so on the off chance the alien invaders can't find earth, we give them a freakin' map. real brilliant. as for the travelling at the speed of light thing, don't all electronic signals do this (any electromagnetic wave) and since space is a vacuum there is no interference to slow it down any (crap does that even matter for EM waves, vacuum vs. no vacuum, man i learned me some physics good 2 years ago).
Or, to put B-Bob's post in lamens terms, the universe is really, really big.... Cool! We sent p*rn into outer space!
damn thread and not refreshing, b-bob done gone and answered it already. but hey, i was right. as far as the plaque, is that the whole thing or just a tiny part of it. you'd think i'd know more considering how much i've read about space over my lifetime.
Yep. All EM waves go at the same speed (they just have different frequencies -- we happen to "see" the ones that are most abundant at the earth's surface after the atmosphere filters a lot of other frequencies). And the vacuum matters! Some weird people at MIT have now created some sludge and light can only crawl through it. Basically when light moves through this stuff, you can walk across the room faster than the light moves! If you look at an EM wave as a hyper-active electric oscillation, then any material that is sluggish, in an electrical way, will slow it down.
even nasa realized it was the universal language. some civilization will get that and think "yep, they're just as horny as us, though i would've gone with two women."
LOL Wasn't that a quote from the movie Contact? "Maybe this thing is a homing beacon. We build it, and it transmits a message to Vega. Hey, over here!! Big planet to take over!" - or something to that effect. James Woods was kickass in that movie!
Voyager 1 and 2 have both overtaken Pioneer 10 as the most distant human objects from earth. They are both to continue taking readings through 2020 (at least) by then they will both be in interstellar space.
no idea, but it would make sense. as for this MIT sludge, i wanna say i read about that a while ago (or at least something that slowed it way down). i'm sure you can't see through it, but that would be mighty weird waiting like 3 seconds to see something someone just did 10 feet away. just think, francis could commit 3 turnovers before you even knew he committed one!
They are about to enter the heliopause (w/in 10 years) which is the boundary of our solar system. They are going to measure the slowing of the solar wind as hits the interstellar winds.
Yeah I think I am. My dad always liked the Portland Trailblazers, then he magically started watching the Rockets in Feb 1995.... wonder why? He's a fairweather fan though... really pissed me off when he just kept ragging on the boys when they were down 3-1 to Phoenix. ClutchCity baby!
The Saturn V rocket was able to lift the largest payloads into space. It was bigger then the Russian Energia (which is pretty huge). I think it would have made a great compliment to some sort of smaller shuttle. Use the Saturn to get big things in space and use a smaller shuttle to get people up into space.
Great thread, B-Bob. They REALLY lost the Saturn V plans?? I remember watching the first Lunar landing and Walter Cronkite's coverage... the genuine awe in his voice as we waited to see if it would be a success and then YES! Armstrong steps on the Moon. A dream for millennia realized. The Saturn would have been invaluable building the Space Station. Far fewer flights for the Shuttle. More money to spend on other things... like quality control. (sorry, it just came to mind... building the shuttle was probably a mistake from the get-go. It has just been on my mind, for obvious reasons) Most people involved or interested in space at the time, imo, thought we would have an enormous space station (or 2 or 3) in orbit, a colony on the Moon (or 2 or 3... the Soviets, you know ) and would have begun Mars exploration by now. Wishful thinking? An opportunity missed? And Pioneer. The little space probe that could.
Thanks, Deckard. I should definitely stick to science threads instead of political ones. Anyway, I'm going to look into this thing about the lost blueprints. I've had several people in the know swear that it's true, but I want to know for sure... to see if it's documented. I completely agree with this vision we used to have, by the way. I would not have believed (in, say, 1974) how little we've progressed in space at 2003. But then I would not have believed what we're finding with all the new astronomical observation techniques either.
So, you rank this above Magellan? It went way beyond any anticipated research to the point they were able to reprogram it to collect data that they never thought it could or would do. For Geologists, Magellan was priceless.
