don't know if you looked at the moon the night after the supermoon. There was a really cool ring around it. I had never seen anything like it before. I haven't googled it yet, I need to. I also was too lazy to get out my camera equipment and get some good pics. I should have done that too. I won't get that opportunity again.

    I believe this is the answer. Which means it's cold where you are.

    The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring.

    33xmmcdobzqw.jpg
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    Just for the sake of argument...the grant money used to fund space exploration and discover new technologies have greatly benefited our lives. Where do you think we would be today without medical imaging? CT scans were developed for space imagery, and now it's used to save peoples lives.
    http://www.care2.com/causes/5-things-we-have-thanks-to-space-exploration.html

    I don't disagree, but that also assumes those advances could not have been found another way, which given the deep and breadth of digital imagery probably isn't correct. Or more likely that it would have cost less developed in a private setting and not through government funded projects.

    Working in the government sector, and specifically dealing with grants and proposals, I have seen really good things and the wasteful side of it.

    I am all for scientific advancement, and I realize innovation, exploration, research and the like all take funding. However, in a good coffee analogy a colleague of mine once used..."Grants are like buying a fancy drink at Starbucks. Well yes, you do get some good coffee in there, but there is a lot of froth and foam that goes along with it, as well as sweetening to make it more palatable".





  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    edited November 2016
    Space is truly unfathomable. I love watching cosmos with my girl Mary. Blows my mind every time!

    The television show Cosmos is pseudoscience in large degree.

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  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Space is truly unfathomable. I love watching cosmos with my girl Mary. Blows my mind every time!

    The television show Cosmos is pseudoscience in large degree.

    I don't watch the show, can you elaborate?

    When someone says, "40 billion years ago on Mars..." my bs alarm goes off.

    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    cee134 wrote: »
    In this rare image taken on July 19, 2013, the wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured Saturn's rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame.

    atyys24usgmu.jpg

    Beautiful
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,834 Member
    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Agree, but I think the narrative as such is important for the general masses to both understand and support science. Much of science is developing theory based on facts that are known, but filling in gaps with conjecture, then working to prove or disprove the conjecture part.

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  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Timshel_ wrote: »
    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Agree, but I think the narrative as such is important for the general masses to both understand and support science. Much of science is developing theory based on facts that are known, but filling in gaps with conjecture, then working to prove or disprove the conjecture part.

    Physics is in a crisis because of 50 years of conjecture on supersymmetry theory. Now that the collider didn't do what they thought it would do, a generation of physicists are in a full blown identity crisis.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Timshel_ wrote: »
    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Agree, but I think the narrative as such is important for the general masses to both understand and support science. Much of science is developing theory based on facts that are known, but filling in gaps with conjecture, then working to prove or disprove the conjecture part.

    Plus, my kids watch a cartoon show called Wild Kratts that has better scientific integrity than that show.

    End nerd rant.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Space is truly unfathomable. I love watching cosmos with my girl Mary. Blows my mind every time!

    The television show Cosmos is pseudoscience in large degree.

    I don't watch the show, can you elaborate?

    When someone says, "40 billion years ago on Mars..." my bs alarm goes off.

    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Did he really say 40 billion or are you being hyperbolic? (I only ask because not even scientists think it's that old)

    I am not being hyperbolic. I can't remember exactly, but what does it matter?

    What if he said 400 million years ago or 40 million years ago or 4 million years ago on Mars?

    All of it - 100% of his statement is conjecture.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    BTW @RunHardBeStrong, what made you want to be an astronaut before?

    Honestly, I don't remember when it started. I was young. My dad and I would lay in the backyard most every night that we could and look at the stars.

    I remember that. Then I moved to a city, and there's too much light to see them. That's one of my favorite things about backpacking (hike in camping). They say looking up at the night sky is stepping into a time machine, and it's true in all the normal ways but it brings me back to my childhood too.
  • thisonetimeatthegym
    thisonetimeatthegym Posts: 1,977 Member
    Space is truly unfathomable. I love watching cosmos with my girl Mary. Blows my mind every time!

    The television show Cosmos is pseudoscience in large degree.

    I don't watch the show, can you elaborate?

    When someone says, "40 billion years ago on Mars..." my bs alarm goes off.

    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Did he really say 40 billion or are you being hyperbolic? (I only ask because not even scientists think it's that old)

    I am not being hyperbolic. I can't remember exactly, but what does it matter?

    What if he said 400 million years ago or 40 million years ago or 4 million years ago on Mars?

    All of it - 100% of his statement is conjecture.
    Timshel_ wrote: »
    Sorry dude. That is not science. That is conjecture.

    Agree, but I think the narrative as such is important for the general masses to both understand and support science. Much of science is developing theory based on facts that are known, but filling in gaps with conjecture, then working to prove or disprove the conjecture part.

    And that is why the masses believe a pile of lies. They trust scientists and scientists tell them a fairy tale and the masses think it's facts. And the reviewers of textbooks can't tell the difference between them.