The Official Science Thread

Originally Posted by DylloS

any of you guys watch curiosity on discovery channel? Really well done series. I watched on my dvr last night about living forever. They basically make up a story with adam savage myth busters dude and show how science now and in the future might be used to preserve our bodies.

I have that DVR'd as well. Need to watch it.

Originally Posted by Raymond42262

I wonder how expensive it would be to launch a simple rocket into space. Mount some basic webcams on them and send them towards the different planets and their moons.

Let them rotate in the planet's orbit until they crash land and film it live while it happens.

No special landing gear, no bells or whistles. Just a camera to record what it sees.

It costs something like $10k/lb to lift something into orbit. I would imagine sending it beyond orbit would be even more costly. You have to have some sort of guidance system to ensure you hit the moving target, and you would need some beefy cameras and antennae to send the signal back. It's not something a group could do out of their garage at this point in time. NASA has done a few missions like that though. Right now there's a craft circling Jupiter taking pictures and NASA is planning to launch a satellite into orbit with HD video in the near future.

Originally Posted by DylloS

any of you guys watch curiosity on discovery channel? Really well done series. I watched on my dvr last night about living forever. They basically make up a story with adam savage myth busters dude and show how science now and in the future might be used to preserve our bodies.

Damnit, I missed that one. I'll have to see when it airs again. Did they talk about Ray Kurzweil and the singularity at all?

Originally Posted by DylloS

I often think how I would debate for a god when we get into it in all those threads. Usually it doesn't consist of the arguments we see.

It would end up with the burden of proof and "where did it all come from" arguments. You could also argue that the chances that our simple and elegant mathematical description of nature is a sign of intelligent design. On the other hand, nature finds the simplest ways of doing things, so....

Originally Posted by DylloS

any of you guys watch curiosity on discovery channel? Really well done series. I watched on my dvr last night about living forever. They basically make up a story with adam savage myth busters dude and show how science now and in the future might be used to preserve our bodies.

Its a good show, and that was a great episode. I wrote a paper along the same lines for my COMP 101 class my first semester of college back in 2007. It was cool to see how things like tissue printing and cultivating have actually been accomplished since then. When I wrote the paper they were only ideas.

Originally Posted by cowmoo32

Damnit, I missed that one. I'll have to see when it airs again. Did they talk about Ray Kurzweil and the singularity at all?

I think they mentioned it briefly when talking about artificial limbs

Originally Posted by NJ///M

Its a good show, and that was a great episode. I had to write a paper along the same lines for my COMP 101 class my first semester of college back in 2007. It was cool to see how things like tissue printing and cultivating have actually been accomplished since then. When I wrote the paper they were only ideas.

There used to be a show on Science called "Popular Mechanic's: The Future Of" and I can remember back in 2008 they had an episode about DVR, streaming, etc. and when they said "within 10 years physical media will be dead, you will download everything instantly" I remember thinking no way, it'll be at least 15. Well, it's been 3 years and when I miss a show or want to watch a movie I have it in HD usually within the hour, fvcking crazy.

Astronomers Discover Complex Organic Matter In Space. Yeah....
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-...-universe.html

In today's issue of the journal Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars.

Originally Posted by cowmoo32

Astronomers Discover Complex Organic Matter In Space. Yeah....
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-...-universe.html

Come on aliens!

Originally Posted by cowmoo32

It costs something like $10k/lb to lift something into orbit. I would imagine sending it beyond orbit would be even more costly. You have to have some sort of guidance system to ensure you hit the moving target, and you would need some beefy cameras and antennae to send the signal back. It's not something a group could do out of their garage at this point in time. NASA has done a few missions like that though. Right now there's a craft circling Jupiter taking pictures and NASA is planning to launch a satellite into orbit with HD video in the near future.

yeah, I know it is not cheap.

But I thought it would be a cool project for a rocket club to do.

I know it would be technologically challenging, but it is like anything else, it is not hard if you know how to do it.

I love getting pictures back from the different planets and moons.

Every time we receive some pictures, they come up with new theories and once additional pictures are received, old theories are cast out and new ones are suggested.

I love it.

stars make organic compounds?

stars make life?

stars made life?

!x10^999

Originally Posted by Andy2108

stars make organic compounds?

stars make life?

stars made life?

![IMG]http://cdn.hotstockmarket.com/5/53/532dd66d_mind-blown.jpeg[IMG]x10^999

It's a well known fact that all of the heavy elements (anything heavier than hydrogen) was, at some point, made in a star. The energies involved in fusion can't happen anywhere else. What's crazy is to see the elements come together in a recognizable form seen on earth.

Go fvck yourselves politicians
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...to-blast-nasa/

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administration intends to terminate NASA's planetary exploration program. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity, being readied on the pad, will be launched, as will the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter scheduled for 2013, but that will be it. No further missions to anywhere are planned.

Thank God he'll be out of office by then...

Originally Posted by cowmoo32

Go fvck yourselves politicians
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...to-blast-nasa/

Awesome quote!

EDIT: Many on reddit question the validity of these claims... We'll find out.

Originally Posted by shockin330i

Thank God he'll be out of office by then...

Replaced by whom?

Originally Posted by shockin330i

Thank God he'll be out of office by then...

Take your garbage somewhere else.

Originally Posted by 'busa

Awesome quote!

EDIT: Many on reddit question the validity of these claims... We'll find out.



Replaced by whom?

link?

Originally Posted by 'busa

Awesome quote!

EDIT: Many on reddit question the validity of these claims... We'll find out.

What claims?

Originally Posted by DylloS

link?

Originally Posted by cowmoo32

What claims?

Word has leaked out that in its new budget, the Obama administration intends to terminate NASA's planetary exploration program. (washingtontimes.com)

[Citation Needed]
I'm not about to get all up in arms about anything that starts out "Word has leaked out" This reads like a TMZ article.
I'll save my torch and pitchfork for the official press release on the budget.

Not only is this the Washington Times (a news source known for poor reporting), it is also sole-sourced by Robert Zubrin (a known Mars fanatic). That doesn't make the story untrue, but I rank its current trustworthiness at slightly higher than my horoscope.
Remember that Obama's previous budget proposal was to a) cut Constellation and b) use those funds to develop commercial launch and nuclear rocket stages. Viewed as a whole, it was awesome. But Congress overturned that poposal.

It pretty much dawned on me that I needed to check the URL when I read this in the article:

If the administration needs to cut budgets, it should start with those of the regulatory agencies that are strangling the nation's businesses rather than NASA...

**** this shitty "journalism" injecting talking points into what should be a serious non-partisan issue.

TMZ is usually pretty reliable. I don't like that comparison lol

Originally Posted by DylloS

link?

http://www.diebold.com/

Wicked awesome

http://gizmodo.com/5854871/the-coole...e-but-american