I'm a believer...

it's kinda selfish of us imo to think that we are alone in the Universe. I could go on and on...

thanks for sharing

Pvjinflight wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2012 at 6:01pm:


Technically, we have no indication, nor any true scientific proof that life may exist outside of earth, or our solar system. The fact is, whatever force caused life to begin (which shall forever be a mystery) it is quite possible that those conditions caused life to sprout here, and that it has not occured elsewhere in the universe. The nearest star is 8 light years away (proxima centauri) and it has no planets, therefore nowhere for life to exist. The nearest star with planets is probably 50 light years away, and those planets may not have the right life-supporting conditions. Plus, if life was first generated here, it would takes millions of years for any vessel, be it comet or asteroid, to make it to the next habitable location, and all that time is in the lifeless, near absolute zero conditions of deep space. I believe it is entirely possible that no life exists outside of our solar system, and if there is, the chances of that life being as intelligent or more than humans is incredibly slim. Take the 8.7 million species projected to live on earth, only one out of 8.7 million is intelligent enough to do what we do. Now say there is another race outside of earth just like us, or more intelligent, why would they invest their resources and hundred of thousands (to millions) of year traveling across the expanse of lifeless space, only to reach earth, flash by in a few minutes, and leave? That is the question. That is why I think they don't exist. Lightspeed travel is impossible for living beings, therefore the time spent is to great for any intelligent beings to not stop here, and make contact, or at least linger to observe.

More on perspective is here. Not so much on topic, I admit.   But perhaps some of the distances and sizes come to life for you folks (or just blow your minds, that's what happened here). Great video in my eyes.

We have only explored a tiny fraction of what our solar system consists of. I think it's a bit premature to rule out life outside of our planet, here in our own system.

Please take no offence but how would anyone know what some (supposed) advance civilization is capable of? We've had some technology for...100 years or so? they could have been at it for millions!!!

We're all stuck in our little bubble, sending out tiny "feelers". IMO we know very little, even when it comes to our home.

"It's a basic function of our universe to become aware of itself."~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

Pvjinflight wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2012 at 11:16pm:


The problem is that once at the speed of light, and object's mass becomes infinite, therefore, any life form would be instantly killed because its mass would be so great that it would exceed any organism's limits, and therefore, it would die. A Whale dies on land because its mass is too great to be supported by anything other than a liquid fluid.

But that is the great mystery of life, not the conditions, no, those are things that can happen anywhere, any time. Rather, it is how the structure of the first life form, a simple single-celled prokaryotic cell came to be with a coil of DNA with the right codings for life, ribosomes, a cell wall, cell membrane, plasmids, and cytoplasm, and how that structure began to function as a single living form that was capable of taking in nutrients, processing them, and reproducing itself by mitosis all at once. I'm by no means denying the existance or possibility of e.t life and it starting in unrelated places, but that once miraculous event in which the first life form started, what made it start, and how it survived is the mystery. We look at artistic devices that people make, magnetic coils that change shape through their own inertia and opposite polls, and how that thing can only assume the exact same shape once; how now to snow flakes are alike, how not a single non-living thing in the universe can form and create more than formations in a nearly identical fashion (let alone as something that is routine like reporduction) more than once (that one time being the original, or an example of that thing, i.e. a mountain). It is with this that I say that through the extreme, harsh, and unpredictable course of mother nature, that it is entirely possible that whatever caused life to begin one day, may only have happened once, and perhaps we are lucky, because that one original cell survived, for if it didn't, we may well all be just atoms floating in oblivion.

Thats my two cents. Not denying the possiblity of e.t life, just pointing out my opinion based on what I have learned, and what seems like 'common knowledge' everywhere else.

Guys, to be honest, I would literally die knowing that we are the zenith of evolution in that big universe. And we all know what caused alien lifeforms to officially keep away from Earth so far. The taxes are too darn high!  

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Peter, could it be that you mix up the basic formula from Einstein? E = mc^2

What's becoming very big (not infinite) is the energy needed to reach light speed with a given mass. That's because the speed of light squared (c^2) is such a big number that even a small mass (m) will receive a huge gain, resulting in a large amount of energy. Well, even with that in mind, we already know stuff reaching the speed of light, right?
I think I know what you might have had in mind with the 'mass' you are defining as becoming infinite. However, you've mixed that up. The 'm' isn't altered and the photons hitting your face won't harm you, don't worry.

But perhaps one has to think outside the box on some occasions and we mortal beings of course don't discuss Einstein's ways in detail. Only few people on the planet do or even can.

But, apart from that (and besides the evidence from Lou), please explain how Mr. Spock got his hands on some US made (well, means Chinese ) flight computer.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/1196208102/

My faith belief is that there may be other physical life out there in this vast universe,but that in this life we will not be permitted to have contact with them.I believe there are spirit forms of life that we are aware of,both good and bad,but both physical and spiritual forms are created beings,just my 2 cents
Ron

Peter, read about string theory & membranes. Maybe no need to go so fast?  

The sun is made up of mostly hydrogen gas, but the extreme gravitational pressure at the core turns the gas into something very different - plasma. The pressure is so great, and temperatures so high (around 15 million Kelvin) that the simple atoms of hydrogen fuse to create helium. During the process of this fusion reaction a small amount of mass is lost in the form of a photon, about .7 %. Even though this is a small number, it is times C (the speed of light). This results in a very large amount of energy being released.

The photons created during the fusion process deep in the core of the sun can take thousands of years to reach the surface of the sun and go on their journey into space, where eight minutes later they reach us as light.  In one second, our sun produces enough energy for almost 500,000 years of the current needs of our planet. As CoolP showed in the video our sun is just a small stable star which is good for us.

Every thing we touch and us as well came from the evolution of stars. Everything on the periodic table was created in a star and during the death of a star. We are stardust!  

Maybe this should be astronomy 101... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQu_RRLbVDA



We really know so little!  

Lou


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Don't praise mother nature too much, she will bite at times and doesn't care about creatures thinking they are intelligent but sometimes acting.. differently.  

CoolP wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2012 at 4:31pm:


Problem is that carbon happens to be the single most perfect element for creating life forms. Why? Because it has a low mass, and it has four valence electrons, which allow it to be both stable, abundant, and allow for the bonding of more carbons, and as a result, everything else.

Lets look at elements, and atoms (one in the same). An atom can have at most, 8 electrons in its valence ring (the farthest out from the nucleus), with the exception of hydrogen and helium, who only have two (since their valence ring is the first ring, and all first rings have only two). Now an element with one electron in the valence ring is incredibly unstable, because it seeks 7 more to complete the out ring, therefore, it likes bonding with group 17 elements, to form a stable compund, such as NaCl (salt). Now natrually occuring elements in group 1 (except helium) are incredibly unstable, and are explosive, especially in water. That is why they are contained in oil while in their natural state. Although these group 1 elements, called Alkali metals, are metals, they hardly are compared to iron and gold. Group 2 (alkali earth metals) are relatively reactive, at standard temperature, to other metals, and flammible (magnesium). Now lets skip ahead, since all the metals aren't a source for compounds in organisms. Boron, group 13, is a transition metal, and therefore also not suitable for life-compounds. Therefore, our very first non-metal is carbon. His four valence rings (at total of 6 electrons) make him very stable, and allow him to bond to many things, be it hydrogen, iron, more carbon, etc. A carbon atom could bond with for more carbon atoms, and each carbon after that could bond to one, and all the open places in those rings could fill up with hydrogen. Because of this, the possibilites of carbon are endless, because it can bond with more like it, and with other non-metals, and gases like H, or O, or N to make very complex compounds, which can thus form proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and the other molecules responsible for life. Plus, carbon can have double bonds, peptide bonds, and other types of complex bonds to make rigid structures, which help in teh construction of things such as a cell wall (plants). the only other element.

All other elements in group 14 (the carbon group) are either transition metals, or metals. These are unsuitable for life compounds. It is theorized that silicon could be a base for life, other than carbon, because of its lower weight, less metallic properties, and similarities to carbon (i.e. four valence electrons). However silicon, because it is a transition metal, is unable to form chemical bonds with other atoms, therefore making it unable to be a useful base for metabolic processes, which require chemicals (which exist throughout the universe, since the laws of our universe are essentially universal, pun intended). Because of silicons increased mass, it forms compounds that are bulkier and "monotonous compared with the combinatorial universe of organic macromolecules". Silicon's greater mass and atomic radius makes it very difficult for it to form a double bond with another element.

Carbon is the perfect, and in the eyes of most scientists, the only base for life.

pj747 said: Carbon is the perfect, and in the eyes of most scientists, the only base for life.

Peter, I would add, "that we know of!"

Again, my attempt at a cartoon...  



Lou

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I don't know if you've seen the old movie, The Power of Ten.

Very good look into our makeup, and I mean the whole universe.

Look at your desk that the confuser is sitting on. It looks solid, right. Well it is full of empty space. Think of it like the empty space much like the space between our sun the the planets. The nucleus of the atom is surrounded by its cloud of electrons flying around at a great distance with a lot of empty space. That is why, when a star goes novae and collapses into a neutron star, a lot of the empty space is squished down but, it still has most of its mass but in a very small diameter. A spoon full of that neutron star could weigh millions of tons.

As poor Alice said in wonderland, it's curiouser and curiouser!  



Lou 

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There is some oddness in the discussion. I'm not talking about the different opinions of each individual. That's actually the interesting part and the one to learn about. No, it's more about the ways some things get communicated.

boeing247 wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2012 at 11:28pm:

A very vague expression, 'extremely slim'. Perhaps we would have to ask to which level of 'extremely slim' you refer. So the odds that a modern plane crashes are extremely slim, the odds of winning in the lottery are and, as you say, the ones for e.t. life. Same expression, most likely different levels. Which one to pick?

Did those chances ever receive a defined number? Is there something like a consensus on that number?

We've detected some billions of stars out there, but, as of now, we are on some 777 planets which we were able to detect. Read it again if you like. 777 in the year 2012. We have sent some vehicles to the closest ones in our solar system and we are eager to sent some more to e.g. look for water or ice probes as we are not sure, from just observing, if there is or was any form of life on the moons of Jupiter for example.

I don't know what those numbers will tell you, but I do know that some human beings are well aware that knowledge consists of two levels. The one you have and the one you need to form up something in the means of awareness.

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Please don't make sentences that long, they are hard to read.   I know about AP and one main phrase is missing. I've added it to your sentence. This may slightly change the context.  

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After the vague stuff, there seems to be a more defined status. What makes you think that you might be the first life form? Why not the second, the one after one billion or, in the eyes of a totally different being, no life form at all?

If you alter some reference frame very slightly, you and I are just about the same as the monkey in some lab, being degraded to another form of life, the one we run tests on. Altering the reference frame some more, perhaps on the time scale, the root of human existence could hardly be detected or even differentiated from some planetary elements.

Now we do know a bit about what lead to the development of human skills, but we have no idea about other reference frames than our own. It's not that we have to force ourselves to 'think alien'. No, it's just about being aware that we may always 'think human', therefore blocking some paths for our minds and, later, acting.

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Mind your first sentence and the left out phrase, life 'as we know it'. Speaking of facts would be scientific but always applies to a state of current knowledge. Not many years ago, nobody expected life at extremely hot, acid or otherwise life-threatening places on our own planet. It took some folks to actually look up those places and.. find life. So within a short amount of time, facts were changed.

Combining the word odds and facts in one sentence often makes no sense. The one thing is an assumption, which can be made mathematically, on a rhetoric level or e.g. by religious 'laws' in place. The other one sums up what does exist, what is explored or just states, as a fact, that we don't know yet.

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That's the one paragraph I can relate to. However, it features a very human centric viewpoint. That's not a problem as long as you don't lock yourself (your mind and thinking) out by just wondering if there could be 'something like humans' out there, forgetting about all the other possibilities.

There's also one disturbing part. The way to relate intelligence to something which is only possible with a human-alike development. The mind is blocked for anything being outside of that frame. You may not be able to see it, even if it was right in front of you.

Don't get that wrong, in evolution theory, it makes sense to rely on former experiences and then develop improved ways. But even evolution cuts some corners and if you are looking for another, for a new life, you may have to leave behind those ways you got so used to. This starts with the thinking and surely is a major limiting factor in science.

Finally, to assume that being 'capable of invention and scientific curiosity' is something only being bound to 'our' ways of life, here on earth, may even contradict the statement itself.  

Quoting another member because he's posted a beautiful closing sentence.
dbhally wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2012 at 8:01pm:

CoolP, you seem to have completely misinterpreted my point. 

Well, not completely. I was being human-centric, but that's because, let's face it, building spacecraft to visit other planets is a very human idea. My point was that, if life exists elsewhere, it wouldn't be [b]life as we know it[b], which means that it probably wouldn't be building spaceships to come visit us in.

I didn't talk about life as we know it, because the odds of that developing on other planets are nearly nonexistent, and if life exists in a completely different form from humans, then the whole UFO and extraterrestrial visitor points are moot, because life like that wouldn't be exploring the cosmos.

And the reason I said "extremely slim" is because the odds are something like a billion to one or more, and I didn't want to look it up. But to give you an idea, The Physics Book (which is a great book, by the way), says that if the rapid expansion that occurred one second after the big bang had been one part in one thousand million million (not sure what number that's supposed to be) off, the Universe would either have collapsed in on itself, or would have expanded too rapidly for subatomic particles to form atoms.

(And sorry for my apposition-filled, extraordinarily long sentences. I think I'm going to break the comma key on my keyboard pretty soon  )

All I'm saying is that, if life were to develop on other planets, it would be very different from life on Earth. Because it would have gone down a completely different evolutionary timeline, it is extremely unlikely that life with intelligence such as ours (a brain that makes the organism want to explore and possibly contact extraterrestrial life) would evolve. That makes me seriously doubt the validity of claims that say aliens have come in ships that are usually said to be made out of metal and are covered in lights that resemble Earth-made lights.

I wasn't actually using the Anthropic Principle to prove my point, I was actually using the same evidence that supports the AP (that the odds of life forming anywhere are astronomical).

And the "if we were the first life forms" was just me musing on the Anthropic Principle. I was just saying that, perhaps, if the Anthropic Principle is designed to create beings that can observe the Universe, then if Earth were the first place that life developed, then perhaps it wouldn't need to develop on other planets, and it wouldn't. But that is far beyond the realm of today's science, so I'm totally speculating. 

Something makes me think that you folks are afraid of something.  

SETI projects are running all day long, humanity sends out spacecraft for looking at the planets they can reach, we have some probes flying for decades with the intention to transport knowledge to whoever may find them and then we have two guys trying to cite science and 'forgetting' about vital phrases.
No problem with that, but if a theory speaks about 'life as we know it', it's of no use for other cases, right?  

While I'm sure that the two of you did get this, I seriously wonder what's blocking you. Even more so since I'm talking to very young fellows of course.  


However, to be read with a   in mind.
701151 wrote on Aug 4^th, 2012 at 6:11pm:

No need to travel that far. I see two individuals right in front of me with no emotion, or no drive to discover.   Please, join the humans again, Bram and Peter.  

We are having loads of fun dancing around that monolith.  

I'm the one with the hair all over the body and the monkey walk. Wait! 

Weird is an understatement and I feel your pain, or at least felt it. When I saw it the first time, I really had nothing about it which I thought I could ever like. Turns out, I was watching it without.. watching it. Sounds completely nuts but one can like and even adore some elements, not only on the technical side of things when it comes to the actual age of that film.

Well, to stay on the weird impression. That scene alone may come in very weird if somebody doesn't know the film, right? The monkeys (or is apes correct? I don't know) and the monolith. Loud and.. weird. You name it.

But I wonder if there is any modern science fiction being that full of a message and less full of great CGI stuff or dramatic changes in the story. A part of me thinks that the focus on the cool effects has robbed quite some films the atmosphere or mood.

Hey, you've left one question open, CloudSurfer. When took that thing place you are describing here? Wait, where is your post? Deleted? 

Mark, you shouldn't allow the misinterpretation of the folks to distract you. In science, you will hardly find two opinions being the same. Often enough, and especially on the topics with a lot of assumptions included, they will even contradict each other. That's the very nature of science.

Well, if you ever saw two professors discussing items, you get to know how wrong a public audience sums up the word 'discussion' by the way. It's not arguing, it's the very essence of progress, of doubt, of force to drive curiosity. And all those theories we sometimes relate to being facts are the outcome of such discussions. A current consensus (somehow) and science will always look for later proof (or disproof), whereas religion postulates to already 'have proven'.

I absolutely agree to your personal viewpoint when it comes to the chances for being the only life in space. I must admit though, I don't want that to be true of course. So I'm biased. In fact, I would be robbed of a lot of my personal motivation and hope if there ever was a proof that the humans are the the most advanced life in the universe and that Earth is the only living sphere.

Even more so since I've developed an aversion against anthropocentrism which, by the way, our two friends may show in a more or less severe manner. That fact alone is a shame and you folks can expect me to really wonder about the reasons for that (in my eyes) very wrong attitude. Especially among the younger folks.

Carl Sagan once warned people about developing that attitude, but that's from decades back. So seeing 'fresh' minds coming up with it (or tendencies) is a warning sign of some kind. As mentioned before, it blocks a huge amount of paths for the mind and sort of acts as an opponent of open science. Hence his warning, so it's not about not tolerating other opinions. Everyone is free to block himself. 


But, to be more on your post, you are once again true. Some scientist may end up in a sort of 'I know it all, even the unknown' attitude, leading to follow-up attitudes of all kind, including to look at non scientists as being unworthy to even comprehend simple things.

Lets say those aren't the guys we can look up to. But we do have some interesting minds in our society and those folks do have a sense for 'knowing that we know nothing'. They also bring in some idealism or skepticism, which, again, is vital for science to continue in all possible directions.


By the way. I'm sure you folks know this one special photograph. I'll leave it here and the text from NASA. Can you spot the Earth, can you see 'us'?  


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http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=52392

All I can say is 'insignificant', which just means that a humble attitude is the preferred one when it comes to the humans speaking about the rest of the (known) universe and everything else surrounding them.

There are more stars in the universe than there are sand grains among all the beaches of planet Earth. So if you took away Earth from the universe, it would be even less significant than taking away one grain of sand.  

701151 wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 10:33pm:

The same logic which lets you state dimensions and formulas wrong and the 'careful thoughts' leading you to jump on anything harming your personal view on the world of lets say the aviation business, Peter?   Open question, not just within the limits of this thread though.

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'Evidence' as a word being used by someone praising his own logics has a certain value. I just don't know which.  

But, more on the case, why not start asking folks at a local research facility about what they think of lets say a cure for HIV or cancer, a future way of producing energy without ripping the planet apart or just the foreseeable demise of social integrity due to a lack of resources and, hopefully, successful ways to deal with it?

What's their 'evidence for success' if there is something like that? You know, just to get a feel for the word. Also ask them about chances and how one can estimate those. And don't forget what motivates them and the folks paying the funds.

On a wider scale, why not look on how prominent guys think about the chances of life beyond the boarders of capitalism or nuclear war? Take Stephen Hawking, how did he come to the conclusion that, in a mathematical view, there is no way to deny a possibility since the value is clearly between 0 and 1. Just means that the ones denying are as wrong as the ones 'knowing' that there is something out there.

Keep asking about those things and your strange view on the word may hopefully change. Nobody in science stops of there is uncertainty. No, that's where science actually starts! Right between the 0 and the 1. So stop believing and thinking in fixed ways and admit that there is a lot to know about. That's the spirit and just these days the next Mars explorer is about to land. Ask them why! Ok, here's a hint.  
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NASA fact sheet. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/mars-science-laboratory.pdf

Guess what's the name of the vehicle. Curiosity!  
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html


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So we have the environmental concerns being declared as  'B.S.' while, at the same time, surely being a proud supporter of the 'war on terror' and the billions being spend without any greed for funding in place.   Ah, I see, the logics again.  

The same logics which let 'us' built thousands of nuclear warheads (we didn't had much terror back then, so what else could we do?), to blow up the planet several times. What was the evidence basis of that move again? I'm lost, but I'm sure it was very important and I'm even more sure that it still is very expensive.


Markoz wrote on Aug 5^th, 2012 at 2:54am:

In that case, we had a least a good investment. Well, not in my book, but in quite some as it seems.

Is the creator sitting in front of the boy?   I knew it! He is big, old and um grey.  

By the way. 3hrs to the landing of that Mars explorer. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

Evidence is a material thing, something that can provide for hypotheses, to lead us towards an end result. It can be the pugmark of a Tiger, drops of blood, a video, a recording, or a fingerprint, to name a few. We know that HIV is a virus, Human Immunodeficiancy Virus, and that it is, in theory, curable, as we cure other viral ailment as well. We know there are alternative sources of power: wind, solar, hydroelectric, but these sources aren't ways to power a nation of our size, with our consumption and our infrastructure. We have the access to nuclear power, to natural gas, and when supplemented with these 'renewable' power sources, our future will be secure.

The reason we acquire and stockpile all those nuclear weapons? Because there was another superpower named the United Soviet Social Republic, the Soviet Union, and it was they who acquired equal or more weapons of equal or greater caliber, and to have such an unstable and dangerous threat be a superpower, and to be the greatest threat to the United States and democratic western world, it isn't logical, it isn't stupid, it is foolish not to be as equally prepared as they are, because if we run out before the run out, or they destroy what we have in one place, any victory, and chance to stop them , is over.

The War on Terror was and still is a necessary measure to ensure the safety and security of both the United States and the world. The difference between it an every other war our country and world has faced is that there is no one country, city, or military base to attack. They attacked us on our soil, killing 2,977 civilians, the worst attack in the United States since Pearl Harbor, resulting in more casualties, all civilian. Following an attack, a country with the means must attack back to defend itself; the enemy was Al-Qaeda, and theyaren't a country, or a city, or a military force. They are a vastly interconnected yet sparcely located group that has no headquarters, no base of operations, and no resources aside from money and men. Their leader, as well as almost the rest of them were easily defended by hiding out in the Indus Mountains of pakistan and Afghanistan. What we did was necessary: we had to destroy those who harmed us, and prevent it from happening again, to both us and anyone else. We went into Iraq because it was thought they had WMDs, as did Libya, Syria, and others. They ended up not finding any (some may have existed), but the removal of Hussein was a move that wasn't bad. The mistake taken was that we not only dismantled the regeim, but we dismantled their military, which was the greatest blunder. By taking apart that system, there was no organized body in which to give power to, and to make sure bad things didn't happen. Democracy doesn't work in Muslim society (Turkey is an exception, seeing how western they are), and the idea of installing a successful, effecient democracy that would self-maintain itself was a bad idea, punctuated by the removal of our forces, which were the glue keeping the government in its slippery place. They say we did it for oil, and that was a consideration, but not without importance. Of course we care about oil; any industrialized nation needs oil, it runs our cars, planes, trains, and even produces power and heat. Without it, our society couldn't function. To say we had no grounds for the  War on Terror is a sign of poor understanding of the situation. It took 10 years to locate Osama Bin Laden, because he wasn't hiding in the Indus Mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan, but because the Pakistani government was hiding our greatest enemy, and our 'ally' was not an ally. The things we do in Afghanistan to search and destroy Al-Qaeda are necessary, for that organisation is our enemy, and we cannot have them in strength. Some seek to put democracy in Afghanistan, but it will never work. Since the  times of Alexander the Great, the region has been an ungovernable ground, and will forever remain that way. The War on Terror is not something you can say was a mistake; mistakes were made, as with any large action, but its outcomes provided for the safety of ours, and everyone else's nations.

He wasn't a scientist, nor a physicist, nor a prestigious historian, but he was a highly educated man, who expended much of his time in doing vast amounts of research in what he wrote, and he was a very intelligent, wise man. Much like Mark Twain. Intelligence and wisdom are different that knowledge and education. Being educated doesn't make you intelligent or wise (not to downplay Mr. Hawking by any means).

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701151 wrote on Aug 6^th, 2012 at 2:16am:

Erm, are you still with us?   Feels a bit like all US stereotypes converged into one single spot and person, later resulting in your post. What the heck did I just read?!

Well, lets leave it that way and hope for the better. I actually wished you hadn't shown me that part of the US. I will stick with the other ones, being glad they are still there.

Following Mark's concerns.
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And with that, lets blow off some steam.  

CoolP, is it me or do some of the posters need to buy a paragraph brake?

Anyway, this is all you really need to know! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DA2MKuI6fs  

LOU wrote on Aug 6^th, 2012 at 2:58am:

Haha, no worries, we're on it. Well, at least partially.  Nice video again. You like the MP thingies, huh?

Seems like the folks at NASA are happy and we are receiving sharp images of Mars. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120806.html Lou, there aren't any people holding up texts yet. I guess they are on a break.   I also fail to see elephants. Wait, grey!  

And when was the last time you were that happy about landing?  


VIDEO http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=14483&media...

They (the bunch of NASA folks) gave an interview at reddit. You know, one of those 'Ask us Anything' sessions. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ybmmh/we_are_engineers_and_scientists_on_t...

It's pretty interesting reading about the details and the time the mission itself and the preparations are running. The folks are on it for some 10 years and more.

In between, here's our planet viewed from Mars.  



The interview features a lot of humour and 'useless' facts, I guess that's what makes it cool.
whats one cool trivia fact about curiosity that everybody should know?
Its got a friggin' laser on its head, that can VAPORIZE rocks!  


Does Curiosity have any increased capacity for operating during the Martian night due to it's lack of reliance on solar power? Did you put lights on it?
There are no lights on the Rover. It utilizes the night time to recharge the batteries to drive and explore during the day to take advantage of the day time.

but what if the life-form only comes out at night...
Well fu.k  


Then there's one guy going a bit off topic by reminding one of the NASA folks about that math book he's borrowed some 8 years ago.  


Another detail would be the question on the hardware for the rover's computer. Don't expect much CPU power, some smartphones may kill that thing. But there is a link on the actual cost of just the CPU which made my head explode.   And the stuff is some 8 years old.


And some story on a rover's life. Very sad.   http://xkcd.com/695/


Are there any protocols if you find alien life / bacteria / fossils?
Every science hypothesis is vetted among the team, and we would want to make sure we were absolutely certain it was life/fossils/etc. before releasing it to the public. But we absolutely would release this information, once we had sufficient evidence and it was agreed upon among the science teams! We follow this procedure for all of our interesting finds.


Question on the link speeds.
Through the high gain antenna, which we can point directly at Earth, we can achieve ~10 kbps from Mars to Earth.  


A nice (user) quote.
My favorite part about this is that all sounds incredibly difficult to me, almost prohibitively so, and you come out with, "none of it seems to be insurmountable."

THAT is the fu.king spirit.


Yeah, perhaps read into that reddit page. It really is a fun read and also offers some of that spirit.  


And to add. Some nice story.
WHY NO MICROPHONE???
We took a microphone on the Phoenix Mars Lander, and we turned it on but essentially heard nothing (white noise) so it was never released. We don't really need it for any experiments.

Here's a little more info on the Phoenix microphone. It was essentially a hitch-hiker. It was built into another instrument taken off the shelf for the the lander, but it was never intended for the mission. There was no science team or budget connected to it. Since it was not intended for use it was never tested before launch and never entered into the power budget for the lander. Only after Phoenix successfully completed it's mission, 5 months after landing in the polar region, was the mission somewhat willing to test it. They couldn't do it earlier because they couldn't risk the prime goals of the mission if anything went wrong. The project manager was fairly certain it wouldn't work and was against trying it because he didn't want to raise expectations. His mind changed when we got a tweet to the @MarsPhoenix account from a man who said he was blind and how much he wished he could hear Mars because he couldn't see the pictures. A couple days later, they sent the signal to Phoenix to turn it on but we got.. well.. nothing. Empty files. If we had received anything, it would have been released. The team figured the mic was frozen solid and decided to give it a second try by leaving it on longer to warm up. Unfortunately, the Phoenix mission lost its last bit of power (as expected) before it got the second instruction. -vm

Me too CoolP, I am very sad to see this quiet man pass.  

To Fly west, a trip we all must take....

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

 
     Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee