The Space Thread

[wjfox]

Originally Posted by Newcastle Guy

Shame it will go out of operation in 2016 though.

What?? So it's only running for 6 years? All that money... $100 billion - and the operational period will be shorter than the time it took to construct it? Pathetic. They should have built a permanent moonbase instead.

[Lostboy]

As a child I can remember watching a program called "From Earth to Miranda" or something similar, it was about the Voyager Programme which gave our first detailed look of Jupiter and Saturn and our first of any kind of Uranus and Neptune, I was absolutely enthralled, one probe managed to visit all four and even today they are still active and returning data from further than any man made object has ever been, on the cusp of leaving the Solar System. That was a proper use of money, and not a waste.

Manned Space however is a waste, what is the point of the ISS, what is the point of a moon base? Mankind needs to grow up, spend the money that would have been spent on these silly macho manned space ideas and put it into clean water for the developing world.

[Erebus555]

This really interested me as I remember doing a poster on neutron stars at school a good while back.

Rare dead star found near Earth

Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's neighbourhood - a dead star with some unusual characteristics.

The object, known as a neutron star, was studied using space telescopes and ground-based observatories.

But this one, located in the constellation Ursa Minor, seems to lack some key characteristics found in other neutron stars.

Details of the study, by a team of US and Canadian researchers, will appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

If confirmed, it would be only the eighth known "isolated neutron star" - meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations.


The object has been nicknamed Calvera, after the villain in the 1960s western film The Magnificent Seven.

"The seven previously known isolated neutron stars are known collectively as The Magnificent Seven within the community," said co-author Derek Fox, of Pennsylvania State University, US.

"So the name Calvera is a bit of an inside joke on our part."

The authors estimate that the object is 250 to 1,000 light-years away. This would make Calvera one of the closest neutron stars to Earth - and possibly the closest.

Neutron stars are one of the possible end points for a star. They are created when stars with masses greater than four to eight times those of our Sun exhaust their nuclear fuel, and undergo a supernova explosion.

This explosion blows off the outer layers of the star, forming a supernova remnant. The central region of the star collapses under gravity, causing protons and electrons to combine to form neutrons - hence the name "neutron star".

Data search

Robert Rutledge of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, originally noticed the object.

He compared a catalogue of 18,000 X-ray sources from the German-American Rosat satellite, which operated from 1990 to 1999, with catalogues of objects that appeared in visible light, infrared light, and radio waves.

Professor Rutledge realized that a Rosat source, known as 1RXS J141256.0+792204, did not appear to have a counterpart at any other wavelength.

The group aimed Nasa's Swift satellite at the object in August 2006. Swift's X-ray telescope showed that the source was still there, and was emitting about the same amount of X-ray energy as it had during the Rosat era.

The Swift observations enabled the group to pinpoint the object's position more accurately, and showed that it was not associated with any known astronomical object.

The researchers followed up with the 8.1m Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and a short observation by Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Unusual properties

Exactly what type of neutron star Calvera is remains a mystery. According to Dr Rutledge, there are no widely accepted alternative theories to explain objects such as this that are bright in X-rays and faint in visible light.

"Either Calvera is an unusual example of a known type of neutron star, or it is some new type of neutron star, the first of its kind," said Dr Rutledge.

Calvera's location high above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy is also a mystery. The researchers believe the object is the remnant of a star that lived in our galaxy's starry disc before exploding as a supernova.

In order to reach its current position, it had to wander some distance out of the disc.

[The Boy David]

2016? I don't believe that for a second. There is NO WAY they'll let that thing drop only 6 years after it is finished.

For all the ISS costs way way way way too much, it is a very valuable lesson in the basic mechanics of spaceflight. It's a lesson our species will have to learn, so why not do it now instead of later on, when potential stakes and dangers could be much much higher.



Besides, $100 billion wouldn't make a dent in world poverty and the aid of developing countries.

$1 trillion would barely cover it.


You've got to put things into perspective here. NASA, the biggest space agency in the world (by a large margin) is the least funded of all the American Government Agencies - it receives a puny 0.5% of US government funding. Less money is invested in space than you might think.

99% of all space-related investment is in telecommunications/gps (etc) satellite technology, which, as you know, modern civilisation would be completely lost without.

[gazzab1990]

Originally Posted by Lostboy

As a child I can remember watching a program called "From Earth to Miranda" or something similar, it was about the Voyager Programme which gave our first detailed look of Jupiter and Saturn and our first of any kind of Uranus and Neptune, I was absolutely enthralled, one probe managed to visit all four and even today they are still active and returning data from further than any man made object has ever been, on the cusp of leaving the Solar System. That was a proper use of money, and not a waste.

Manned Space however is a waste, what is the point of the ISS, what is the point of a moon base? Mankind needs to grow up, spend the money that would have been spent on these silly macho manned space ideas and put it into clean water for the developing world.

Investing is space travel and exploration now, may ensure the survival of our race in the future. I don;t think it's a waste of money at all, you could say that about the programme you're describing. 'What's the point of looking at the planets in our solar system, it doesn't affect us'. In my opinion, just looking at these places is a lot less useful than laying down the foundations which may eventually lead to us visiting, or even inhabiting them.

Earth ain't gonna last forever

[mk61]

Originally Posted by GREAT_Britain

Investing is space travel and exploration now, may ensure the survival of our race in the future. I don;t think it's a waste of money at all, you could say that about the programme you're describing. 'What's the point of looking at the planets in our solar system, it doesn't affect us'. In my opinion, just looking at these places is a lot less useful than laying down the foundations which may eventually lead to us visiting, or even inhabiting them.

Earth ain't gonna last forever

We have more urgent requirements than Earth's ultimate doom.

Orbiting solar power stations providing large quatities of cheap energy, biomedical research, extraction from NEO asteroids of large quantities of useful rare metals, micro-gravity manufacturing for precision high-technology products. Lunar Helium-3 for cleaner fusion power stations. Orbiting habitats like cities in space. This is possible with ingenuity and minor improvements on 60s-era Apollo technology.

The space programme itself has given us more than the oft quoted example of Teflon. Miniaturisation of computers for one thing - the Apollo lunar and command modules and the deep-space probes all required sizeable on-board processing power (for the time) because of the time-delay in getting solutions from terrestrial computers. This required an investment from industry which ultimately paid off as it migrated into commercial applications. What was the trend in computer size before and after the moon race?

[Newcastle Guy]

Regarding the ISS going out of comission in 2016, that's just what I've heard on the net, I don't know if it's true.

[PresidentBjork]

Originally Posted by The Boy David

2016? I don't believe that for a second. There is NO WAY they'll let that thing drop only 6 years after it is finished.

For all the ISS costs way way way way too much, it is a very valuable lesson in the basic mechanics of spaceflight. It's a lesson our species will have to learn, so why not do it now instead of later on, when potential stakes and dangers could be much much higher.



Besides, $100 billion wouldn't make a dent in world poverty and the aid of developing countries.

$1 trillion would barely cover it.


You've got to put things into perspective here. NASA, the biggest space agency in the world (by a large margin) is the least funded of all the American Government Agencies - it receives a puny 0.5% of US government funding. Less money is invested in space than you might think.

99% of all space-related investment is in telecommunications/gps (etc) satellite technology, which, as you know, modern civilisation would be completely lost without.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, even if the ISS had a set expiration date (which I actually don't think it has, since it's not even completed, it would be REALLY unlikely they would stick to it. I mean look how long Skylab, and to a greater extent, Mir stuck around - both far longer than projected.

I also believe that space exploration is one of the big government spenders (although as you point out the smallest)that is the most justified. It's the failure of our current rapacious lifestyle that condemns so many people to suffer from huge inequalities. Space exploration of both manned and unmanned is a worthy exercise, pushing the bounds of science. Indeed most of the biggest advances of the last 50 years have been driven by it, not least as some people have mentioned, computers and telecommunications. There's nothing boastful or chauvinistic about sending humans into space. It's quite simple - if there's somewhere new to go, people will go there. The ISS provides and will provide to an even greater extent in the future, invaluable knowledge about living in space and space exploration. Just because it may not have as many glamorous head line grabbing moments like the Moon landings (not to deny their immense value) doesn't make this any less the case. Without these orbital platforms we would be even more like unready for the perils of space. The most mundane things can become issues in such an environment, for example, heat, without the effect of gravity cannot convect in a zero G atmosphere, therefore left unchecked, even the tiniest electric component can sit and become enveloped in more an more of the waste heat until it combusts. But apart from this, invaluable knowledge about physics biology and chemistry, apart from engineering result from these kind of programs.

The ISS is another part of a highly successful period of space exploration we are now enjoying. I mean, when you look at the number of current mission, and on top of that SUCCESSFUL missions currently underway it's unbelievable.

[Newcastle Guy]

I thought I would post these here too as they are highly relavent to this thread. Preliminary designs for Spaceport America from Foster:









More pics here

Video here (To the right of the page)

I want one NOW!

[Medo]

I found this very cool picture:
What the Earth might look like in a thousand years.

[streetscapeer]

Originally Posted by Newcastle Guy

I thought I would post these here too as they are highly relavent to this thread. Preliminary designs for Spaceport America from Foster:









More pics here

Video here (To the right of the page)

I want one NOW!

beautiful!

[Lostboy]

What the Earth might look like in a thousand years.

How awful. Earth has so much natural beauty, this is the futurisitic equivalent to putting pylons on unspoilt English Landscapes.

[Noostairz]

Google Launches Moon Robot Contest

Internet giant Google has launched a £10m space race.
It is offering the out of this world cash sum to the first private organisation to land a robot on the moon... [more]

[Stefan88]

I saw 4 shooting stars the other night in Devon
That picture of the earth in thousands of years is ridiculous.

[EddM]

This one is better.



That's Birmingham that is!

[ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by Medo

I found this very cool picture:
What the Earth might look like in a thousand years.

Some sort of power cables, or a device hoping to bounce Asteroids back off us?

[EddM]

Maybe a passing black hole has pulled the Earth's orbit askew and its a huge device to maintain rotation and realign the orbit using massive currents acting on the Earth's iron ore core?

..or a Prison Planet!

At our current rate of development this will be our future anyway;

[Newcastle Guy]

Originally Posted by Lostboy

What the Earth might look like in a thousand years.

How awful. Earth has so much natural beauty, this is the futurisitic equivalent to putting pylons on unspoilt English Landscapes.

You do realise putting something like that around the Earth would have an EXTREMELY important purpose? That wouldn't be built just to be there?

I can see the British sentiment towards it now: "Yes it could save all humanity and provide a way for us to advance forward hugely BUT IT'S UGLY KILL IT KILL IT AHHHHHHHH!!!"

Just like EH and skyscrapers

[Newcastle Guy]

Originally Posted by EddM

New York after global warming I take it?

[xXFallenXx]

Man, i really want them to build Spaceport America.
Now all i need is $200,000.
Oh well..............any donations?