Space - The Final Frontier

Today (11/09/2017) is the 50th anniversary of the first launch of the Saturn V rocket.

Here's an article:

‘Without Breaking the Shell’: 50 Years Since the Saturn V’s Maiden Launch « AmericaSpace

Fifty years ago, the largest and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status thundered into the clear Florida sky, shaking windows, dislodging roof-tiles and making spectators wonder if the Sunshine State had sunk into the ground.
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And yet perhaps the most memorable account was that of veteran CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite. “Our building’s shaking!” he exulted. “The roar is terrific. The building’s shaking. This big blast window is shaking. We’re holding it with our hands. Look at that rocket go into the clouds at 3,000 feet. The roar is terrific!”
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AWESOME! Thanks for posting. I'm hoping to go see the Spacex Delta Heavy launch soon.
 
Koogie said:
Gonna assume you meant terraform Mars, not Earth..;)

When I was a kid, speculative fiction about Venus was on par with that about Mars (Rice Burroughs notwithstanding) Pioneer kind of killed that off.
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I read somewhere not too long ago that Mars was the best candidate for terraforming a planet. I guess that's obvious. What's not so obvious is that even if everything went right, with our current technology it would still take 100 years to change Mars weather conditions to make it suitable for life as we know it.

Now, Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk want to go to Alpha Centauri to look for life or possible Earth like planets. I would like to see it too, but I just don't think I will see it my lifetime.
 
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When I lived in Atlanta I heard from some of the older folks in the astronomy club that when the F-1 engines for the first stage of the Saturn V were tested in Huntsville, it could be felt in Atlanta. This web page states that the test firing was the loudest noise ever heard in Alabama.
 
I recently finished the 3 book trilogy by Cixin Liu (Chinese author, translated). Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death's End.

It is fiction, but the third book (Death's End) took "space is big" to a new meaning. Amazing imagination and story. No way to explain other than to say read it.

Recommended if you are a space/fiction fan.
 
bloom2708 said:
I recently finished the 3 book trilogy by Cixin Liu (Chinese author, translated). Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death's End.

It is fiction, but the third book (Death's End) took "space is big" to a new meaning. Amazing imagination and story. No way to explain other than to say read it.

Recommended if you are a space/fiction fan.
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Thanks for the reminder. I thoroughly enjoyed the Three Body Problem, so now I'll have to get the others.
 
Gumby said:
I find the Voyager 1 to be a marvelous feat of engineering. They just this week successfully fired its thrusters after 37 years of dormancy, and from 13 billion miles away.
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...oyager-has-fired-up-its-trajectory-thrusters/
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"After nearly four decades of dormancy, the Aerojet Rocketdyne manufactured thrusters fired perfectly."

And my last cell phone was obsolete after 18 months. Amazing.

"...engineers say they will be able to extend the lifetime of Voyager by two or three more years before its waning power reserves expire."

LOL, I wonder if that's just enough time for them to all RE?

No, wait. At this point the folks who originally worked on it are probably already retired. Maybe it's the second round of engineers who are anxious to RE.
 
The sheer genius of the original designers, not to mention the current group monitoring Voyager, beyond-astounds me. To be able to know PRECISELY where the thing is, and then program thrusters to reorient it, is in and of itself genius.
And of course the fact that the thrusters worked after 37 years is just amazing. I know I don't work the same as I did 37 years ago.
 
Not to mention the radio transmitter still working, and the whole thing still having any power at all.

Sobering thought: it will still need to travel more than 300 years before it even reaches the Oort cloud. Space is big.
 
Sad to think about how comparatively little has been accomplished in those 37 years. With the exception of the lunar and Mars rovers, "we" haven't really left low earth orbit.
 
Koogie said:
Sad to think about how comparatively little has been accomplished in those 37 years. With the exception of the lunar and Mars rovers, "we" haven't really left low earth orbit.
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I wouldn't quite say that

Among others we have landed on Eros, Venus, Jupiter, a comet, and Titan. Granted some have been crashes with the spacecraft not expected to survive on the planet for very long, if at all. But a probe landed on a comet and survived, and Cassini landed a probe on Titan which survived for 90 minutes

Messenger orbited Mercury before being crashed into the surface.

The Dawn spacecraft orbited Vesta and Ceres two huge asteroids in the asteroid belt. The first spacecraft to orbit two other bodies.

Cassini visited Saturn. It deployed the Huygens probe that landed on Titan and sent back data for 90 minutes. This is the furthest landing from Earth as of today.

And New Horizons has flown by Pluto and has left the solar system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_probes#Mercury_probes

The sad thing is that today the USA has to buy seats on foreign spacecraft to get a person into LEO.
 
FWIW, SpaceX has pushed the initial launch of the Falcon Heavy to January 2018.

Like, Mr. Musk said, one way or another it is going to be an exciting launch. :D :eek:
 
Chuckanut said:
I wouldn't quite say that
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Think about all the accomplishments in the decade and a half up to the year Voyager1 launched. First man in space, moon landings, these interstellar spacecraft launching.

How do those accomplishments stack up to what has been done since ? Especially since we've had 40 years since ...
 
So 150 years later if successful will it be known as the first automotive historical museum or the first automotive junk yard in space?? :D
 
Chuckanut said:
The sad thing is that today the USA has to buy seats on foreign spacecraft to get a person into LEO.
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That truly is sad. I still don’t understand the dismantling of the shuttle program prior to a viable replacement.
 
Totoro said:
Not to mention the radio transmitter still working, and the whole thing still having any power at all.

Sobering thought: it will still need to travel more than 300 years before it even reaches the Oort cloud. Space is big.
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Consider that Voyager 1 has about 250 W of power available from its radioisotope generators, and it transmits a radio signal nearly 12 billion miles that can be detected from Earth.

I need a drink.
 
Koogie said:
Think about all the accomplishments in the decade and a half up to the year Voyager1 launched. First man in space, moon landings, these interstellar spacecraft launching.



How do those accomplishments stack up to what has been done since ? Especially since we've had 40 years since ...
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Granted we haven’t done much re: landing humans on other planets, but we’ve done a lot of science since then.
 
Just consider that Columbus "discovered" the Americas for Europeans in 1492, but it wasn't until the mid-1600's that they actually started settling here in any meaningful numbers. Hopefully it won't take us a century and a half between discovering that we can launch people to the Moon, and settling Mars. But it sort of puts things in perspective. It just won't happen as fast as we all thought it would when we were watching the moon landings on live TV.

A century or two is nothing on the timescale of human history. Just hope there isn't an asteroid on a collision course due to hit before then.
 
I remember after watching it all on TV from the first vanguard launchings (and failures), the first mercury capsule, the first moon landing, and how fast everything was happening, if anyone had told me we would not have a thriving moon base by 2017, I would have told them they were insane.
 
CaliforniaMan said:
I remember after watching it all on TV from the first vanguard launchings (and failures), the first mercury capsule, the first moon landing, and how fast everything was happening, if anyone had told me we would not have a thriving moon base by 2017, I would have told them they were insane.
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More or less what I am getting at. If the past 40 years had proceeded at the same pace as the first 15, we would have lunar bases, Mars bases and probably have landed rovers on all the interesting outer moons and planets.
 
Congrats to SpaceX today on their historic double. Used capsule on a used rocket. And landed the rocket back again. 17 launches in 2017 with 1 more still to go.

Maybe the Elon haters can remind us again how he is a "snake oil salesman" ?
 
Koogie said:
Congrats to SpaceX today on their historic double. Used capsule on a used rocket. And landed the rocket back again. 17 launches in 2017 with 1 more still to go.

Maybe the Elon haters can remind us again how he is a "snake oil salesman" ?
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We will see how Tesla does going forward.... that is the company he made public... one investor today said he thinks the stock is worth 0.... and has shorted it so his money is where his mouth is....

Still, it does not take away from the products his companies produce...
 
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