Science Friday....

[JorisBlack]

Easiest way into space is still drugs.

[jrkirkish]

In simulations of three body star systems it is possible to have planets. That being said though I wish we knew more about the Alpha Centauri system.

 

 

It might be a 2 body problem, we don't know if proxima is gravitationally bound to the rest of the system.

 

But I think it would be unrealistic to think there would be a class-M around the closest star system to earth.

 

I hope to be proven wrong about the latter.

[companyman]

I know you aren't a Zinn fan but perhaps you should re-read the Columbus part again and ask the millions of people exterminated as a result of reckless expansionism how that worked out for them... The cultures extinguished were able to function in balance with their surroundings for tens of thousands of years. Hate to wax sentimental and {censored}. Expansion is fine, provided it is well thought out and doesn't resemble the behaviors of a virus or cancerous growth.

you know, I hesitated to use the Columbus analogy for just that reason....
but it is inevitable that our little rat farm society will outgrow its cage. I just find some hope and pride in what humans accomplished when they worked together towards a common goal of reaching the Moon.

[christianatl]

My parents live next door to Mike Collins. He's an interesting dude.

[companyman]

My parents live next door to Mike Collins. He's an interesting dude.

 

 

cool, have you ever asked him questions about his experiences?

[christianatl]

Of course. He's super humble and prefers to discuss other, more theoretical things.

 

He is KA-RAZY smart.

[Hiwatt Bob]

i heard, maybe on another Science Friday, about how the moon may be colonized for mining helium 3--to be used in nuclear fusion. apparently it's a great fuel for fusion--it's rare on earth, but much more abundant on the surface of the moon.

this is from the wiki page on helium 3:

The Moon's surface contains helium-3 at concentrations on the order of 0.01 ppm.[37][38] A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986,[39] have proposed to explore the moon, mine lunar regolith and use the helium-3 for fusion. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process extremely large amounts of regolith (over 100 million tons of regolith to obtain one ton of helium 3),[40] and some proposals have suggested that helium-3 extraction be piggybacked onto a larger mining and development operation.[citation needed] The primary objective of Indian Space Research Organization's first lunar probe called Chandrayaan-I, launched on October 22, 2008, was reported in some sources to be mapping the Moon's surface for helium-3-containing minerals.[41] However, this is debatable; no such objective is mentioned in the project's official list of goals, while at the same time, many of its scientific payloads have noted helium-3-related applications.[42][43] Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from which operation "each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."[44] which is an extreme overstatement however, as one payload to GTO of current spacecraft designs is less than 4 tonnes. To "bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world"[25], more than one Space Shuttle load (and the processing of 4 million tons of regolith) per week would be necessary. In January 2006, the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020,[45] if funding can be found.[46][47] Mining gas giants for helium-3 has also been proposed.[48] The British Interplanetary Society's hypothetical Project Daedalus interstellar probe design was fueled by helium-3 mines in the atmosphere of Jupiter, for example. Jupiter's high gravity makes this a less energetically favorable operation than extracting helium-3 from the other gas giants of the solar system, however.

that movie "Moon" uses this premise as it's backdrop. honestly, if the potential for using Helium 3 as a fusion source is there--i'm all for it.

[olgluefoot]

The Russians were no slouches. If they could have gotten there. They would have. We had to rally Americans during the cold war...somehow

[companyman]

Found the Stats. Interesting none the less. * Discretionary spending: $1.114 trillion (+3.1%) o $481.4 billion (+12.1%) - Department of Defense o $145.2 billion (+45.8%) - Global War on Terror o $69.3 billion (+0.3%) - Department of Health and Human Services o $56.0 billion (+0.0%) - Department of Education o $39.4 billion (+18.7%) - Department of Veterans Affairs o $35.2 billion (+1.4%) - Department of Housing and Urban Development o $35.0 billion (+22.0%) - Department of State and Other International Programs o $34.3 billion (+7.2%) - Department of Homeland Security o $24.3 billion (+6.6%) - Department of Energy o $20.2 billion (+4.1%) - Department of Justice o $20.2 billion (+3.1%) - Department of Agriculture o $17.3 billion (+6.8%) - National Aeronautics and Space Administration o $12.1 billion (+13.1%) - Department of Transportation o $12.1 billion (+6.1%) - Department of the Treasury o $10.6 billion (+2.9%) - Department of the Interior o $10.6 billion (-9.4%) - Department of Labor o $51.8 billion (+9.7%) - Other On-budget Discretionary Spending o $39.0 billion - Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending

this makes me sad and angry and kind of ashamed.....

[jlantsberger]

that movie "Moon" uses this premise as it's backdrop.

 

 

That movie was awesome, btw.

[jrkirkish]

My parents live next door to Mike Collins. He's an interesting dude.

 

 

ARE YOU {censored}ING KIDDING ME???!!!interrobang???!!!

 

dude, stories. like, now.

[turnip]

If you mean by physically visiting them in the near future. Well of course not. But with things like Kepler and countless other telescopes we have I don't know if we really need to just yet. I mean we still have plenty to discover in our own solar system.

It just makes me sad that I'll never get to fly around the galaxy like Star Trek.

[Liberty Belle]

The Russians were no slouches. If they could have gotten there. They would have.

After all, it was the CCCP that was the first to put a man (Yuri Gagarin) in space, not the USA like some people, idiots, think!

 

The Russian space agency has said (google it) its not possible to go to the moon due to radiation exposure, if it wasn't for that they would have done it and before America claimed to "have done it".

 

 

The CCCP totally PWND the USA in the space race so the USA, typically, had to go one better. So, they claimed to have "landed on the moon" etc etc.

[jlantsberger]

[RamoRenDez]

this makes me sad and angry and kind of ashamed.....

Why?

[Hiwatt Bob]

After all, it was the CCCP that was the first to put a man (Yuri Gagarin) in space, not the USA like some people, idiots, think! The Russian space agency has said (google it) its not possible to go to the moon due to radiation exposure, if it wasn't for that they would have done it and before America claimed to "have done it". The CCCP totally PWND the USA in the space race so the USA, typically, had to go one better. So, they claimed to have "landed on the moon" etc etc.

so we faked it like 6 times?? wouldn't 1 time have been enough to beat the russians?

[companyman]

Why?

 

 

if you have to ask, never mind.

[melx]

so was the vision of manned space exploration a delusion....did the moon landing happen? (I, for one believe it did) are we really relegating ourselves to living on this planet exclusively? Thoughts......?

 

 

relegating ourselves? I'm not sure I would see it like that.

[companyman]

this is once again, like Republicans and Democrats meeting halfway on a polarizing issue. The conspiracy theorists will never budge, nor will those that believe the landings were real......"happiness is a warm gun....bang bang shoot shoot..."

[companyman]

 

relegating ourselves? I'm not sure I would see it like that.

 

 

 

what I imply is that we except the fate that our societal trajectory is leading to. Consume , say oops, what happened...and die.

[Liberty Belle]

so we faked it like 6 times?? wouldn't 1 time have been enough to beat the russians?

"We" I didn't realize you were there!:poke:

[Hiwatt Bob]

"We" I didn't realize you were there!:poke:

 

 

don't avoid the question--

 

:poke:

[companyman]

I was 1 when it happened...I like to think I was there in my infant spirit!

[Jisatsu]

don't avoid the question-- :poke:

 

 

yeah this.....

[melx]