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New Space race

akyron said:
How do we get it down here?


I'm thinking that you could probably make some extra large space capsuls that would be able to return into the Earths atmosphere without being burned up on re-entry and land them into the oceans with parachutes and have oil barge sized ships pick them up, it may be slow to send them from there to here and here to there but with a minimal rocket burn in 0-G orbit it's possible the problem would lie in getting the cargo tugs out of our atmosphere cheaply first but once we got the solution for that it could almost certainly be totally automated so the time question would actually be a non issue, allthough I must admit, that this scenario wouldn't apply to the moon or Mars only to orbiting asteroids.
 
robin said:
Virtually all of the patents listed there would have been developed whether the probes were manned or not.


I disagree. Mostly because they were not developed separate from the space program but within it. When people have a goal technology gets developed to support that goal. I guess its called incentive.

But since you can predict the future unerringly what are the Texas lotto numbers for Wednesday night?

Thanks.
 
akyron said:
I disagree. Mostly because they were not developed separate from the space program but within it. When people have a goal technology gets developed to support that goal. I guess its called incentive.
It takes more effort & skill & technical innovation to make automated science probes rather than include the enormous cost of homo sapiens bumbling around inside & having to eat their own excrement albeit it processed, or breath their own foul air.
Often the science is better coming from un manned probes. Imagine the Hubble telescope with humans in it bumbling around inside messing up the precise direction it's pointing at.
Most Shuttle missions are a space circus to hold the public's attention & so help secure future funding. What science are they supposed to be doing or indeed have they done, that machines in space couldn't do for a fraction of the cost?
To think of John Glenn in space to explore the effect of zero gravity on old people :lol:
He must have used his influence to get that little jolly.

akyron said:
But since you can predict the future unerringly what are the Texas lotto numbers for Wednesday night ?Thanks.
Sarcastic indeed ! Incidently, where did I claim to make any predictions ?
Perhaps you could provide a precise list of patents that were dependant soley on manned missions taking place.
 
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I think we should absolutely keep putting money into aeronautics and space exploration. There is most likely a vast amount of knowledge to be obtained elsewhere in the Universe. Plus, we might have to relocate to another planet someday, you never know.
 
George_Washington said:
I think we should absolutely keep putting money into aeronautics and space exploration. There is most likely a vast amount of knowledge to be obtained elsewhere in the Universe. Plus, we might have to relocate to another planet someday, you never know.

The odds of finding a suitable planet within 1000 light years from us are astronomical, no pun intended. And even if we do find one, there will probably be intelligent life there, and they don't necessarily have to let us emigrate.
Space exploration should be done with unmanned probes and telescopes.
Any intelligent life forms out there that finds one of our probes would probably be smart enough to destroy the probe immediately so we won't know that it found anything. Another possibility, they just might look upon us as a good source of protein to feed their pets!!!!:mrgreen:
 
UtahBill said:
The odds of finding a suitable planet within 1000 light years from us are astronomical, no pun intended. And even if we do find one, there will probably be intelligent life there, and they don't necessarily have to let us emigrate.
Space exploration should be done with unmanned probes and telescopes.
Any intelligent life forms out there that finds one of our probes would probably be smart enough to destroy the probe immediately so we won't know that it found anything. Another possibility, they just might look upon us as a good source of protein to feed their pets!!!!:mrgreen:

I'm just saying we should still continue to publically fund NASA and encourage aeronautical and cosmological research. I am fully aware of the fact that a suitable planet is thousands of light years away but who knows; someday we might have the technology to go there.
 
UtahBill said:
The odds of finding a suitable planet within 1000 light years from us are astronomical, no pun intended. And even if we do find one, there will probably be intelligent life there, and they don't necessarily have to let us emigrate.
Space exploration should be done with unmanned probes and telescopes.
Any intelligent life forms out there that finds one of our probes would probably be smart enough to destroy the probe immediately so we won't know that it found anything. Another possibility, they just might look upon us as a good source of protein to feed their pets!!!!:mrgreen:
Terraforming. It would be a long process but not impossible.

The biggest obstacle is time IMO. We don't live long enough to make long journeys in space with the current means of propulsion. If we could travel faster than light it wouldn't be an issue though.
 
scottyz said:
It's thing like this that make me wonder why we aren't already doing such things. Asteroids, the Moon and Mars could all be stripped mine without any consequences. There is no ecosystem to damage and no consequences for Earth from doing it. We may find new resources that are not available to us on Earth.

1) Find life on Mars, kiss goodbye to any chance of exploiting the Martian environment.

2) What do you think the copper-miner's union and the iron-miner's and the steel worker's unions are going to say when United Space Technologies, Inc grabs asteroid that's ten cubic miles of nearly pure iron and starts delivering ingots to orbital factories for stress free manufacture, and another company is locating and stripping copper ores, and those guys that will be busy strip mining the moon for aluminum and titanium?

There's LOTS of consequences to earth by exploiting solar system resources.

And I really don't think your typical steel worker is smart enough to put on a tuxedo without help. How well do you think they'll do with a spacesuit?
 
UtahBill said:
The odds of finding a suitable planet within 1000 light years from us are astronomical, no pun intended. And even if we do find one, there will probably be intelligent life there, and they don't necessarily have to let us emigrate.
Space exploration should be done with unmanned probes and telescopes.
Any intelligent life forms out there that finds one of our probes would probably be smart enough to destroy the probe immediately so we won't know that it found anything. Another possibility, they just might look upon us as a good source of protein to feed their pets!!!!:mrgreen:

The chances of finding an earth-type planet in that volume of space probably isn't as bad as you say, but we lack the data for an argument.

I doubt that any such planet would not harbor a technological intelligence such as ours. Intelligence is hard to find on this planet. Why assume we'll find it elsewhere?
 
robin said:
I'm going to go against my nature now :2razz: & be a proud boastful Englishmen & point out we invented 80% of everything in the world & it was nothing to do with any space programme...... The steam engine, steam turbine, Microwave, radar, MRI, CT, jet engine, 1st programmable computer, electric motor, battery, vacuum cleaner etc etc etc etc.
Remember I'm not anti manned space mission. I find manned missions to be very entertaining, plus there has been the very occasional useful one that has enabled maintenance on the Hubble telescope.

I didn't know Hero was an Englishman. I thought he was a Greek. And I'd be leery about bragging about the vacuum cleaner if I were you. Those things suck.
 
robin said:
To think of John Glenn in space to explore the effect of zero gravity on old people :lol:
He must have used his influence to get that little jolly.

To be specific, he de-railed the Senate investigation into the influence of Chinese money in the 1996 presidential campaign.

But men have a role in space. The robots are nice, but it took men to fix Skylab, and it took men to fix Hubble.
 
robin said:
Incidently, where did I claim to make any predictions ?.
Here.
robin said:
Virtually all of the patents listed there would have been developed whether the probes were manned or not. .
An interesting theory but false because they were NOT developed independently.


robin said:
Perhaps you could provide a precise list of patents that were dependant soley on manned missions taking place.


I think I already did but here are just 3 manned missions that directly resulted in nearly 40 commercial technologies we use everyday.



Apollo
Kidney dialysis and CAT scans.
2 of 14 technologies resulting from the Apollo mission.
International Space station spinoffs
Air purifiers and Fast Cook Ovens
2 of 10 technologies used everyday directly resulting from the (ISS) International Space Station
Space Shuttle

Chemotherapies, Bioreactors, Prosthesis Material
3 of 15 technologies directly resulting from space shuttle missions.


If you breathe, eat, get old, get sick, wear shoes clothing, use money, use any electronics whatsoever, use transportation, then manned space programs affect you to one degree or another. The list goes on and on.


More:
Inventions from Space
 
We just need to build the first Space Elevator.....then we will own space....
 
akyron said:
Here.

An interesting theory but false because they were NOT developed independently.
I think I already did but here are just 3 manned missions that directly resulted in nearly 40 commercial technologies we use everyday.
Apollo
Kidney dialysis and CAT scans.
2 of 14 technologies resulting from the Apollo mission.
International Space station spinoffs
Air purifiers and Fast Cook Ovens
2 of 10 technologies used everyday directly resulting from the (ISS) International Space Station
Space Shuttle

Chemotherapies, Bioreactors, Prosthesis Material
3 of 15 technologies directly resulting from space shuttle missions.
If you breathe, eat, get old, get sick, wear shoes clothing, use money, use any electronics whatsoever, use transportation, then manned space programs affect you to one degree or another. The list goes on and on.

More:
Inventions from Space

The link is a nice list, but has errors. Bar coding was not invented by Nasa. It may have been improved upon, but not likely. Some of the others are suspect as well but I am too lazy to look them up.
And the space pen? A prime example of wasted tax money. A pencil would have worked just as well in space, and it is a lot cheaper.:smile:
 
Trajan Octavian Titus said:
Wow, you Canadian bastard, you really have no idea about the future of the U.S space program do you? It's going private welcome to plannet starbucks ass hole. Now go slam down some maple syrup and talk to me when you got an army.

please the name calling its not called for

I simply stated facts ,China is not paying for their space race ,you are.through the walmart chinese consortium

no one wants a war with Canada why would we need to raise an army
one of our diplomats equals 15 U.S. hardened marine brigades, a us president ,and a us vice president

and when the diplomat fails 1 brigade of candians fight like 10 brigades of americans
we only use professional soldiers
and we dont cause friendly fire kills
and we definitely dont do preemptive depleted nuclear wars
no torturing of prisoners
our land mass is so large that we have no desire to conquer the world
as for maple syrop you got me there i love the stuff
and the space program got America on the moon but the black man in the ghetto
no medicare and is that all they did all those years and with all that money

is it really worth it what you get from nasa for the money spent
perhaps its time to fix the levees and let the spce program slide
 
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George_Washington said:
I'm just saying we should still continue to publically fund NASA and encourage aeronautical and cosmological research. I am fully aware of the fact that a suitable planet is thousands of light years away but who knows; someday we might have the technology to go there.

An unhabitable, suitable, planet? I agree, someday we will have the technology, if we don't blow ourselves up anyway. The way things are going, I wouldn't count on it.

Originally posted by Scarecrow Akhbar
I doubt that any such planet would not harbor a technological intelligence such as ours. Intelligence is hard to find on this planet. Why assume we'll find it elsewhere?

There has to be greater intelligence out there. But why the **** would they try to make contact with us, they probably have better things to do, would you try to communicate with an ant?
 
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I have seen a couple of shows that tell us about the incredible number of events and circumstances that allows for life on earth. Any one of those things, if absent, and life becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The distance from our star has to be just right, we must have lots of water, a moon of proper size and distance to help stablize rotation, sufficient gravity, a properly formulated atmosphere, a magnetic field to deflect radiation from the sun, and more.
All that has to be duplicated in another place for us to survive. Terra forming is fine on a small scale, like here on earth where we can convert otherwise useless land to productivity, but a whole planet? Not everything we see on Star Trek is possible. Whatever the new planet needs, we probably don't have enough of it here to do the job there.
I suspect that if it becomes necessary to abandon earth, we will have to set up traveling space colonies that travel for thousands of years before they find another place that will work for us. But first, we have to figure out how to make the human body survive long term space travel.
So rather than us going out looking for a new home, perhaps we should be spending our money fixing up the old one. We need to make it last a bit longer to give our space cowboys time to find us a new home on the range, because it is more likely that we will destroy our earth before it, or the aging sun, will destroy us.:shock:
 
akyron said:
Here.An interesting theory but false because they were NOT developed independently.
I think I already did but here are just 3 manned missions that directly resulted in nearly 40 commercial technologies we use everyday.

Apollo
Kidney dialysis and CAT scans.
2 of 14 technologies resulting from the Apollo mission.
International Space station spinoffs
Air purifiers and Fast Cook Ovens
2 of 10 technologies used everyday directly resulting from the (ISS) International Space Station
Space Shuttle
Chemotherapies, Bioreactors, Prosthesis Material
3 of 15 technologies directly resulting from space shuttle missions.

If you breathe, eat, get old, get sick, wear shoes clothing, use money, use any electronics whatsoever, use transportation, then manned space programs affect you to one degree or another. The list goes on and on.

More:
Inventions from Space
The technique of CT scanning was developed by the British inventor Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work which was not connected to to space travel. The digital image processing techniques are developed in hospitals & in the very dept in which I work. Also in regard to space, these techniques would have been developed by NASA for satellite image enhancement of earth & other planets using telescopes, regardless of manned missions.
As for air purifiers & fast cook ovens. The cavity magnetron (microwave oven) was invented by an another Englishman for WWII radar initially.
Air purifiers invented owe their existence to the space station ! LOL
May I remind you that without the money spent on manned missions the money would probably have gone anyway to universities instead & useful inventions would still have arisen regardless.
Nasa claim to have invented cordless 'Power tools' !
I just do not accept that the obvious idea of sticking a NiCd battery in a power tool only came about because of manned space missions.
As I mentioned... please don't believe too much of their glossy corporate speak.
 
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Tashah said:
Can anyone even vaguely remember the last influential Russian contribution to science? I didn't think so.

akyron said:
Lol. I was thinking a bit more contemporary, perhaps the last decade or so. The decline in cutting-edge Russian science mirrors the fall of the Soviet empire and their subsequent exit from a previously invigorating space program.

I just returned from Berkeley where we are fabricating an innovative negatively charged (n-dopa) silicon chip (backlighted) for a CCD camera. With their current scientific stasis, there is no way the Russians could mimic this feat without substancial technical assistence. Another indicator is the Russian inability to rescue their distressed submarines. A few months ago, even tiny Israel offered to lend Russia the technical assistence and assets necessary to free an entangled Russian mini-sub. The modern technical rule of thumb is... either keep pace or fall behind exponentially.



 
UtahBill said:
A pencil would have worked just as well in space, and it is a lot cheaper.:smile:


You cannot have the leaded dust in a clean room environment. It gums up delicate equipment which has to be cleaned or replaced so you are wrong on both observations.
Does not work as well nor is it cheaper.
 
UtahBill said:
The link is a nice list, but has errors. Bar coding was not invented by Nasa. It may have been improved upon, but not likely. :


Data Matrix Symbology-NASA Inventions Honored


"Data Matrix Symbology, which the researchers developed for tracking parts in the space shuttle program, is an improvement on bar-code technology. It uses two-dimensional symbols that contain 100 times more information than a bar code and that are read with a CCD."


It was an improvement by a factor of 100 so not too bad.
 
Tashah said:
Lol. I was thinking a bit more contemporary, perhaps the last decade or so. The decline in cutting-edge Russian science mirrors the fall of the Soviet empire and their subsequent exit from a previously invigorating space program.


You got me there. I cant dig up a single contribution at this time since their defunct motivator.
 
robin said:
The technique of CT scanning was developed by the British inventor Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work which was not connected to to space travel. .

Clarify:Digital signal-processing techniques, originally developed to computer-enhance pictures of the Moon for the Apollo Program, are an indispensable part of Computer-Aided Tomography (CAT) scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technologies used today in hospitals worldwide.


I noticed you attribute no recognition to Allan Cormack, who had independently derived and published the mathematical basis of CAT scanning in 1963–64.

He shared in the Nobel prize equally but then he was just an American.
robin said:
The digital image processing techniques are developed in hospitals & in the very dept in which I work. Also in regard to space, these techniques would have been developed by NASA for satellite image enhancement of earth & other planets using telescopes, regardless of manned missions..



Still need those lotto numbers man as long as you are predicting the future please. Thanks.


robin said:
As for air purifiers & fast cook ovens. ..

Enersyst Development Center of Dallas,-air impingement technology
255_73bx.jpg


Prototype
robin said:
The cavity magnetron (microwave oven) was invented by an another Englishman for WWII radar initially.
Air purifiers invented owe their existence to the space station ! LOL
..

Ill be more specific:The AiroCide TiO2 is an air-purifier that kills 93.3 percent of airborne pathogens that pass through it, including Bacillus anthraci, more commonly known as anthrax. It is essentially a spinoff of KES Science & Technology, Inc.’s Bio-KES system, a highly effective device used by the produce industry for ethylene gas removal to aid in preserving the freshness of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. The TiO2-based ethylene removal technology that is incorporated into the company’s AiroCide TiO2 and Bio-KES products was first integrated into a pair of International Space Station plant-growth chambers known as ASTROCULTURE™ and ADVANCED ASTROCULTURE.™ Both chambers have housed commercial plant growth experiments in space.




robin said:
May I remind you that without the money spent on manned missions the money would probably have gone anyway to universities instead & useful inventions would still have arisen regardless...

I love the way you present your "facts" with phrases like probably and would have been developed.
Im not interested in what you want to have happened. I am more interested in what actually occured. You are debating like a liberal now and I am getting bored with this thread.

If you cant give me the lotto numbers for Wednesday night then I disbelieve your ability to accurately predict the future


robin said:
Nasa claim to have invented cordless 'Power tools' !.


This one to be exact.
Computer-Controlled Power Tool



The one with the onboard computer, that provides enhanced capabilities for control of speed and torque, detection of faults, and analysis of operation.

"This invention has been patented by NASA (U.S. Patent No. 5,903,462). Inquiries concerning nonexclusive or exclusive license for its commercial development should be addressed to the Patent Counsel, Goddard Space Flight Center; (301) 286-7351. Refer to GSC-13879. "



robin said:
I just do not accept that the obvious idea of sticking a NiCd battery in a power tool only came about because of manned space missions.

And well you should not!
That idea is not what we are talking about and I hope I clarified that for you.
All posted infomation is publically available if you feel like looking.
Have a nice day sir.
 
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