Space Exploration

Are NASA's future missions and budget justified?

  • It's worth the time and expenditures

    Votes: 223 66.0%

  • Complete waste of money

    Votes: 41 12.1%

  • We need to explore, but not at the current cost

    Votes: 74 21.9%
  • Total voters
    338
#651
#651
Nice launch today. I am home sick, and I didn't even know it was going until my windows rattled. I ran out and watched to MECO.
 
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#652
#652
Our space program died when it became a program requirement for no one to die. Space is really the last frontier and explorers sometime die.
 
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#653
#653
Scientists just found the first evidence for liquid water on Mars

Previously, satellite data has provided indirect geological evidence of liquid water — and we have good reason to believe lots of water existed on Mars in the past — but this new finding changes our understanding of the planet's hydrologic cycle. It's still extremely unlikely any life could possibly live in such cold conditions — but the finding could perhaps make it easier for humans to live on Mars in the very distant future.


It was already known that water exists in all sorts of non-liquid forms on Mars: as ice (both in the ice caps and in glacier belts that encircle both hemispheres), as water molecules bonded to minerals in the planet’s soil, and as water vapor in the atmosphere. The traces of water spotted here by Curiosity are very little, by volume, compared with what we already knew about.

But the finding suggests there might be much more water in the soil than we previously imagined. That's because Curiosity collected this data in Gale Crater — a low-altitude, relatively warm location that has less atmospheric water vapor than most other parts of Mars, so should be least likely to have this sort of condensation.

"The fact that it happens here means it is likely more abundant elsewhere," says Alfred McEwan, a planetary scientist who worked on the new paper.
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#656
#656
Dark Matter May Feel a

After decades of studying dark matter scientists have repeatedly found evidence of what it cannot be but very few signs of what it is. That might have just changed. A study of four colliding galaxies for the first time suggests that the dark matter in them may be interacting with itself through some unknown force other than gravity that has no effect on ordinary matter. The finding could be a significant clue as to what comprises the invisible stuff that is thought to contribute 24 percent of the universe.

“This result, if confirmed, could upend our understanding of dark matter,” says physicist Don Lincoln of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, who was not involved in the research.

So-called “self-interacting dark matter” has been suggested for some time but it has generally been considered unorthodox. The simplest model of dark matter portrays it as a single particle—one that happens to interact with others of its kind and normal matter very little or not at all. Physicists favor the most basic explanations that fit the bill and add extra complications only when necessary, so this scenario tends to be the most popular.

For dark matter to interact with itself requires not only dark matter particles but also a dark force to govern their interactions and dark boson particles to carry this force. This more complex picture mirrors our understanding of normal matter particles, which interact through force-carrying particles.
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#662
#662
Why don't we track this thing if we really believe its alien in nature (and giving off radio signals)? also it seems much more accepted that the pictures we have are pieces of insulation that fell off (NASA was tracking such debris in the general area from one of their launches when the pictures were taken). not saying the whole thing is bunk, just that the pictures may not be what we think they are.
 
#664
#664
AirVol said:
Funny you say that. When I lived in Huntsville my neighbor who had worked at NASA for 25+ years at the time told me about this Black Knight and said it was not from this world. I'm like okay. LOL
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I'm pretty sure several nations have the technology to capture this thing if they wanted it. If anybody thought it was from another world, I'm pretty sure somebody would go get the insulatio.......errr....I mean, Black Knight, and bring it down to examine it.
 
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#665
#665
LouderVol said:
Why don't we track this thing if we really believe its alien in nature (and giving off radio signals)? also it seems much more accepted that the pictures we have are pieces of insulation that fell off (NASA was tracking such debris in the general area from one of their launches when the pictures were taken). not saying the whole thing is bunk, just that the pictures may not be what we think they are.
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We may never know this but- I'm sure there's been a space walk or two to investigate this thing. NASA wouldn't never come out publicly and admit they had astronauts on top of this thing riding it thru orbit while checking it out.
 
#666
#666
Danl said:
I'm pretty sure several nations have the technology to capture this thing if they wanted it. If anybody thought it was from another world, I'm pretty sure somebody would go get the insulatio.......errr....I mean, Black Knight, and bring it down to examine it.
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It was in orbit before Sputnik, so whose insulation does it belong to?

Left over from Mercury Vortex engine fired rocket from India thousands of years ago, like some claim?
 
#667
#667
AirVol said:
It was in orbit before Sputnik, so whose insulation does it belong to?

Left over from Mercury Vortex engine fired rocket from India thousands of years ago, like some claim?
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Riiiiiiiight..... So why doesn't somebody just go grab the thing and bring it down here? If it were from somewhere else, there would be an all out space race to capture it and examine the advanced tech. But there is no such race to get it. Why?
 
#668
#668
Danl said:
Riiiiiiiight..... So why doesn't somebody just go grab the thing and bring it down here? If it were from somewhere else, there would be an all out space race to capture it and examine the advanced tech. But there is no such race to get it. Why?
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Don't have the answer to that, good question.

By the looks of it, I don't think it could fit in the cargo bay of the shuttle so not sure how it could be brought back to earth.
 
#669
#669
Danl said:
I'm pretty sure several nations have the technology to capture this thing if they wanted it. If anybody thought it was from another world, I'm pretty sure somebody would go get the insulatio.......errr....I mean, Black Knight, and bring it down to examine it.
Click to expand...

BTW, isn't thermal insulation always shiny and not black? just asking.
 
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#670
#670
AirVol said:
It was in orbit before Sputnik, so whose insulation does it belong to?

Left over from Mercury Vortex engine fired rocket from India thousands of years ago, like some claim?
Click to expand...

no one ever saw it before we got into space. (and put stuff up there) the article i linked explains all the pre-space-flight stuff.
 
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#671
#671
AirVol said:
BTW, isn't thermal insulation always shiny and not black? just asking.
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apparently two sided. Black side is the adhesive side, reflective on the outside.

the thing i am curious about is the size of the thing. if it did get here 13,000 years ago (after traveling for how ever many years) i would assume it would be pretty big/give off a big signature besides some radio signals misdiagnosed as coming from the satellite.
 
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#672
#672
I have no idea what that satellite is and don't believe its alien but I do believe that our or any other government would hide proof of alien life from the masses.
 
#673
#673
AirVol said:
Don't have the answer to that, good question.

By the looks of it, I don't think it could fit in the cargo bay of the shuttle so not sure how it could be brought back to earth.
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send a manned mission to it, or a probe. I am a supporter of space exploration, and if we have an alien vessel orbiting us we need to spend whatever dollar amount to get up there and study it (assuming we can't bring it back down to earth ((again this assumes it would even be safe to bring it down here, I have seen too many scifi movies to want some not understood alien tech in our atmosphere))
 
#675
#675
hog88 said:
I have no idea what that satellite is and don't believe its alien but I do believe that our or any other government would hide proof of alien life from the masses.
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I think you're wrong.

They already parade around the illegal alien from Kenya.
 
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