NASA discovery, speculation inside

[Eomer]

Victory over the russians.

Well yeah, that's pretty obvious, which is why I didn't mention it. But in the end, what did that really do in terms of furthering space exploration, whether manned or unmanned? Or what invaluable research was conducted on the moon that couldn't have been done remotely?

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Valishar

Yeah, quite significant! If there were a super nova within 100 light years it would be bad... very bad. A type I supernova within 100 light years would kill all surface life on the planet. We'd survive a type II depending on how close it was to the 100 ly limit from us.

Luckily we know all the stars within 1000 light years and none of them is going to be a threat for the next couple million years.

I was under the impression that would only be a concern if we were directly in the rifle sights of the nova (IE it's axis of rotation). A normal supernova within 100 light years of us might screw with us in a whole slew of ways, but it wouldn't necessarily sterilize the planet.

[Korioni]

Originally Posted by Eomer

Well yeah, that's pretty obvious, which is why I didn't mention it. But in the end, what did that really do in terms of furthering space exploration, whether manned or unmanned? Or what invaluable research was conducted on the moon that couldn't have been done remotely?

Well, getting a man on the moon really did simply have the single benefit of beating the Russians, this is true. However, like I was saying earlier, the greatest factor in human space exploration is public interest. We send a robot to mars and it comes back with shitty black and white pics? Eh, that's kinda cool. We send a man there and have him stamp a flag into the ground and the whole damn world watches.

Public interest catches the eye of politicians. Politicians want votes, they pander to the masses that want space exploration. NASA gets more funding. We get off this rock that much quicker.

At their current budget, NASA is hardly doing jack shit. Give them all the money being pumped into Iraq and we'll fucking colonize Cloud City on Jupiter by the turn of the century.

[Blide]

I hope we create a permanent lunar base just so things like the Orion Project could viably be launched from there. It makes me sad to think that we had the technology to potentially go 1/10 the speed of light 50 years ago but due to obvious political issues, that type of propulsion system won't see the light of day anytime soon. So here we are 50 years later still using chemical rockets when we could have had a ship reach Alpha Centauri by now. I realize there are many more hurdles that needed to be overcome beyond just reaching there but my point remains.

[Korioni]

Btw, to whoever was asking much earlier in this thread about the uses of the LHC project, the possibilities are insane at the least.

At the moment, there's hardly even theories existing that would allow for the propulsion to make a spacecraft go the speed of light. And even if we could go the speed of light, it would still take hundreds of generations to get anywhere remarkable inside the milky way.

The technology that could potentially come from the LHC could possibly lead to things such as wormholes, allowing us not only to travel within and to other galaxies, but to other universes in a fraction of the time being, potentially, the only foreseeable method of finding other habitable planets. And all we need is that rwaskly wabbit and his negative energy.

Anyway, I'd go watch Star Trek TNG. The writers were actually fairly knowledgeable on Einstein theories. It all sounds like silly sci-fi, but these are theories that were created by the greatest minds the world has ever seen(Einstein, Hawking etc.)

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Korioni

We send a man there and have him stamp a flag into the ground and the whole damn world watches.

But again, what would that accomplish in terms of furthering our understanding of the solar system or Mars itself that couldn't be done by a robotic probe? Turning space exploration in to a PR campaign strikes me as being incredibly wasteful.

At their current budget, NASA is hardly doing jack shit.

That's not true at all. Probes like Spirit, Oppurtunity, Cassini, soon the Phoenix lander, and numerous other ones are all conducting very important science. Looking at your post though, it appears you're more concerned with how small NASA's budget is, and less with it supposedly being a waste of money.

People who say it's a waste of money really annoy the shit out of me. No it's not the model of efficiency, especially given how expensive shuttle launches are compared to what they should have been, but as I said in another thread the shuttle was hijacked by the Defense Department who wanted it big enough to deploy various top secret projects, and it ballooned to a vehicle far larger and more expensive than NASA had ever wanted. But overall, NASA's still accomplishing lots of great science even though it's budget is tiny compared to a lot of other government departments.

[Soriak]

Is there a launch date set for the LHC yet? All I know is sometime in summer. They held an "open-day" event where you could go down to look at parts of it - sadly, I missed it

The underground facility now is closed to the public as they're cooling it down to near 0K and are preparing for the start. Not sure if visiting for the above-ground structures is worth the trip - it's a 4hr train ride.

[Phoenix]

If the Apollo program was funded past the early 70s who the hell knows where we would be. Its just sad that only now are we only going back to it, 40 years of wasted time and money.

[AladainAF]

Originally Posted by Eomer

I was under the impression that would only be a concern if we were directly in the rifle sights of the nova (IE it's axis of rotation). A normal supernova within 100 light years of us might screw with us in a whole slew of ways, but it wouldn't necessarily sterilize the planet.

I looked into this more, and actually, the super nova is ~26,000 light years away. The light that is reaching us now has been reaching us for the last 140 years. In other words, what we're seeing is light from 25,860 years ago.

That makes better sense to me!

[Soriak]

The light we're seeing is from 26,000 years ago, the supernova must have happened about 26,140 years ago.

[Lefazz]

No one noticed a "new star" 140 years ago? That shit should have been extremely bright. There's written record of when the Chinese saw what's now the Crab Nebula back in what? 1050 AD.

[Malakriss]

While the remnant of a supernova may be the youngest that they found, this press conference was so over hyped. If they had witnessed the actual supernova happening that would be something extraordinary, but it's a 140 year old sun corpse. It's dead, Jim.

Soriak is correct on the timing, the event occurred (relative to us) 140 years ago, plus the 26,000 travel time for the light = 26,140 years ago.

[AladainAF]

Yeah, I've been staring at code the previous 5 hours and my brain was mush. I really shouldn't post on these boards when I'm like that =\

[Burf]

But really, what's 280 years between friends?

[Pharazon]

Originally Posted by Lefazz

No one noticed a "new star" 140 years ago? That shit should have been extremely bright. There's written record of when the Chinese saw what's now the Crab Nebula back in what? 1050 AD.

The visual spectrum of this one is mostly blocked out by gas and dust since it's near the center of the galaxy.