"That moment was not just a milestone in mission terms. It was a fundamental scientific event."
Come on people. This article is straight out of ChatGPT.
Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
171–180 of 276 posts
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Telescopes aren't magic, and space is big. There are 100 billion+ stars in the galaxy. Within a 100 light-year radius, there are 27 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_star_systems_within_95... ). Nobody's looking at Earth. If any hypothetical civilization were to find our system, it would be by blanketing the entire galaxy in 100 billion drones and checking every single star, in which case the dark forest doesn'…
First that's just star systems within 100 lightyears of Earth, systems with one of more gravitationally bound stars in them. There are thousands of stars within 100 light years of Earth. Most are red dwarfs but there's about a thousand F, G, and K class stars.[0]
While telescopes indeed are not magic, an alien species at least as advanced as us could have telescopes capable of not only finding Earth but gathering spectra from it. It's certainly no guarantee Earth would be found but there's no hiding from anyone looking. There's no masking the chemistry of life on Earth and likewise no masting techno-signatures in the atmosphere.
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think Apollo was very interesting or useful beyond cold war propaganda. Yes, we're capable of amazing things—but putting a man on the moon pales in comparison to basic healthcare funding. Why must we insist on wasting billions on histrionic braggadocio when we can't perform the basics of a modern society? https://youtu.be/otwkXZ0SmTs?si=DqEyklYpEbUO69HL
Which country do you think got basic healthcare funding right ?
China
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#174There is a terrific documentary, 'Its quieter in the twilight', about the aging and dwindling team that still runs both Voyager missions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6L9Du_IFmI
> Video unavailable > The uploader has not made this video available in your country I'd love to watch this but unfortunately. My country being AU.
I think I watched it on Amazon Prime in the USA. I don't know if Oz has Prime or what rights they have.
I checked the usual sites on the high seas and it is available for instant download there too :)
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#175Kudos to those NASA engineers for managing to pack React into such a small footprint.
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#176Earlier 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'…
I was actually a bit curious how much HN uses, since it's probably the lightest site that I frequent. I use an iPhone 5 as an iPod. HN is one of the few web sites that still works with iOS 10.
The SSL certs are probably going to be a problem before HN changes its rendering.
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The dark forest hypothesis assumes that it's easy to travel between stars, so interstellar conquests are possible. But it doesn't seem to be the case. There are no material goods that can justify the material and energetic expense of any interstellar travel. You'd be far better off just using a particle accelerator to forge any chemical element and then assemble them into molecules using nano-replicators. The best yo…
That's why I never understood sci Fi nerds obsession with outer space, as opposed to inner space. Humans sit about half way between the biggest and smallest things in the universe. Instead of exploring the cosmos, which takes tons of energy and is almost entirely empty, we could be exploring the space between atoms and building worlds without our own world. It is also almost entirely empty, but the energy costs to co…
> That's why I never understood sci Fi nerds obsession with outer space
I'm sure you do understand it. I mean, sure, the other things you mention are also interesting, but mankind has been awed by a starry night's sky since we were able to look up. We gave names to the arrangements of bright things in the skies and imagined gods in them, and navigated by them. The are awe-inspiring.
It's really a human thing, not a scifi nerd's. It's impossible not to look at the stars and wonder. It's human nature.
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any development team larger than Apollo programming team of 350 is overstaffed.
Any development team larger than Apollo programming team of 350 is overstaffed We put a man on the moon mostly with pencils and slide rules. Today we have massive data centers full of "AI" supercomputers, and we get… TikTok?
Surprising fact I just noticed about the next Moon landing attempt -- it'll take up to 22 launches to get everything into space needed for the attempt.
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#179Reminded me of the anecdote mentioned in the classic "Real Programmer Don't Use Pascal" > Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of large ground-based FORTRAN programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do i…
Duh its space you have to use Turbo pascal
At least Voyager has enough space to carry Turbo Pascal if we wanted to send a copy to our galactic neighbors:
Re: Voyager 1 runs on 69 KB of memory and an 8-track tape recorder
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The dark forest hypothesis assumes that it's easy to travel between stars, so interstellar conquests are possible. But it doesn't seem to be the case. There are no material goods that can justify the material and energetic expense of any interstellar travel. You'd be far better off just using a particle accelerator to forge any chemical element and then assemble them into molecules using nano-replicators. The best yo…
>>There are no material goods that can justify the material and energetic expense of any interstellar travel. Material, no. but we know with absolute certainty that Earth will stop being habitable for humans at some point. So assuming any intelligent race, human descendent or otherwise, still exists on this planet, it will have to eventually move. It's just pure luck that we evolved when we did. But there are valid r…
It's a catch 22. If you want to preserve the Earth's biosphere or even biological humans, then you would need to move at least a ship the size of a small planetoid. That will support life for millenia that will be required for interstellar travel.
And if you can do that, then why bother with the interstellar travel? Just move to a higher orbit to survive the red giant stage. And then move closer to the stellar remnant, white dwarves will provide plenty of energy for trillions of years.
And if you manage to transcribe yourself into some kind of computing-based device, then why bother at all?