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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

#181

Post by the_af »

gambiting wrote: post #112
cyberax wrote: post #103

Earlier 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…

Even if leaving the solar system, or whatever system a sentient race exists, were possible, going to war with another sentience in their home turf (which, remember, must first overcome the near impossible hurdles of getting there to begin with) is so unlikely it makes invasion fears absurd. I think the dark forest theory is groundless paranoia.

Scifi usually bypasses this by breaking the laws of physics, for the sake of storytelling.

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

#182

Post by jacquesm »

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.

The chances of either Voyager ending up in the hands of intelligent aliens are remote compared to the chances of us blowing ourselves up. Be happy that there is at least a tiny possibility of a tombstone for a race which once upon a time aeons ago showed some promise. Personally I think they should have stuck a mummy in there.

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

#185

Post by mek6800d2 »

gdubs wrote: post #149
mek6800d2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed your video and it is well done. Unfortunately, I don't think it's true. The Voyager tape drives were similar (if not largely identical) to the earlier Viking Orbiters' DTRs. The Voyager engineers were certainly familiar pre-launch with the motions imparted to the spacecraft by the mechanical movements of the tape drive. The Voyager DTRs were specifically mounted to minimize the effects on the roll axis. Pot…

Thanks! My primary source for this was Carl Sagan's book "A Pale Blue Dot" IIRC — don't have the folder in front of me to double check, but fairly certain. Edit: found it! Here's the excerpt. According to Sagan they sent these instructions up. Given his details on what had to be done to boost the signal upload, it sounds like this really did happen: "...while taking a photograph of a street scene from a moving car. T…

Thanks for the excerpt. I read a couple of Sagan's other books many years ago and I really should read APBD sometime.

Interesting to me, Sagan's "little puff of gas" was borne out in the paper I referenced (not that Sagan needed being borne out!) and that the resulting "imaging system worked ... better at Uranus" was something I hadn't thought of. Per the paper, the Voyagers originally had minimum thruster pulse lengths of 10 ms. In the lab and then on Voyager 1, the Voyager engineers figured out that they could reduce the pulses to 5 ms, thus allowing finer control of Voyager 2's attitude at Uranus (and later Neptune) and probably better image quality than at Jupiter and Saturn. Very interesting - I really should read Sagan's book!

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

#186

Post by skilled »

aorloff wrote: post #161
throwaway27448 wrote: post #160

Earlier 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 ?

Norway

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

#187

Post by kadoban »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #160
jgalt212 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voyager, Apollo, and Hubble. Everything else NASA has done is a distant 4th place. And it's not like 4th place is trash, it's just that the big 3 are just so impressive.

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

There's better things to dump instead of Apollo if you want a basically functioning society. Pick your couple of least favorite wars of choice in America's recent history. Apollo at least gave the country hope and showed that we could accomplish big ideas.

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

#188

Post by [deleted] »

kadoban wrote: post #187
throwaway27448 wrote: post #160

Earlier 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

There's better things to dump instead of Apollo if you want a basically functioning society. Pick your couple of least favorite wars of choice in America's recent history. Apollo at least gave the country hope and showed that we could accomplish big ideas.

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by indecisive_user »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #162
aorloff wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country do you think got basic healthcare funding right ?

Relative to what, the US? I'd say the thirty wealthiest countries on the planet... except us.

How do you define wealthiest countries?

Picking from top GDP per capita, I'm not sure that UAE or Qatar are countries to look up to.

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