The Space Thread

[Harry's Lad]

47 minutes ago, Poster said:

No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope
studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

 

Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds
immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and
surely, they drew their plans against us.
 

I can't read that without Richard Burton's voice in my head.

[halewood pete]

[dockers_strike]

4 hours ago, halewood pete said:

That's Southport beach and all!

[dockers_strike]

Space X SN 10 due to fly very soon. Will it nail the landing phase or else end up in bits?

 

 

[dockers_strike]

And launch aborted 1 second after engines fire!

[KMD7]

On 18/02/2021 at 21:54, Rico1304 said:

 

Remember when I got stuck on a motorway at the same time R4 were broadcasting an updated version of War Of The Worlds and I genuinely thought we were being invaded? Cunt. 

Johnny 5 is looking well for his age. 

[dockers_strike]

Space X SN10 going for another try in about 25 minutes!

[Bjornebye]

On 18/02/2021 at 21:11, Poster said:

No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope
studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

 

Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds
immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and
surely, they drew their plans against us.
 

Anyone else read that in Our Graham’s voice ? 

[dockers_strike]

Nailed it!

 

Landed successfully but has a slight lean. Maybe the landing legs didnt deploy fully as expected.

 

SN10 now blown up. Not clear whether it was deliberately destroyed due to the lean or a ruptured tank ignited.

[dockers_strike]

Debate on the Fermi Paradox.

 

I cannot get on board with the 'Zoo hypothesis' myself. To me, it just invokes the anthropic principle based on Star Trek's Prime Directive. We all know the Federation or even individual Star Fleet Captains disregarded it as an absolute to be held to rigidly.

 

To have a Prime Directive, you need many or at least a number of intelligent civilisations all agreeing to a non interventionist policy. Amongst the problems I see is it needs many such civilisations, something we dont see.

 

And if there are 'many' such civilisations, by following logic, because intelligent civilisation are so common, there would be some who arent signed up members to this galactic edict. That also doesnt take into account any civilisation signed up doesnt break ranks to make contact especially if it is a nearby one.

 

 

[dockers_strike]

Not much going on while we wait for the next Starship launch and Perseverance to get working on Mars. Thought Id return to one of my favourite subjects, the Wow! signal.

 

Until we hear more about the Breakthrough Listening Candidate detected as coming from the direction of Proxima Centauri, Wow! remains our best candidate extra terrestrial signal in over 40 years of searching.

 

I believe, at this moment in time and until proven otherwise, we are alone as a technological civilisation in the Milky Way. But, the Wow! signal gives me hope that we are not the first and maybe not alone.

 

Instead of concentrating on why Wow! could be an ETI signal, here are a couple of the reasons why it might not be.

 

It was a hoax! The Big Ear radio telescope that detected the signal was part of a university campus. Back in 1997, SETI was not so mainstream as it is now and was frequently ridiculed. Seems strange now but times change, I guess.

 

The equipment was quite basic and data wasnt studied in real time. Jerry Ehman who discovered WOW! was himself a volunteer and used to review data printouts from Big Ear anything up to 3 weeks after it was actually captured.

 

Im not certain how long after the 'event' Ehman actually reviewed the Wow! printout. If you search the net, you'll find statements this was done hours later. This is highly unlikely as in his papers, Ehman suggests he found the signal at least 3 days after it was received when trawling through the computer line print outs.

 

I dont for one minute think Ehman is involved in a possible hoax. But, as there was a delay between date of detection and date the printouts were reviewed, this does give a window of opportunity for person(s) to either manipulate the data or swap it out. And what better place to do this than a university campus where you have lots of students?

 

The simplest way to enact the hoax, would be to just swap out a night's print out with a pre prepared one. Anyone familiar with the computers in those days could easily manipulate the timestamps and recorded signal strengths. There were no actual electro mechanical recordings of Wow! All the data was captured on the green lined computer print out paper. Only basic information was captured such as date, time, channel frequency, signal strength and astronomical coordinates.

 

No tampering with the telescope is \ was needed although again, I guess some suitably intelligent students might have devised a way to give ita false transmission. Even so, if there was only a 3 day window of opportunity to swap the printouts, that's ample time to do it with a ream or so of pre prepared print out.

 

Why would anyone do this? Well just look at the debate in the 40+ years since. SETI was also starved of funds, under threat of closure and what better way to try and garner more money for the project never mind counter argue the naysayers?

 

The US was funding SETI albeit very small sums through NASA. Moves had been underfoot to cut this funding in what was seen as a waste of money. A year after Wow! funding for SETI was cut from the NASA budget. If the Wow! hoax was an effort to keep funding going, it clearly failed.

 

Or maybe Wow! was just a prank played by a couple of under graduates? Obviously no one has come forward to claim 'mea culpa' in the intervening years. But given the profile of Wow! and if they have a career in science to now protect, maybe that isnt so unexpected?

 

It was a computer glitch or, a false positive.

 

Everyone knows Big Ear was really two fixed radio telescopes with a receiver at each end, dont they? Unlike a dish, it was like a grid about 120 yards long. It couldnt be tilted or rotated. It used the Earth's rotation to scan the sky and stars.

 

Again, due to the limitations at the time, we dont know and cannot determine which of the two receivers detected the signal. If it was the first, why didnt the second detect it? If it was the second, why didnt the first detect it?

 

The signal being received by one receiver but not the other could be explained by the signal being switched on or off at the relevant point in time. But the Earth's rotation speed means this would have had to happen within about 6 or 7 minutes as the first receiver sweeps the sky before the second does similar. And the suggestion that an alien transmission conveniently starts or stops at just the right time seems a bit far fetched to me.

 

Another explanation is the signal was present after the second receiver swept the sky, was detected by the first receiver the next day then stopped before the second receiver covered the same patch of sky.

 

In effect, that means the signal could have been present for almost 24 hours ie almost a full rotation of the Earth. Alternatively, it started as the second receiver swept the sky and ended sometime before the first receiver swept the same patch of sky nearly 24 hours later the next night.

 

All sounds pretty implausible to me. But, a glitch or a false positive that just happened in early computer systems cannot be ignored. Virtually impossible to replicate or track the cause given the limitations of the day. No similar glitch or false positive was ever found in the data before or after Wow!

 

There's nothing in the patch of sky where Wow! supposedly came from.

 

Space as they say, is big but it is rarely empty. Transmitting a signal over light years distances takes a lot of power. More so if you want to target the recipient planet. Wow! is 30 times stronger than the background noise radio astronomers have to deal with. To send such a powerful signal over light years is no mean feat. You'd rightly expect a transmitter on a planet.

 

A planet generally needs a star yet, there are no stars and hence planets in the patch of sky where Wow! allegedly comes from. People might say well yeah, they're aliens so they sent a ship to that location so their home world wouldnt be detected.

 

Im no expert but stuff Ive read suggests the ship would have needed to be planet sized so why build a ship that big when you already have your home world?

 

There is a chink of light over this no stars in the relevant patch of sky though. Hubble has shown if you look long enough at a seemingly empty patch of the night sky, you will eventually see the light from very distant objects.

 

Recent investigations has resulted in an astronomer cataloging as many as 30 stars in the region of Wow! That could give some hope if further investigations can show they are there with potential habitats but, they may be a lot further away meaning if Wow! really was an ETI signal, it was sent a long time in our past and that civilisation no longer exists.

[Bjornebye]

Docker in his spare room

 

[Jordy Brouwer]

Aliens are a distraction. We probably won't ever contact any. 

 

What bother's me is how space travel hasn't really kicked on since Apollo 11. We don't even have a moon base!

[dockers_strike]

39 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Docker in his spare room

 

Hehe, does look a bit like a brother of mine though!

 

By the way, there's a fat fingersmistake in my previous post, it was 1977 not 1997.

[dockers_strike]

NASA fires up the SLS core stage in 8 minute test run. The SLS is the rocket that NASA hope will taken personnel to the Moon, Mars and maybe beyond.

 

Watch those engines gymballing!

 

 

More info https://www.space.com/nasa-sls-megarocket-engine-test-artemis-1-march-2021

[Elite]

I liken space travel to an ant in the UK travelling to Australia, to the ant it's beyond its comphrension that Australia exists and it would be impossible for it to get there even if it could understand but we as humans could enable this to happen very easily, just book the cunt on a Jet2 flight.

 

We may be the ants in something's reality, whether that's Aliens or whatever. 

 

We just need that bridge.

[Stickman]

The crew of Apollo 1 relaxing in 1966...

 

And to think I get pissed off when somebody dive bombs in the pool

 

[dockers_strike]

6 hours ago, Stickman said:

The crew of Apollo 1 relaxing in 1966...

 

And to think I get pissed off when somebody dive bombs in the pool

 

Grissom, Chaffee and White. RIP. Grissom has a starship named after him in ST:TNG

[dockers_strike]

Good interview with Prof Paul Davies.

 

 

[Stickman]

Sean Connery playing golf on the actual moon landing set...Buzz Aldrin is caddying

 

[dockers_strike]

Starship 11 supposedly going for test flight in 4 minutes but the pad is shrouded in thick fog!

 

 

[dockers_strike]

Massive explosion! Im guessing it didnt land as well as SS 10!

[Bjornebye]

1 hour ago, Stickman said:

Sean Connery playing golf on the actual moon landing set...Buzz Aldrin is caddying

 

Isn't even wearing a space suit. Seriously, what a fucking man. 

[dockers_strike]

Obviously early days and the lack of visibility doesnt help us outside observers take a stab at what went wrong.

 

The last couple of flights have got close to a successful landing albeit that 10 blew up afterwards. But, this sounded like something major didnt work as expected.

 

The huge explosion suggests 11 smacked into the ground at some speed and maybe didnt even get into the full landing stage.

 

To be honest, although tons of testing will be needed and done, I dont think Id volunteer to be one of the crews to fly this thing. It seems to me the orientation to an upright position is left to the very last second, seemingly to conserve fuel and have a lower fuel payload overall. That leaves no margin for error.

 

 

[TheHowieLama]