Space - The Final Frontier

[Fermion]

So Voyager has been going about 50 years (probably close to or more than 50 years for when the devices onboard were made).

How long do you think we could make something last, assuming it was shielded from most harmful external events? 100 years possible? 200?

If we were ever able to accelerate something to 3% of the speed of light, we could get it to another star in 200 odd years. Can you make electronics last that long?

 

[Christine]

If we were ever able to accelerate something to 3% of the speed of light, we could get it to another star in 200 odd years. Can you make electronics last that long?

With shielding against various forms of radiation I would think so. Old radios still work etc.


These days perhaps a Starship filled with goodies could do a similar task as Voyager? Just send it in the opposite direction.

 

[Fermion]

I did a little bit of searching and found a few proposals for a interstellar mission, but most of them required some jump in current technology. The most recent was Breakthrough Starshot which aims to launch about 1000 very tiny spacecraft (a few grams) that have a several meter diameter sail which is pushed by ground or orbit based lasers for about 10 minutes, accelerating them to 20% of the speed of light. They would reach another star in 20 to 30 years.

 

[Chuckanut]

Mr. Musk posted this photo of the Starship reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. His comment was “Wild that that this is a real picture.” We senior folks are living our childhood science fiction.

 

[AudiDudi]

Is anyone in the southwest going to watch the SPaceX Vandenberg AFB launch tonight? Easy to see from AZ. No idea if NM or TX.7:28 PDT. I've sewen a few from the PHX area.



https://www.spacelaunchschedule.com/launch/falcon-9-block-5-starlink-group-7-16/

 

[AudiDudi]

Is anyone in the southwest going to watch the SPaceX Vandenberg AFB launch tonight? Easy to see from AZ. No idea if NM or TX.7:28 PDT. I've seen a few from the PHX area.

https://www.spacelaunchschedule.com/launch/falcon-9-block-5-starlink-group-7-16/

Pic taken from Casa Grande, AZ about 4 minutes after launch.

 

[GrayHare]

If we were ever able to accelerate something to 3% of the speed of light, we could get it to another star in 200 odd years. Can you make electronics last that long?

The difficult thing is the power supply. In theory, a thermocouple could endure for centuries, but there are restrictions on launching radioactive substances into space.

 

[dixonge]

This group seems more interested in voyager than in starship.

I'm guessing that's a byproduct of the demographic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think it's cool to marvel at things that last way beyond their expectations, but I'm much more enamored with the current revolution in the entire space market. We had a long lull! This last Starship launch just made me kinda giddy. Love when the SpaceX staff cheers and is truly pumped at successful milestones.

 

[ERD50]

This group seems more interested in voyager than in starship.

I'm guessing that's a byproduct of the demographic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
...

No, I don't think it's demographics, it just that the more you learn about Voyager, the more amazing and impressive it is. well, OK, maybe a younger demographic wouldn't know as much about Voyager, and that might explain some of it, but as they learn, I think they'd find it just as amazing.

I'll see if I can find a concise bit on this, here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0339-2

Two Voyager spacecraft were launched on humankind’s longest journeys in 1977. At that time, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were lined up so that the gravity assist of each planetary flyby could serve as a slingshot to speed a spacecraft on its way past all four giant planets in just 12 years rather than 30. This special planetary alignment occurs only every 176 years, and Gary Flandro, a Caltech graduate student working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the summer of 1965, found that the outer planets would align in the late 1970s. This led to a decade of planning and construction that eventually culminated in two Mini Cooper-sized spacecraft being launched into the Solar System: Voyager 2 on 20 August 1977 and Voyager 1 two weeks later.

I've read that the computer power to make those calculations only became available shortly before that grad student made the discovery. So if that sequence of events did not occur, we would have missed that opportunity for another 176 years. Now, that, among so many other Voyager related things, is amazing.

But so are the current efforts. It's not either/or, it's not a contest. Both are amazing.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

The difficult thing is the power supply. In theory, a thermocouple could endure for centuries, but there are restrictions on launching radioactive substances into space.

Also, the thermocouples do degrade at a certain rate, and the radioactivity has a specific half-life, so it is losing power over time.

The engineers did a fantastic job of adding enough hardware to be able to power subsytems on/off as needed. This (like most engineering problems) is a fine line balance. Every extra circuit they add is another complexity, another point of failure, and added weight.

From wiki:

Voyager 1 has three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) mounted on a boom. Each MHW-RTG contains 24 pressed plutonium-238 oxide spheres.[28] The RTGs generated about 470 W of electric power at the time of launch, with the remainder being dissipated as waste heat.[29] The power output of the RTGs declines over time due to the 87.7-year half-life of the fuel and degradation of the thermocouples, but the craft's RTGs will continue to support some of its operations until 2025.[24][28]

-ERD50

 

[Fermion]

I thought I remember something about atom diffusion or atomic fingers forming which could cause failure in nano scale IC chips over very long periods, but this may have been 10,000 years instead of a few hundred years.

 

[CaptTom]

Never mind Voyager vs. Starship. What about Voyager vs. Next Generation? Or vs. Picard?

(Sorry. I felt like stirring a hornet's nest today.)

 

[joesxm3]

It is interesting that the first star trek movie seems to have come out only a few years after the voyages launch but had voyage as the main character. I did not realize how close the two were.

Plus I really fell over when I saw the first modern depiction of a Klingon.

 

[dixonge]

No, I don't think it's demographics, it just that the more you learn about Voyager, the more amazing and impressive it is. well, OK, maybe a younger demographic wouldn't know as much about Voyager, and that might explain some of it, but as they learn, I think they'd find it just as amazing.

OK boomer, you can stop fondling your slide rule now LOL

I think the demographics include both age and engineer-types. I can appreciate the wonder that is the amazing things Voyager has achieved given the low-tech approach available at the time. But I find it less interesting (by a large factor) than SpaceX and other related companies in the 'space' space.

 

[Chuckanut]

OK boomer, you can stop fondling your slide rule now LOL

I think the demographics include both age and engineer-types. I can appreciate the wonder that is the amazing things Voyager has achieved given the low-tech approach available at the time. But I find it less interesting (by a large factor) than SpaceX and other related companies in the 'space' space.

Voyager is our past reality. SpaceX is our past science fiction coming to life.

 

[Fermion]

Maybe if/when Musk really does get Starship launches down to $10 million a pop, he will decide to build a 1:1 scale Enterprise in orbit. Put a few vacuum raptors in each engine nacelle and load it up with enough fuel to do a few lunar fly bys.

I mean, could you think of any better way to BTD?

 

[Chuckanut]

It looks like we might actually see the first manned test flight of Boeing's Starliner vehicle in the next month or two or three.

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-historic-1st-astronaut-mission-ready-launch

Agency officials said today (March 22) that NASA is ready to go ahead at last with the first astronaut test launch aboard Boeing Starliner. Commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, both veteran astronauts, will launch on Starliner to the International Space Station no earlier than May 1.

"The launch date right now is no earlier than May 1. And that's driven by the ISS traffic, as you know it's been a busy year on ISS," said Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, at a press conference at the agency's Johnson Space Center.

The country needs another way to get people into Earth orbit, and Boeing really could use a win.

 

[joesxm3]

As long as the door doesn't pop off . . .

 

[SecondAttempt]

and Boeing really could use a win.

I agree. Boeing is a mess right now and rightly so. about 20 years ago I had a close association with several people at Boeing and reported to a former vice president. This was when McDonnell Douglas was swallowing them. Yes, publicly Boeing was the surviving company but insiders knew that it was MD management taking over

In my aerospace engineering training and later aerospace management degree it was always taught that Boeing succeeded by betting the company numerous times and then doing what was necessary to make the risks pay off. In my opinion and based on observation and conversation with insiders, they lost their was after the 1997 merger when management priorities were changed.

I hope they can recover but I think they are in a very deep hole right now that is only going to get deeper!

 

[Chuckanut]

.

In my aerospace engineering training and later aerospace management degree it was always taught that Boeing succeeded by betting the company numerous times and then doing what was necessary to make the risks payoff.

That sounds a lot like SpaceX in the early days of the Falcon 1, and even the Falcon 9 with its crazy recoverable first stage booster.

 

[Chuckanut]

LTC - Coordinated Lunar Time

NASA is looking to create a time standard for the Moon.

Good News! - No daylight saving time on the moon. You will have a choice, move to Hawaii, Arizona or the Moon if you don’t like to fuss with your clocks twice a year.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...inated-lunar-time-under-nasas-lead-180984076/

This week, the White House officially tasked NASA with establishing a time standard for the moon, called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) in the Office of the President’s memorandum, which international bodies can use to coordinate their activities on the lunar surface.

Unlike on Earth, the moon will have just one time zone and no daylight saving time. But that doesn’t make the project any easier for NASA officials. Factors like mass and gravity can affect how time passes—here on Earth, even the gradual redistribution of mass due to sea ice melt is forcing scientists to reconsider our timekeeping.

 

[Chuckanut]

It looks like Boeing is going to launch its first crewed Starliner flight in just a few weeks.

“ NASA will host two media opportunities on Thursday, April 25, in preparation for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station. The mission is targeting launch at 10:34 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 6, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.”

 

[Gumby]

Good news from Voyager 1. The mission team was able to discover the bad code that was garbling communications and is implementing a workaround.

https://www.space.com/voyager-1-communications-update-april-2024