The Space Thread!

narf said:
Related: http://xkcd.com/1133/
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That thing is going on my desktop sideways.

edit: And it has.

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I would like to see what they propose to deal with the inevitable solar radiation/flares... Mars has no atmosphere, thus no filtering of very harmful rays, and also no strong magnetic field to deflect solar coronal mass ejections and flares. I would only imagine people could live underground with some sort of very well engineered oxygen generating system (algi, plants...)
 
^Mars does have an atmosphere, albeit a very thin one. How else would there be dust storms?

I think you're onto something with the underground idea though.
 
Yes I meant not a protective atmosphere as earth's, even here we get skin diseases cos the ozone levels are lower in some areas and have to be covered in creams and ointments to go outdoors... It'd be a far greater challenge in Mars.

Then again the devastating effect of a solar winds and flares I think is an eve greater threat. Mars' core is solid iron, there's no convection of molten magnetic material, so no magnetic field. The solar blasts would just pound on it.

That all said, it'd be so remarkable... but on the other hand... we'd have to put up with even crazier conspiracy nuts than the moon landing deniers.
 
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Looks like we've got ourselves a privateer space race between Musk and Mars One. All this 10-15 years stuff is crap, though. If the Chinese up and decided to put a military base on Mars you know the US would be there in about 8 months...

In other news, Saturn looks almost as pissed as the sky over my house right now.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20121128b.html


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People have been talking about going to Mars for decades now. Musk certainly has a good track record thus far, but I'm not going to get excited about any of this until real work is put towards it. Musk may be rich, but even he can't fund that big a venture without massive support elsewhere.
 
Whoever gets there, the first settlement should be called Saganburg or something.
 
Carlsburg? Saganland?

At any rate, sign me up. I'm already saving up $250k to go on a suborbital flight, what's another $250k to relocate to another planet? :p
 
BBC TV - The Sky at Night -"Mercury and the Moon (Dec 2012)
BBC TV said:
The tiny planet Mercury is in the morning sky and Sir Patrick Moore talks about the latest news from Messenger, the spacecraft which is over Mercury at the moment. Mercury is often compared to the moon, which was last visited by man in December 1972. Forty years on, Dr Chris Lintott looks at the legacy of that mission, Apollo 17, and what it has been able to tell us about the moon.
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Watched the latest episode last night, very interesting as usual. Seems it is possible that at the poles on the (almost) permanent dark side of Mercury, there may be traces of frozen water at -170C. The sun facing hot side is at 400C, so no water there then.

Also, Patrick Moore is looking very frail now and doesn't look like he may last too much longer. He is pretty aged now and has been presenting the same TV program since about the time of the Sputnik first space flight in 1957.

:smile:
 
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http://ph.news.yahoo.com/china-prepares-grow-vegetables-mars-050303983.html
China prepares to grow vegetables on Mars

Chinese astronauts are preparing to grow fresh vegetables on Mars and the moon after researchers successfully completed a preliminary test in Beijing, state media reported.

Four kinds of vegetables were grown in an "ecological life support system", a 300 cubic metre cabin which will allow astronauts to develop their own stocks of air, water and food while on space missions, Xinhua news agency said Monday.

The system, which relies on plants and algae, is "expected to be used in extra-terrestrial bases on the moon or Mars", the report said.

Participants in the experiment could "harvest fresh vegetables for meals", Xinhua quoted Deng Yibing, a researcher at Beijing's Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Centre, as saying.

"Chinese astronauts may get fresh vegetables and oxygen supplies by gardening in extra-terrestrial bases in the future," the report said, adding that the experiment was the first of its kind in China.

China has said it will land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time next year, as part of an ambitious space programme that includes a long-term plan for a manned moon landing.

[Continued]
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Heathrow said:
BBC TV - The Sky at Night -"Mercury and the Moon (Dec 2012)

Watched the latest episode last night, very interesting as usual. Seems it is possible that at the poles on the (almost) permanent dark side of Mercury, there may be traces of frozen water at -170C. The sun facing hot side is at 400C, so no water there then.

Also, Patrick Moore is looking very frail now and doesn't look like he may last too much longer. He is pretty aged now and has been presenting the same TV program since about the time of the Sputnik first space flight in 1957.

:smile:
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Cobol74 Obituaries Thread said:
Sir Patrick Moore :(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10525469

He missed one show, when he was sick, since about 1955 - now that is dedication.
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:sad:
 
Ok, this is big. Like... bigly big.

http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Polonnaruwa-meteorite.pdf

People might try to say that what we found were terrestrial contaminants. Contamination after landing on Earth is ruled out absolutely because of the way the diatoms are woven between the rock matrix. In any case we found many diatom types that are not known to be present on the soil where the meteorite landed.

'The new data on fossil diatom provide strong evidence to support the theory of Cometary Panspermia' - a theory that says life came to our planet earth and other worlds hitchhiking on comets from far corners of the universe.


This could ultimately turn out to be the most important scientific discovery in 500 years. The cosmic ancestry of humans becomes ever more securely established.'
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There were a lot of big words in that article, but it seems to me a meteorite fell to earth, and red rain ensued?!? What the hell?
 
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