• bullet3
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Re: Space Nerds

redxavier wrote:

This is great news. I've this feeling that this is going to be considered an historic milestone in years to come. The kind of 'first' that's on the timeline of humanity's journey to the stars.

I think this is particularly significant because landing on a comet, aside from actually being pretty darn difficult, represents a key stage in their mineral exploitation (which we will have to do at some stage in our development).

Even more importantly, this is an incredible proof of concept for how we could divert incoming comets and asteroids.
You'd basically just need to repeat the same thing, but add a reverse thruster and fuel to push the comet off it's orbit.

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  • From: Poland
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Re: Space Nerds

The Orion spacecraft has made a successful test flight.

So honor the valiant who die 'neath your sword
But pity the warrior who slays all his foes...

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  • From: Kent, England
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Re: Space Nerds

It's great news; everything has appeared to have gone well. The eternal optimist in me hopes this is the beginning of a new era in human space flight!

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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279 Reply by Invid

  • From: Buffalo, NY
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Re: Space Nerds

One can hope. It's a case of Congress telling NASA to build something, because jobs, but not giving them money to do anything with it yet. You may remember the shuttle, which was designed to build and service a space station that wasn't funded for another couple decades...

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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280 Reply by Snail

  • Snail
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Re: Space Nerds

Wallops Island Repairs could coast $20 Million

"Life is about movies; anything else is a bonus!"- Me   cool

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  • From: Van Dieman's Land
  • Registered: 2011-06-02
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Re: Space Nerds

Space-X's recent "landing"...

https://vine.co/v/OjqeYWWpVWK

Maybe  next time.

not long to go now...

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  • From: Red Deer, AB
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Re: Space Nerds

That's a rocket crashing on a small platform floating in the middle of the ocean after being lauched almost into space.

The only thing it didn't do was land on it's feet.

Fuckin ehh man, for a first attempt, holy shit that's awesome.

I love SpaceX dude.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

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283 Reply by Snail

  • Snail
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Re: Space Nerds

50th anniversary of Alexei Leonov 's spacewalk.

I'm currently reading a book I got for Christmas, written by Alexei Leonov (Voskhod 2, Apollo-Soyuz) and Dave Scott (Gemini 8, Apollo 9 & Apollo 15)... interesting read.  Here it is on Amazon, if you're interested.

"Life is about movies; anything else is a bonus!"- Me   cool

Snail's Website

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  • From: Bristol. Again.
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Re: Space Nerds

Snail wrote:

50th anniversary of Alexei Leonov 's spacewalk.

IO9 did a nice write up on it here

Extended Edition - 146 - The Rise Of Skywalker
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  • From: State of Idaho
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Re: Space Nerds

Quick bump for a fun pic taken by an astronaut:

http://www.dailytimesgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/jnwy870.jpg

Story here: http://www.dailytimesgazette.com/most-i … form/5105/

If I were an astronaut, I would do this. That 's all smile

Last edited by fireproof78 (2015-04-20 18:53:33)

God loves you!

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286 Reply by Invid

  • From: Buffalo, NY
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Re: Space Nerds

I'd put on a pair of antennas and rub my hands together greedily.

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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  • From: Van Dieman's Land
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Re: Space Nerds

http://thespiritscience.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/carl-sagan-portrait-ftr.jpg


Carl Sagan fans (and who isn't?) should enjoy this...

https://vimeo.com/136262971

not long to go now...

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  • From: Poland
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Re: Space Nerds

The Kepler Telescope has found... something wink

So honor the valiant who die 'neath your sword
But pity the warrior who slays all his foes...

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  • From: Montpellier, France
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Re: Space Nerds

I despise these clickbait titles. Seriously. It completely undermines the actual scientific process of it.

These megastructures are an old theory, and what has been observed might be explained that way - among thousands of other possibilities. These articles only make astronomers look like nerds trying to find at all costs evidence that their sci-fi wet dreams are true. Well, some of them might actually be like this. But that's not how science is supposed to work.

Sébastien Fraud
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  • From: Norway
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Re: Space Nerds

I find the article ridiculous.

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291 Reply by Invid

  • From: Buffalo, NY
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Re: Space Nerds

The Bad Astronomer doesn't really have a problem with the idea.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom … fling.html

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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  • From: Montpellier, France
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Re: Space Nerds

No, and their article is the right way to talk about it. They explain facts and why the word "alien" came to be said in all this. The title isn't clickbait garbage, it actually sums up the situation quite well.

Sébastien Fraud
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  • From: Red Deer, AB
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
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Re: Space Nerds

I can't blame Destin for geeking out hardcore one bit.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

BigDamnArtist's Website

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  • From: Kent, England
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Re: Space Nerds

Lament with me my brothers, another (largely unsung) legend has died.

Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) has passed away.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35506000

He was played by actor Gary Cole in the From the Earth to the Moon miniseris by the way. tongue

On side note, it's quite sad to realise that we may likely see all of the 12 men who have walked on the moon pass on before a 13th man goes back.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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  • From: Montpellier, France
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Re: Space Nerds

Ethan Siegel. This dude.

From dark matter to global warming and asking "Does George Clooney floating away in Gravity makes sense physically?", each article he writes is clear and fascinating. Great read. We need more guys like him in astrophysics.

https://medium.com/@startswithabang

--

Also you all know this already but SpaceX succeeded in landing a reusable Falcon 9 booster for the first time. This is so freakin' cool. I'm in wonder.

Sébastien Fraud
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  • Teague
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Re: Space Nerds

I got to watch that live, which was fairly random. Post supe was like "hey, are you into space stuff?" and I was like "'am I into space stuff,' pft, can a vacuum cleaner run on 14 amps?", and he was like "cool."

Then we watched it.

This is the best story ever told.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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  • From: Red Deer, AB
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Re: Space Nerds

I'm a little hesitant to post this cause I have a weird feeling Teague is gonna task himself with building a 100% functional Apollo 11 or something...BUT, they've released the source code that got Apollo 11 to the moon.

https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/

So that's a thing.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2016-08-01 09:05:20)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

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  • Teague
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Re: Space Nerds

Duuuuuuuuuude. Cool!

EDIT: If my cocktail-napkin math is right, they had eight megs of memory to work with for the whole system.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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299 Reply by Sam F

  • From: Maryland
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Re: Space Nerds

Teague, how did you determine that? According to this: https://github.com/rburkey2005/virtuala … /README.md

Each shuttle had 2 AGCs, each with:
3840 bytes of RAM
69,120 bytes of read-only memory

So, between the two AGCs, 145,920 bytes of memory (~146k).

Am I missing something?

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  • Teague
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Re: Space Nerds

Nope, you're probably right — I wasn't looking at it for very long and I also don't know what I'm talking about.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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