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Space Discussion Thread

I think our society/world will limp along without WW3, and a general SLOW progression to a better world for most, assuming there is no major cataclysmic event.

Despite all the gloom and doom that one gets from watching or reading the news, the world as a whole, is a MUCH safer, better, place than it was 5000, 1000, 500, 100, and even 50 or 20 years ago.

Literacy rates are up, despite a ton of regional low level conflicts, large scale conflicts are down. Quality of life, on average, is way up. Technological progress is also accelerating at a faster and faster pace.

Yeah, the world is a shitty shitty place, but cheer up guys, it's less shitty then it's ever been.
 





The world has certainly gotten safer over the centuries, though i'm not really sure that trend is still there during the last 20 years or so. I think the end of the cold war sort of is the end of the point where things have gotten safer. Since then we had plenty of problems with terrorism, in the west to a degree not seen before.

In some respects safety can be problematic though, as it makes overpopulation that more easy. In general you would say that lower infant mortality is a good thing, but for countries that still suffer out of control growth it might not be. Resources are finite and not evenly distributed after all.
 
The proliferation of information has had a very dramatic effect on the world over the past 30 years actually. While censorship is still very prevalent throughout much of the world, it's not nearly as pronounced as it was. People in general, who want information, can pursue it, and get it. Knowledge that used to be highly restricted is now out there for literally anyone willing to look.

30 years ago if you wanted to deal with someone in say China, or Japan, from New York, or at similar distances, you had to either go there, or have an expensive conversation on the phone. Now? We can easily setup a video conference, without all that much effort. On a simpler level, even crappy smartphones are allowing people to stay in touch continents apart.

That increased level of communication makes it MUCH harder to force people to swallow the same BS ideologies that allowed the cold war to take place to begin with.

So even over the past 30 years, things have gotten better. Over the past 10... I'm not so sure.
 
Communications have certainly improved, and still are as more of the world is getting more afforable internet connections. This trend has not stopped in the last 10 years, on the contrary. There are many countries where you get (prepaid) 3G/4G internet coverage in place that never had copper telephone cables at all.

Even 2G is still helping with that: I remember getting 'no service' in many parts of asia 10-15 years go, while now service is availble in in places between cities, albeit slow.

The question is if this makes us safer or not. Obviously infrastructure can save lifes when you can call in an emergency to first responders and such.

On the other hand, it also facilitates communications between terrorists around the world, and if they get their encryption right, doesn't compromise them very much.

The same goes for access to information in general. 25 years ago it probably was pretty difficult to get reliable information on how to construct a bomb from the comfort of your home. Nowadays this is fairly easy, although not all sources are reliable and you could end up blowing yourself up if you lack any prior knowledge.

A key difference is that there isn't any effective censorship anymore. Back when people relied on things like paper encyclopedia's the editors of those things made sure the information on explosives was insufficient to actually build a proper bomb.

Nowadays information is available to a degree that you could find what is required to create a nuclear weapon, possible even a hydrogen bomb, online. There are some technical details withheld even from wikipedia, but those are not that hard to fill in for someone with technical skills.
 
Found this reasonably interesting. It's not really about religion per-say.
 
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The Juno Spacecraft arrives at Jupiter on July 4th, if it survives orbital insertion we will have the best photos and data from Jupiter yet. It is hoped it will last for 20 months.


Alan
 
Pi R Squared said:
The Juno Spacecraft arrives at Jupiter on July 4th, if it survives orbital insertion we will have the best photos and data from Jupiter yet. It is hoped it will last for 20 months.


Alan
Click to expand...

Lol it feels like I'm watching a B horror movie trailer.

It's interesting though, hopefully we can learn something useful.
 
The Juno Spacecraft is closing in on Jupiter right now. Orbital insertion is tonight, if anything goes wrong the $1.13 billion dollar probe will fly off into deep space. Here is the official site: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html
At about 11:15 ET it will begin a 35 minute burn to place it into a polar orbit, it will burn 17600 pounds of fuel. You can watch live coverage on NASA TV beginning at 10:30pm ET. Let's hope it goes well, we should get some incredible pictures from this one, over the next 20 months it will fly as close as 3000 miles above the clouds.

Alan
 
Cool, looking forward to some good images of Jupiter. Thank you for letting us know Alan. Not long and we could have the best images and coverage of Jupiter to date. Exciting stuff. :)
 
Yes! I completely forgot about the Juno mission, although I watched a video on YouTube about it. I will definitely be keeping up with it :yh:

-Alex
 
Juno has successfully maneuvered into position for the 35 minute burn that will be in less than 30 minutes, I will provide an update for those out celebrating the holiday and can't watch. The instruments and camera were turned off 5 days ago to protect them so there will be no photos tonight, right now they are doing the spin up to 5 RPM before they proceed with the burn.

Alan

Edit: the main enigine has started, the have began the 35 minute burn. I didn't know this before but this will put the spacecraft into a long elliptical orbit, it will be 53 days before we get the first close up pictures, it will then make a second 53 day orbit when they will do another burn to put it in a much closer 14 day orbit, I guess placing it in orbit isn't so easy.

Edit: Burn is completed and successful, now they have to reorient the spacecraft so it's pointing in the correct direction, the spacecraft passed within 2800 miles, now it heads back out on the first of 2 long 53 day orbits, they are also spinning it down to 2 RPM.
 
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Pi, other than the close up pics in 53 "long" days any others in the mean time? I realize this project was intended for close ups but still wondering.
 
GSS said:
Pi, other than the close up pics in 53 "long" days any others in the mean time? I realize this project was intended for close ups but still wondering.
Click to expand...

Everything went as planned and they will turn the instruments back on sometime tomorrow (July 6th) and begin the science mission, it has quite a few instruments on board. I don't know about the pictures, I hope they give us some even if it's from a long distance. I watched the live coverage until 9:00pm when it ended and then watched the half hour press conference at 10:00pm but they weren't clear on when the first images will be in. They are also testing new technology, the spacecraft is designed to withstand extremely high levels of radiation as well as very high temperatures, and it looks like it works.

Juno's scientific payload includes:

A gravity/radio science system (Gravity Science)
A six-wavelength microwave radiometer for atmospheric sounding and composition (MWR)
A vector magnetometer (MAG)
Plasma and energetic particle detectors (JADE and JEDI)
A radio/plasma wave experiment (Waves)
An ultraviolet imager/spectrometer (UVS)
An infrared imager/spectrometer (JIRAM)
And of course a color camera, called JunoCam.

They said they will release all images as they become available.

I will try to monitor what's going on and update here if I can. I am not feeling well and am in a lot of pain and can't sleep, I have slept about 2 hours each of the last 2 days and am so exhausted, I can't believe I am even able to type this, spending lots of time here on LPF helps keep my mind off my problems.

Alan
 
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At least the first part worked and it is in orbit now, albeit elliptical as planned. The burns to turn that into a more circular orbit are less complicated that the orbital insertion maneuvre, so good things are ahead i hope.

I'm sure it'll send pretty pictures back, but we don't really lack those for jupiter.

I think any data on the interior might be more interesting - including figuring out if it has a solid core or not.
 
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