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Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

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Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#121

Post by quotemstr »

saadn92 wrote: post #6

The thruster fix is the part that gets me. They sent a command that would either revive thrusters dead since 2004 or cause a catastrophic explosion, then waited 46 hours for the round trip with zero ability to intervene. That's a production deployment with no rollback, no monitoring dashboard, and a 23-hour latency on your logs. They nailed it.

That was ballsy! But, sadly, it was a temporary hack. Both Voyager have degrading, unfixable thrusters. The rubber diaphragms in the hydrazine fuel tanks are degrading, shedding silicon dioxide (i.e. sand) microparticles into the thruster fuel. These particles are gradually clogging the thruster nozzles and reducing their thrust. Eventually, thrust will decline to the point that they could fire the thrusters all day long and still not impart enough momentum to point the probes at Earth. Once that happens, we'll lose contact with the probes.

They'd switched away from the primary thrusters in 2004 due to this degradation. Now the backups are so degraded that the primary thrusters are better again in comparison.

Thruster clogging will kill Voyagers in about five years if nothing else gets them first. The least degraded thrusters nozzles are down to 2% of their diameter --- 0.035mm of free-flow area remaining.

The Voyagers will probably celebrate their 50th anniversary, but not much beyond that. :-(

Kind of ignominious to be done in not by the inexorable decline of radioactivity but by an everyday materials science error of the sort we make on earth all the time. In the 1970s, we knew how to make hydrazine-compatible rubber. We just didn't use it for the Voyagers.

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#122

Post by ksymph »

tombert wrote: post #47
amiga-workbench wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's almost certainly less than 69KB of useful human-readable information on any given page.

I was actually a bit curious how much HN uses, since it's probably the lightest site that I frequent. According to Brave's dev tools, looks like just shy of about 90kb on this comment page as of the time of this writing. Obviously some of that is going to be CSS rules, a small amount of JS (I think for the upvotes and the comment-collapse), but I don't think anyone here called HN "bloated". Even that one page wouldn'…

This page is only ~30kb. I wonder where the extra ~60kb you're seeing is coming from?

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#123

Post by armadsen »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

There’s a lot of LLM text in that article. It’s very offputting.

Yeah, it’s really starting to depress me how much text published to the web is written using an LLM now. Things that seem interesting at first glance become much less appealing when they have that telltale LLM quality to them, and I also start questioning whether they’re full of factual errors (“hallucinations”). I don’t know why I should spend my time reading something the author couldn’t even be bothered to spend time writing.

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#124

Post by krapp »

exe34 wrote: post #116
krapp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio signals do weaken and dissipate over time and space. Broadcast signals could fade into the cosmic microwave background in a few light years depending on their strength. The sci-fi trope of aliens picking up Earth tv and radio just isn't plausible.

And in that light, you're worried two blocks the size of a small car will get picked up on the alien's hyperspace scanners?

I'm not, but other people seem to think it's a problem worth worrying about.

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#125

Post by tombert »

basilikum wrote: post #108
tombert wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually a bit curious how much HN uses, since it's probably the lightest site that I frequent. According to Brave's dev tools, looks like just shy of about 90kb on this comment page as of the time of this writing. Obviously some of that is going to be CSS rules, a small amount of JS (I think for the upvotes and the comment-collapse), but I don't think anyone here called HN "bloated". Even that one page wouldn'…

curl https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47564421#47564679 | wc -c 143927 curl https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47564421#47564679 | pup -p --charset utf8 'text{}' | wc -c 30954

Huh, fair enough. I was looking at the network console in the browser and it said 89KB.

Almost certainly my fault...sorry!

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#127

Post by dcminter »

trvz wrote: post #77
pkorzeniewski wrote: post #49

Voyager 1 & 2 is one of my favourite human science achievements, not even so much from technology standpoint, as it's relatively simple compared to what we have now (although that's one of the charms), but just the fact that it's so far away, it still more or less works long after the scheduled mission end time, we can communicate with it and despite all the modern technology progress, it would take decades to catch…

They are dangerous and reckless. They were also done in the name of humanity, but without humanity’s consent. I despise the naive scientists who did them as much as those who brought the damocletian sword of nuclear weapons on us.

I think you're not appreciating how big space is. They're not going to be near any star for thousands of years - and near here is still very distant. If we're still around then, we'll probably be able to look after ourselves.

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#128

Post by bananamogul »

exe34 wrote: post #116
krapp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio signals do weaken and dissipate over time and space. Broadcast signals could fade into the cosmic microwave background in a few light years depending on their strength. The sci-fi trope of aliens picking up Earth tv and radio just isn't plausible.

And in that light, you're worried two blocks the size of a small car will get picked up on the alien's hyperspace scanners?

Yet we spend tax dollars trying to do the same thing.

Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder

#129

Post by giantrobot »

jonplackett wrote: post #109
srean wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elaborate please.

They read The Three Body problem

They read the Three Body Problem but forgot that light exists. For aliens with interferometers looking at Earth there's little question there's some sort of interesting active chemistry (life) here.

Theres no hiding that fact. If they're within about 100 light years they'll be watching the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the atmosphere. Even if they're don't know the exact cause the spectra of pollutants and rates of change will give hints the changes are unlikely to be from random natural processes.

Outside of 100 light years but pretty much anywhere in the galaxy (assuming interferometers capable of getting spectra of Earth) will know there's some sort of life here. Even if you want to assume some aliens don't recognize life as we understand it they'll at least see extremely interesting and varied chemistry.

The idea you're going to hide Earth's biosignatures is silly. Trying to hide our technology signatures is pointless. At about 70 light years any interested aliens will start seeing isotopes resulting from above ground nuclear testing.

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