Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released • Hacker News Board

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#131

Post by WCityMike » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #7

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…

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…

"It is durable due to its incorporation of pozzolanic ash, which prevents cracks from spreading."

Third sentence in the Wikipedia article. Later:

"The strength and longevity of Roman marine concrete is understood to benefit from a reaction of seawater with a mixture of volcanic ash and quicklime to create a rare crystal called tobermorite, which may resist fracturing. As seawater percolated within the tiny cracks in the Roman concrete, it reacted with phillipsite naturally found in the volcanic rock and created aluminous tobermorite crystals."

Neither seems to have been 'lost data'.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#132

Post by ThinkingGuy » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #106

ThinkingGuy wrote: post #98

Amazing article and incredible pictures, but this one line has me scratching my head: "Only 24 people have journeyed far enough to see the whole Earth against the black of space " The Apollo missions from 8 through 17, with the exception of Apollo 9 (LM test in Earth orbit), all reached lunar orbit, even if 8, 10, and 13 didn't actually land. Each carried 3 crew members. Doesn't that make 27 people?

Three crew members went twice.

I’d overlooked that fact. Thanks for the reminder!

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#133

Post by beaconstudios » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #130

beaconstudios wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

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

Very modernist thing to say. I suspect we have very different philosophies, and I have a strong distaste for modernism, materialism and reductionism in general. You can't quantify the things that actually matter in your living environment beyond the bare essentials of survival, so of course the concept is not concrete to you if the only things you value are the things you can measure.

> Explain how those exemplify "just a box that people exist in"

Yes I saw the article. The few that actually were buildings instead of sculptures (barbican, bank of London and South America, geisei library and the cathedral) are hideous. The cathedral is the least ugly because its at least not a raw concrete facade, but as far as cathedrals go it has to be the first I've seen that left me with no sense of awe whatsoever.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#134

Post by hyko » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 5:09 AM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #127

hyko wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, that’s true. Knowledge-how will go stale relatively quickly as you point out.

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#135

Post by quesera » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

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…

Charles and Ray Eames made a film in 1977 with a similar idea:

https://www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/powers-of-ten/

Re: Earth Restored – 50 restored images of earth released

#136

Post by Breza » Sat, May 01, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

embedded_hiker wrote: post #110

Xophmeister wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to post exactly the same thing. It's such an understated way of phrasing it and a really beautiful photo. I wonder how Collins felt? There's a quote from him on the page, but it's more about the photo rather than himself. Surely that's been discussed...

Collins wrote a book about his experiences - more of an autobiography up to 1974. He talks about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_the_Fire

It's a truly amazing book. It's easy for authors to romanticize spaceflight or to write a dry technical manual. Carrying the Fire does an incredible job of splitting the difference between the two extremes.