You know what's awesome? Space (nerd thread).

MATHSEX · MASTER BATOR

RE: You know what's awesome? Space (nerd thread).

MorisUkunRasik · World's Strongest Millionaire

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

I love that video.

MorisUkunRasik · World's Strongest Millionaire

you're a coward and liar and a-guh

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

NOW YOU SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Apparently the DA's office refused to charge Aldrin with any crime for that.

I believe their exact reasoning was "he's Buzz Fucking Aldrin!"

I think the guy also sued him, but it never went anywhere.

Jason · Only in cartoons

That Jupiter impact? Hubble took pictures.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Has it really been a year and a half since anyone posted in this thread? That doesn't seem right...

Anyway

SpaceX did a thing again!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-launch-20101209,0,7012313.story

Pizza · Sheriff of Paddy's

That image looks like the pope hat.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

It's pretty amazing how fast they've progressed from rockets exploding on the launch pad to successfully placing a payload in orbit and returning it safely to Earth.

Supposedly they're going to start doing supply runs to the International Space Station in 2011, and start ferrying astronauts to it a couple years after that. In the meantime, we'll have to pay the Russians to take Americans to the ISS, once the shuttle fleet is retired next year.

Paying SpaceX to handle the work that the space shuttle has been mostly relegated to in the last 10 years should save NASA quite a bit of money, and let them focus on more cooler missions (manned mission to a near-earth asteroid, then to Mars, bigger and better unmanned probes and space telescopes, etc.).

This should be amazing if it all works out.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Manned space exploration is, I think, overrated. We get much better data at a much lower cost by using robot probes.

I say if NASA exists for any reason (and it shouldn't), it is the "pure science" mission of gathering astronomical knowledge. If it's worth spending money to put people on other celestial bodies, the marketplace will both discover that profitable use and figure out how to make it happen.

Note: The ISS is arguably an integral part of NASA's mission as outlined above, since it might be more cost efficient to just put astronauts up there to do those kinds of experiments.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

HEY

Kepler just discovered 1200 new planets!*

And that's just from data collected during its first 4 months of operation. Basically overnight, it more than tripled the number of known extrasolar planets, which were discovered over the last 15 years.

54 of them are in their stars' habitable zones. And of those, 5 are about the size of Earth. Most of the others are gas giants, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that they have habitable moons. Oh, and because of how Kepler detects planets (the transit method, meaning it can only detect planets that pass directly between their stars and us), it can only detect a relatively small percentage of the planets in its field of view.

This srongly suggests that habitable planets are ridiculously common in the galaxy, let alone the rest of the universe.

This is fucking huge!

*planet candidates - but most scientists think 80-90% of them will eventually be confirmed

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

And maybe now they'll stop cancelling all the planned space telescopes that could directly image these planets.

Jason · Only in cartoons

john31584 wrote:

And maybe now they'll stop cancelling all the planned space telescopes that could directly image these planets.

Wouldn't count on it. Republicans think science is waste of money. Democrats want to spend any money they could spend on science on funding ever more social entitlements.

Hey, maybe another country will do it. There's hope.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Tell the Republicans that if we discover intelligent life someplace else, they'll get 5 minutes alone with the aliens to tell them about Jesus.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Speaking of which

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-completes-52year-mission-to-find-kill-god,19263/

Jason · Only in cartoons

That article made me super happy.

In other news, the governor of New Mexico is looking into privatizing their spaceport. I see this as only a good thing. I don't see why taxpayers should be on the hook to launch rich people into low orbit.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Rocky planet discovered in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.

In other news A new study suggests that of the over 2,000 planet candidates that the Kepler mission has identified over the last couple years, it's likely that over 99% of them are the real deal