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Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

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Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#121

Post by quercusa »

ernopp wrote: post #22
Leszek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called the "overview effect": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect

I wonder how we could get more people to experience this effect... Something like what Stewart Brand did by pushing for and publicising the first whole earth picture (in part via the Whole Earth Catalog) but more for the internet age. I was toying with an idea of a site called "Get Some Perspective" where you'd start off with a FPS view and as you scroll you gradually zoom out, eventually to the whole observable univ…

In case you've never seen it, check out the Eames's Powers of Ten.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#122

Post by quercusa »

jordemort wrote: post #104

As a kid, I really wanted to be an astronaut. I didn't make it, although I did go to Space Camp. It's mostly something I don't think about anymore, until I see pictures like this - looking at the entire planet just floating there in space does something to my brain. I hope space tourism will become accessible to non-billionaires in my lifetime!

By middle school I knew I'd never be an astronaut but I would have really liked to go to Space Camp.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#123

Post by dragonwriter »

proc0 wrote: post #120
evan_ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stars are visible in space but the Earth is so bright that if you expose it properly, the stars are underexposed. It’s basically the same reason we don’t see the stars in the daytime: the sun is much brighter.

Right but does that mean astronauts don't see stars because it's always "daytime" in space? If we can see the Milky Way in the night sky of remote places away from cities, then the atmosphere must be playing a huge role in allowing us to see stars. I'm just wondering if those night skies are also visible in space, perhaps from the dark side of the moon.

> then the atmosphere must be playing a huge role in allowing us to see stars.

It does not. The Earth blocking out the light from the Sun (and the side of the Earth facing it) does.

Of course, that also works in space, and stars are visible in space:

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/stargazing-from-the-inter...

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#124

Post by ghaff »

anchpop wrote: post #113
flohofwoe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France is actually doing something very sensible here (banning domestic flight between cities if the travel time by train is under 2.5 hrs): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56716708

why is that sensible?

Yeah. If there's good train service, it probably makes more sense to take the train. But if I'm flying through a city to get to another city, switching transportation modes can be a pain. e.g. Normally I'd take a train from (downtown) Manhattan to (downtown) Philadelphia. But if I'm flying into a NYC airport on my way to Philadelphia, that's a terrific hassle especially with luggage.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#126

Post by Bjartr »

astroflask wrote: post #38
flohofwoe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really need to take the power and "reality distortion effect" of propaganda during the Cold War into account. Massive projects were started without much rational sense just to beat the other side in an imaginary race (and a very concrete military race). What's the point of landing a man on the moon, if the technology to do so was so rushed and held together by duct tape that it wasn't useful for anything else? Wh…

> What's the point of the Space Shuttle if launches were more expensive than disposable rockets? What's the point of the Buran, if the Soviets didn't feel like they need an answer to the space shuttle "just in case", even though they couldn't see any point in the shuttle design (except as a nuke carrier)? Rather than nukes, I always thought the main advantage of the Shuttle was the ability to bring things back to Ear…

One designed advantage that, AFAIK, was never leveraged is the ability to launch to space and land in a single orbit.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#127

Post by willis936 »

hyko wrote: post #112
willis936 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually doing it is important. “I can go to the moon anytime I want” stops being true after a solid generation of not doing it. There is institutional knowledge in doing something in the present world. Further, specs and documents are nice, but rarely sufficient. A famous example is the F-1 engine. Every one of them was made off spec and if you took the factory drawings alone you would never make a working engine. Y…

I agree that there’s probably not much value in just retreading the old specs, but I’d argue that just having the knowledge that it has been achieved in practice still puts you ahead of the engineers in 1961, and that the intervening decades of progress put you even further ahead. There’s no reason to think that an equally well funded greenfield effort couldn’t land on the moon from a standing start within a decade;…

No and I agree. Saying that we’ve regressed in rocket science or concrete in any capacity is a fantasy. However, if things go stale then we could be forced to invest a lot of money to discover things we’ve already discovered.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#128

Post by proc0 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #123
proc0 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but does that mean astronauts don't see stars because it's always "daytime" in space? If we can see the Milky Way in the night sky of remote places away from cities, then the atmosphere must be playing a huge role in allowing us to see stars. I'm just wondering if those night skies are also visible in space, perhaps from the dark side of the moon.

> then the atmosphere must be playing a huge role in allowing us to see stars. It does not. The Earth blocking out the light from the Sun (and the side of the Earth facing it) does. Of course, that also works in space, and stars are visible in space: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/stargazing-from-the-inter...

Ah nice, thanks. I would think these would be as popular as the dark background earth ones, but maybe I just missed them.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#129

Post by pmarreck »

hyko wrote: post #20
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #6

It's hard to believe that it's been over 50 years since humans have been outside of low earth orbit. It's like we sprinted forward so fast, going from horse drawn carriage to space flight in a generation, only to get frightened and recede back from the highest point, never to go back. Granted there has been an enormous amount of innovation in the last 50 years, but by some accounts we've been going backwards. Humans…

Technology has not regressed since the 1970s though. We have the latent capability to go any time we want, it’s just very expensive and there’s no point.

> and there’s no point

How do you know "there is no point"? Also, at what points in history was exploration pointless, exactly?

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#130

Post by pmarreck »

beaconstudios wrote: post #111
pmarreck wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad you’re respecting taste, especially when you’re throwing such anthropomorphological argument against it ;) I’m not sure why there is such a significant aesthetic difference between cutting stones and stacking them (masonry architecture) and filling the exact same form with concrete, especially when the latter is usually far more robust and thus, safer (read: actually life-affirming, by being neither flammabl…

Architecture follows philosophy. Skyscrapers (internationalist style) and large curved glass buildings (modernist style) have the same core philosophy as neoliberalism, for instance. Brutalism came about as an explicit rejection of aesthetics and "higher purpose" to building facades - an idea deeply rooted in materialist philosophy, hence its adaptation by the Soviets. The grandparent comment demonstrates this perfec…

Interesting. Very holistic. Which is to say, not very concrete. Wink.

Did you follow the link I posted a few comments up, the "nine brutalist wonders of the architectural world"? Explain how those exemplify "just a box that people exist in"

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