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Philae has landed

bbc.com

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Re: Philae has landed

#291

Post by valarauca1 »

tripzilch wrote: post #289
valarauca1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual real world benefits of Space Flight are strange. For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm). Instead it gave us seemly random things, that we were looking for, but are beneficial nonetheless and some which may not come out right away. The Apollo Mission gave us ASICs, Cordless Tools, CAT sc…

> For example the Apollo program didn't bring back DeathCrystals from the moon, that allowed us to crush the Soviets in a glorious patriot war (obviously sarcasm). Sarcasm aside, this is more due to Geneva Conventions rather than actual lack of Death Crystals on the moon.

I'm pretty sure if we had found Death Crystals on the moon we would have figured out a way to synthesize and weaponize them on earth.

Re: Philae has landed

#292

Post by TomGullen »

ganzuul wrote: post #265
TomGullen wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarian world philosophy is totally bunk (if that's what you were referring to). I down vote most of that because it's generally ridiculous.

But what if you were no longer allowed to hold this particular opinion? If we generalize the postulate, it does not compute.

You're allowed to hold this opinion, where did I suggest you're not allowed it?

Re: Philae has landed

#293

Post by dmytrish »

bdamm wrote: post #232
prawn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you not? We are not talking about throwing away everything to insure ourselves against future catastrophe, we're putting a small portion towards a bit of futureproofing. Seems smart to me.

Ah, that's just your DNA talking. Otherwise we could be immensely pleased with the amazing experience of being alive, and when our time is up allow Mother Universe to move on without us. Perhaps after we are wiped out, another better form of life will take hold and really do amazing things, fueled by our decay. Besides, it looks like our own behavior is going to do it for us, so might as well "love the bomb".

We are alive as far as we want to be alive. We can be that "better form" of life, it's questionable that a better form of life can emerge from scratch. If our own behavior is going to get us extinct, so be it, let's help the nature then!

Besides that, I think that personification of "Mother Universe" is just a xenophobic form of human fear of the "otherness" surrounding us. There is no monolithic Mother Universe, more probably, there is a mesh of living creatures and natural phenomena we are a part of.

We are a part of Mother Universe.

Re: Philae has landed

#294

Post by [deleted] »

bdamm wrote: post #232
prawn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you not? We are not talking about throwing away everything to insure ourselves against future catastrophe, we're putting a small portion towards a bit of futureproofing. Seems smart to me.

Ah, that's just your DNA talking. Otherwise we could be immensely pleased with the amazing experience of being alive, and when our time is up allow Mother Universe to move on without us. Perhaps after we are wiped out, another better form of life will take hold and really do amazing things, fueled by our decay. Besides, it looks like our own behavior is going to do it for us, so might as well "love the bomb".

[deleted]

Re: Philae has landed

#295

Post by Retric »

nathan_long wrote: post #206
bane wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, stunning stunning bit of science and engineering. Everybody involved in this should be beaming with joy. Once again the light of reason continues to chase away humanity's ancestral boogiemen.

> Once again the light of reason continues to chase away humanity's ancestral boogiemen. Boogiemen like the belief that humans are more than collections of atoms and random emergent behaviors? Because if those are your boogiemen, there's no particular reason to rejoice in reason, or anything else for that matter - it's all ashes in the end, and nobody will be left to care, whether we colonize Andromeda or blow oursel…

I don't see how having 'god(s)' out there some how magically adds meaning?

Re: Philae has landed

#296

Post by swah »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #71
bsaul wrote: post #17

Anyone knows where i could find some info about the software stack this kind of probes are being built with ? Languages, programming methods, patching methods,os, runtime, etc. I'm really curious to know how different it is from the web or enterprise development worlds.

Ron Garrett (formerly Erann Gat) has some background on how these decisions are made. It's not pretty. http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html

Also his "How I lost faith in Lisp" post is interesting.

I'm not sure how I stand on "w/ a great language one does great things" vs "great engineers do great things with any tools they have" debate.

Re: Philae has landed

#298

Post by johndevor »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #270
ngoldbaum wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say a comet is going to impact Earth in a few decades. One proposal among many [0] to divert a comet is to aim a laser at it for a few years, long enough for the outgassing from the laser spot to push the comet onto an orbit that misses the Earth. If you were designing a mission like that, wouldn't you want to have first-hand knowledge about the comet's surface? This is also a baby step. We now feel more confid…

I think your latter point (about the value of asteroids) will have a much larger impact on the world and spacefaring in general than, say, observations about the temperature of an asteroid. If it turns out there's trillions worth of materials in asteroids, then I can guarantee the world's budget for spacefaring will go up a hundredfold within a few years. Going to space for science (or beating the Russians) is one th…

One problem with the space asteroid mining argument is that if you flood the market with precious metals, the value of them will plummet.

Re: Philae has landed

#299

Post by johndevor »

ngoldbaum wrote: post #259
johndevor wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you speak more on the "everyday impact" about this landing? I'm trying to understand why this was worth the billion euros. It's seriously cool but that's all anybody seems to be saying. How does this really affect us?

Let's say a comet is going to impact Earth in a few decades. One proposal among many [0] to divert a comet is to aim a laser at it for a few years, long enough for the outgassing from the laser spot to push the comet onto an orbit that misses the Earth. If you were designing a mission like that, wouldn't you want to have first-hand knowledge about the comet's surface? This is also a baby step. We now feel more confid…

>Let's say a comet is going to impact Earth in a few decades.

You can't just make up stuff like this... sure, it could happen but you have to go off probability. What's the probability an asteroid will end all life on earth in the next thousand years? I'd guess not very likely.

Re: Philae has landed

#300

Post by jarek »

johndevor wrote: post #299
ngoldbaum wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say a comet is going to impact Earth in a few decades. One proposal among many [0] to divert a comet is to aim a laser at it for a few years, long enough for the outgassing from the laser spot to push the comet onto an orbit that misses the Earth. If you were designing a mission like that, wouldn't you want to have first-hand knowledge about the comet's surface? This is also a baby step. We now feel more confid…

>Let's say a comet is going to impact Earth in a few decades. You can't just make up stuff like this... sure, it could happen but you have to go off probability. What's the probability an asteroid will end all life on earth in the next thousand years? I'd guess not very likely.

It doesn't have to end all life on earth, it just has to end ours. Moss and bacteria will survive a lot more than we will.

Plus, to be rational, you have to evaluate not only probability but also potential losses, and multiply the two. A messed-up climate causing crop failures and population reverting to, say, middle ages counts would cost, say, 100 years' worth of 95% of current world GDP. Human extinction, from a human point of view, has infinite cost.

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