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Post #1
Background:
During my time on FP, I've noticed that there's a pretty large group of members who are interested in, if not enthusiasts of, space exploration, travel, and science. Space is one of my passions, and I think it's about damn time that FP had a thread dedicated to talk of, and information about space.
FAQ:
Q: Why the shitfucking nippleballs should I care about space?
A: Well, what an eloquently formed and entirely understandable question!
There are a number of reasons that you should care about space. It has the possibility to provide untold amounts of resources for the human race, is a great place to perform research and to develop new products, or to manufacture things that can't be easily built on Earth. It also provides a frontier for mankind to explore, even just here in our own solar system. Fields that feed into space science are also a large producer of jobs, with corporations like SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, and of course the governmental space agencies providing dozens of manufacturing and engineering jobs. Not to mention research positions in fields like astronomy and astrophysics.
Q: When has anything useful come out of space?
A: Well, a lot of things, actually! Digital cameras, flat screens, advances in medicine and manufacturing, GPS, and much more!
Q: What's going on in space exploration and research today?
A: Well, NASA recently cancelled the Space Shuttle program, and that was a major hit to the industry. But recently the private sector, mainly in the form of SpaceX, has made huge advances in putting their products into space, and SpaceX is soon to be the first private company to ever dock with the ISS!
History:
A few key points that would be good to be aware of for discussion are:
October 4, 1957 - Sputnik 1 is launched, becoming the world's first artificial satellite.
November 3, 1957 - Sputnik 2 is launched, carrying the first living being, Laika the dog, into space.
January 31, 1958 - Explorer 1 is launched, becoming the first American satellite.
April 12, 1961 - Vostok 1 carries the first human into space, Yuri Gagarin.
May 5, 1961 - Mercury 3 carries Alan Shepard into space, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth.
December 21, 1968 - Apollo 8 launches, it will carry the first humans to leave Earth orbit and travel to the moon and back.
July 16, 1969 - Apollo 11 is launched, landing the first humans on the Moon.
April 12, 1981 - The Space Shuttle is launched for the first time.
January 28, 1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates during launch due to an O-ring failure on the right SRB.
April 24, 1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope is launched into orbit aboard the orbiter Discovery.
February 1, 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia breaks apart during reentry into the atmosphere, with all hands lost.
September 28, 2008 - SpaceX's Falcon 1 spacecraft makes it's first successful flight.
June 4, 2010 - SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft aboard their Falcon 9 rocket becomes the first commercial spacecraft to make a complete orbit and reenter successfully.
July 8, 2011 - The Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on STS-135, the final Shuttle mission to be flown.
May 25, 2012 - SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft becomes the first commercial spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with the ISS.
August 5/6, 2012 - NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and the Curiosity rover land on Mars.
A good timeline for the space race:
And of course, it wouldn't be a space thread without pretty images:
Hubble Ultra Deep Field:
Boomerang Nebula (Coldest known place in the galaxy):
Crab Nebula:
Sombrero Galaxy:
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Space is pretty big.
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I'm actually studying aerospace, I've loved it ever since I was a child.
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I'm planning to double major in Aerospace Engineering and Physics/Astrophysics if it's possible.
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Aerospace would be a pretty cool major.
Edited:
Anyone else disappointed that the shuttle program was shut down?
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I've waited a long time for this.
Here, friends, is arguably one of the greatest things to ever grace the internet and reach my eye-ear holes:
^ My favorite
One of the greatest, most beautiful half hour things to exist.
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While it's a shame that it was shut down, I think it was time we moved on to more fruitful endeavors (no shuttle pun intended), but I do think they should have had their next program in mind as they cancelled the shuttle, rather than scrapping Constellation and now on to SLS.
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Also, my brethren the trekkie's banded together to get a shuttle named the enterprise, but it never made it into space, it was just used for tests. Disappointing, to say the least.
Edited:
You know what's cool?
Quasars.
Quasars are cool.
Edited:
What about space wallpapers?
It looks like This would be a cool one.
Image for those too lazy to click on the link:
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Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space, listen...
I've always had an interest in space but it's been growing lately. Particularly I'm interested in how to get around space at any sort of reasonable speed. Does anyone know of some books that deal with propulsion in depth?
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I'd recommend reading something by Kaku, like Physics Of The Impossible, other than recommending reading up on things like the Alcubierre Drive or Antimatter Propulsion I can't really help.
Wikipedia really is the final word on this stuff at the moment.
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I like this thread. There was never a time when when a) I could think and b) space didn't fascinate me.
I suggest Astrophile on New Scientist for your weekly dose of weird astronomical objects.
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Now that Alcubierre drive is just a fucking cool concept.
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Oh, and one absolutely brilliant (and free!) piece of software for stargazing/amateur astronomy: Stellarium.
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Watch out, the spessmen are onto us!
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Another good site for space articles, and just generally cool science articles is Popular Science. v
v
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Oh hey! I've read that book my Kaku, he can really explain it to you in simple terms and tell you what you need to know as a prereq if you didn't know already
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I've been trying to get my hands on it for forever, but whenever I go to the bookstore, they've always JUST sold their last copy, and I'm too cheap to reserve one.
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I never knew that most meteors are made up of solid iron.
Well the from what I've seen. Just Imagine a chunk of solid iron the size of a baseball hitting you at mach 25.
one second you're there the next you're dust.
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I think you guys might really enjoy this.
http://en.spaceengine.org/
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This seems to be an interesting demonstration of astronomical events.
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I never studied Aerospace, but I've self-taught myself a lot of shit about space and orbits and shit, and space is absolutely fucking amazing and I can't wait to see SpaceX dock with the ISS.
Hopefully it will be successful, and SpaceX will keep on making history.
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Dude I have the most realistic simulator to prepare me for life on a Space Station it got everything man, clowns, toolboxes and even monkeys it's awesome bro
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I made an illustration, inspired by the 60 Minutes interview with Elon here:
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Smug bastard
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I had to find the smuggest image I could.
If you've ever seen any interview with him though, he seems the least smug it's possible for any human to be, and he always seems really nervous when doing speeches and interviews, which is starting to become part of his character now.
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Looks more like an elephant to me broskis.
Also fuck yeah space, it's weird as hell but holy fuck do I love space.
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LarparNar, give them your KSP Sagan quote submarine!
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I'm doing a project about space. It is very interesting.
Also: Space pictures (mars)
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Space threads in Sensationalist Headlines are usually hilarious by the way, because there are so many people who don't understand how shit works, like the thread about the ISS going to be killed off in a few years by burning it up in the atmosphere, and some people asked why we didn't just give it a slight nudge which would apparently push it either straight into space or into the moon, because there's obviously no gravity in space
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I'm thinking of posting daily or weekly space news in here, just to keep it lively.
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(Click for larger image)
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I'm planning on studying physics/astrophysics when I get to university. Been interested in space since I was old enough to be interested in something. Also just going to share a handy-ish site which is pretty much a less fancy version of Stellarium if you get an account there.
http://www.heavens-above.com/
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Man, people keep saying that the iss should be refurbished into a moon base, but to get there it would require a crazy amount of fuel to change the orbital inclination to match the moons orbit, then you would have to preform a transfer orbit, and even if you do manage to pull both of those things off, you would still have to land 25'000 pounds on the lunar surface. Even if you just put it into lunar orbit you would have to have rockets to transfer the supplies to it. It's way to crazy to turn the iss into a moon base, in matter of fact building a base from scratch might be easier.Space threads in Sensationalist Headlines are usually hilarious by the way, because there are so many people who don't understand how shit works, like the thread about the ISS going to be killed off in a few years by burning it up in the atmosphere, and some people asked why we didn't just give it a slight nudge which would apparently push it either straight into space or into the moon, because there's obviously no gravity in space
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DO IT
DO IT DAMNIT
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I have a theory as to why SpaceX has so successful launches.
They can't afford to fail like nasa would be able to.
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Actually SpaceX only has a 57.14% success rate at the moment.
They have launched 7 rockets and the first three failed.
Edited:
If the fourth had failed, they would probably not have been able to continue.
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