81–90 of 94 posts
On a side note, I wonder how interested we'll be in Mars once the novelty wears off. Will it still be a place where we send our best and brightest? Or a place where we send those who have few other options? My bet is on the latter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
E.g.: > The ship, without a mast or a rudder, was carried across the northern Pacific Ocean by currents. It drifted for 14 months, during which the crew lived on desalinated seawater and on the rice of their cargo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otokichi
"The Makah took the three survivors of the broken ship and held them as slaves for several months before taking them to Fort Vancouver." ^ Their story only got worse! The tribe turned them into slaves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makah
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But no atmosphere either, thus galaxies and nebula visible to the bare eye, apart from countless stars.
That's not exactly how that works. The light from galaxies and other Deep Sky Objects (DSOs) are too faint for the human eye. Only with much more sensitive electronic chips or the longer accumulation of photons from long exposures do we get to see these DSOs. Also, a lot of these DSOs are hidden out of the visible light spectrum. So if the earth was to suddenly lose its atmosphere today, we wouldn't be seeing DSOs to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not exactly how that works. The light from galaxies and other Deep Sky Objects (DSOs) are too faint for the human eye. Only with much more sensitive electronic chips or the longer accumulation of photons from long exposures do we get to see these DSOs. Also, a lot of these DSOs are hidden out of the visible light spectrum. So if the earth was to suddenly lose its atmosphere today, we wouldn't be seeing DSOs to…
On a night with good conditions I can recognize for instance Andromeda Galaxy, Orion Nebula, and the hazy stuff around the Plejades with my bare eyes, though faint, and not colored like with astrophotography. Are you telling me I couldn't see them better without atmosphere? Do I have owl eyes, or what?
*If you live some place with so much humidity/heat that the air was always working against to you seeing things clearly that now are suddenly clear, maybe you'll see more. However, other places on the planet still saw them. Kind of like living in a large city with horrible light pollution. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not visible elsewhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get that, I'm just saying why does it need to not have windows?
On Mars you have to deal with radiation because there is no magnetic field. The most realistic way to do that in early missions is by putting rock between the habitation module and the sky, either by burying it in regolith or by putting it in natural lava tubes. Either option makes windows difficult. If this experiment shows that windows are vital, I'm sure there are ways to make it work. But otherwise windows are an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often thought that wall-sized retina monitors would be wonderful. People can travel the world this way without ever leaving the room. But it might work even with the large TV monitors today. Just put a camera where the nice view is, and pipe it in to the screen.
VR has probably killed that market. Walter you might be interested to know that London City airport's Air traffic controllers do actually use this technology. There isn't enough space for a full tower so they have a redundant camera system on site and the controllers are nearby elsewhere - this allows them to use tricks like overlaying data about aircraft onto their view, and they actually compress the whole viewing…
Otherwise, I like the idea. Hopefully, nobody with a backhoe starts digging into their dedicated fiber lines.
Better source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-is-recruiting-for-yearlong... To qualify, you must be: * A U.S. citizen or permanent resident. * A non-smoker, age 30 to 55 years old, and proficient in English. * A viable candidate as an actual astronaut. For this, you usually need a master's degree in a STEM field, or you need to be a pilot or doctor or military officer.
These people usually make good money and often need to make good money, because they have families and mortgages. It won't be easy to find people fulfilling all that criteria (including health requirements) and willing to leave a good job for a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a night with good conditions I can recognize for instance Andromeda Galaxy, Orion Nebula, and the hazy stuff around the Plejades with my bare eyes, though faint, and not colored like with astrophotography. Are you telling me I couldn't see them better without atmosphere? Do I have owl eyes, or what?
Okay, now you're going to make me qualify it based on the object's magnitude. Let's try this. If the earth lost its atmosphere today, you would not suddenly see things tonight that you wouldn't normally have seen before.* *If you live some place with so much humidity/heat that the air was always working against to you seeing things clearly that now are suddenly clear, maybe you'll see more. However, other places on t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIRA
Though that was about 1980, not as light-polluted as it is now. I don't do things like that anymore, but I'm still thinking I'm not talking non-sense when it comes to that stuff (magnitudes, etc.)
Maybe I have owl eyes ;-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often thought that wall-sized retina monitors would be wonderful. People can travel the world this way without ever leaving the room. But it might work even with the large TV monitors today. Just put a camera where the nice view is, and pipe it in to the screen.
But not smell it. Neither feel it. For instance the moments where temperature, moisture, dew point make it 'just right/silken air'.