Elon Musk's Falcon rocket

bianchimoon

ShinyHelmut wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i totally fail to see the adv of space exploration, we landed on the moon almost 50 years ago, yet despite technology having moved on since then (somewhat!) we are no more nearer putting people on Mars than jumping over the moon......

its not the same as Columbus sailing to the Americas, same planet same atmosphere & similar eco systems, we know of no planets that can support life as we know it.

If he just wants to pump a load more carbon into the atmosphere in order to run a cruise company/advertise cars, then the guy is an idiot.

Global warming / climate change are very real threats to mans survival.... Musk might be better off keeping his feet on the ground and looking to solve real world problems closer to earth.

You are not the first to wonder...

http://myscienceacademy.org/2012/08/13/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/

Wow, that's some story, worth a read, as is Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, about the image taken from Voyager when it was 4 billion miles from earth

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

rick_chasey

Will probably blame the asteroids for not wearing helmets or hi viz once the car smashes into one of them.

mamba80

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i totally fail to see the adv of space exploration,

Do you ever use a GPS?

Or a mobile phone, or the internet, or watch Satellite TV, or use commercial airways, trains.

The tech you live your comfortable modern life in allin one way or another was helped along by technology funded by space programmes.

he took half a sentence and twisted it (no surprise there) i was questioning the advancement of putting men on the moon or mars for that matter.

Given that GPS was originally used to help destroy the planet by guiding ICBMs to their targets, i m not entirely convinced thats a positive!
You d better check how a MB makes a call and how your broadband works too....

mamba80

ShinyHelmut wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i totally fail to see the adv of space exploration, we landed on the moon almost 50 years ago, yet despite technology having moved on since then (somewhat!) we are no more nearer putting people on Mars than jumping over the moon......

its not the same as Columbus sailing to the Americas, same planet same atmosphere & similar eco systems, we know of no planets that can support life as we know it.

If he just wants to pump a load more carbon into the atmosphere in order to run a cruise company/advertise cars, then the guy is an idiot.

Global warming / climate change are very real threats to mans survival.... Musk might be better off keeping his feet on the ground and looking to solve real world problems closer to earth.

You are not the first to wonder...

http://myscienceacademy.org/2012/08/13/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/

Couldnt be asked to read it as i ve heard that argument before... in 1970, climate change was nt the pressing issue it is now.

rjsterry

It was, we just hadn't realised. The space programme has significantly assisted our ability to measure climate change - how do you think the extent of Arctic ice is monitored?

sungod

mamba80 wrote:

...
You d better check how a MB makes a call and how your broadband works too....

er, you do realise that gps clock sync is essential for many carrier networks? also at application level for things like high frequency trading

many civilian applications stem from advancements made in fields such as fundamental physics, it trickles down, often through cost no object defence/aerospace applications, eventually reaching the street

the internet was spawned by arpa, the web by cern - i.e. academia, the military, and the physicists

some are obvious, many are far more subtle, few commercial enterprises have been willing to make such investment for the hell of it, there were exceptions such as the old bell labs, but most is for applied not fundamental science

musk's spacex is very much on the applied side, but he's got vision, passion, a sense of humour, and the guts to push things, i'll drink to that

trivial_poursuivant

mamba80 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i totally fail to see the adv of space exploration,

Do you ever use a GPS?

Or a mobile phone, or the internet, or watch Satellite TV, or use commercial airways, trains.

The tech you live your comfortable modern life in allin one way or another was helped along by technology funded by space programmes.

he took half a sentence and twisted it (no surprise there) i was questioning the advancement of putting men on the moon or mars for that matter.

Given that GPS was originally used to help destroy the planet by guiding ICBMs to their targets, i m not entirely convinced thats a positive!
You d better check how a MB makes a call and how your broadband works too....

Have you never heard the phrase war is the mother of invention?

cooldad

Wasn't that Frank Zappa?

mrfpb

mamba80 wrote:

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i totally fail to see the adv of space exploration,

Do you ever use a GPS?

Or a mobile phone, or the internet, or watch Satellite TV, or use commercial airways, trains.

The tech you live your comfortable modern life in allin one way or another was helped along by technology funded by space programmes.

he took half a sentence and twisted it (no surprise there) i was questioning the advancement of putting men on the moon or mars for that matter.

Given that GPS was originally used to help destroy the planet by guiding ICBMs to their targets, i m not entirely convinced thats a positive!
You d better check how a MB makes a call and how your broadband works too....

GPS would have followed Sputnik if ICBMs had never happened. It makes shipping and aircraft navigation much safer. I first came across it on sailing trips in the 80s, while also learning the old fashioned triangulation techniques. GPS was a no brainer.

The Moon was a dead end in space exploration, as the geology turned out to be monotonous and the program was being wound up before the only scientist (a geologist) went there on Apollo 17. Mars is more interesting. From a space astronomy point of view, getting a ring of Hubbles around the Sun (facing out) would advance things in terms of spotting earth like planets. We currently have no means of getting across interstellar space in a human lifespan, but the data is worth collecting.

Lookyhere

Perhaps we should celebrate World War 11 as it gave us the jet engine, computers and sped up the introduction of antibiotics, Musk launching himself into space, will solve the increasing dangers of antibiotic resistant bacteria?

Personally, i would rather not have my leg amputated due to a small amount of infected gravel rash, than set off to Mars on the off-chance of a hitherto yet unknown discovery that we "need"

Mrfpb, I always thought that airliners used radar not GPS ? hence the problem finding that aircraft in the Pacific, oh yes another WW2 invention! Musk might be better off starting a war, if inventions are his thing?

cooldad

Lookyhere wrote:

Perhaps we should celebrate World War 11 as it gave us the jet engine, computers and sped up the introduction of antibiotics, Musk launching himself into space, will solve the increasing dangers of antibiotic resistant bacteria?

Personally, i would rather not have my leg amputated due to a small amount of infected gravel rash, than set off to Mars on the off-chance of a hitherto yet unknown discovery that we "need"

Mrfpb, I always thought that airliners used radar not GPS ? hence the problem finding that aircraft in the Pacific, oh yes another WW2 invention! Musk might be better off starting a war, if inventions are his thing?

Er wut?

mrfpb

Radar is good for short "line of sight" range, the G in GPS is for Global.

trivial_poursuivant

mrfpb wrote:

Radar is good for short "line of sight" range, the G in GPS is for Global.

All commercial aircraft get navigation from GPS. Radar is used on the ground. Not many aircraft except military have radar on board and that’s only forward facing. Hence why we have AWACS to see top down on the battlefield. It covers the blind spot from ground to air. (Sorry, just recently had to sit in a aero battle space management course even I found it dull)

mamba80

mrfpb wrote:

Radar is good for short "line of sight" range, the G in GPS is for Global.

We all need to have a basic read up

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-26544554

there are more pressing issues on earth.

mrfpb

Trivial poursuivant wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

Radar is good for short "line of sight" range, the G in GPS is for Global.

All commercial aircraft get navigation from GPS. Radar is used on the ground. Not many aircraft except military have radar on board and that’s only forward facing. Hence why we have AWACS to see top down on the battlefield. It covers the blind spot from ground to air. (Sorry, just recently had to sit in a aero battle space management course even I found it dull)

I thought as much. Thanks for confirming.

mamba80 wrote:

We all need to have a basic read up

<span class="skimlinks-unlinked">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-26544554</span&gt;

there are more pressing issues on earth.

Not sure what your point is with that. Musk will spend his money, new things will come from the work done, but maybe not for years.

Isaac Newton's laws of motion are much cited on this forum. He developed them from (amongst other things) Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Kepler's work relied on observations of the planet's carried out by Tycho Brahe in a mountain top observatory over a ten year period. I'm sure at the time people thought it wad a waste of time to be looking at the sky every night when there were pressing matters such as plague and war to deal with, but without those observations science and technology would have been held back for decades or centuries. And wheel weight threads would be a lot shorter.

And the Moon maps would not have Kepler and Tycho on them.

rjsterry

mamba80 wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

Radar is good for short "line of sight" range, the G in GPS is for Global.

We all need to have a basic read up

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-26544554

there are more pressing issues on earth.

Than what? I've already mentioned that without satellites we'd probably have no idea that Arctic sea ice was reducing at the rate it is, or be able to monitor other aspects of climate change. Arguably those first images of Earth from space helped initiate greater concern for the environment. If all space flight had achieved was those photographs it would have been worth it.

trivial_poursuivant

rjsterry wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

Radar is good for short "line of sight" range, the G in GPS is for Global.

We all need to have a basic read up

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-26544554

there are more pressing issues on earth.

Than what? I've already mentioned that without satellites we'd probably have no idea that Arctic sea ice was reducing at the rate it is, or be able to monitor other aspects of climate change. Arguably those first images of Earth from space helped initiate greater concern for the environment. If all space flight had achieved was those photographs it would have been worth it.

Add to that satellites that monitor the hole in the Ozone layer , the pics of the rapid destruction of the rain forests, weather satellites that warn us of big f@ck off storms -potentially saving countless lives.

bompington

mamba80 wrote:

Given that GPS was originally used to help destroy the planet by guiding ICBMs to their targets, i m not entirely convinced thats a positive!

:shock: Sh1t, when did that happen? How come I missed it? :shock:

cougie

Lookyhere wrote:

Perhaps we should celebrate World War 11 as it gave us the jet engine, computers and sped up the introduction of antibiotics, Musk launching himself into space, will solve the increasing dangers of antibiotic resistant bacteria?

Personally, i would rather not have my leg amputated due to a small amount of infected gravel rash, than set off to Mars on the off-chance of a hitherto yet unknown discovery that we "need"

Mrfpb, I always thought that airliners used radar not GPS ? hence the problem finding that aircraft in the Pacific, oh yes another WW2 invention! Musk might be better off starting a war, if inventions are his thing?

How would planes navigate as accurately as they do with radar ? Not many radar stations out at sea. They use gps. Air traffic control use radar.

Mankind needs to explore. It's how we learn.

morstar

We are hard coded to strive to overcome challenges and I would argue it is an evolutionary necessity.
Our purpose is to spread life through our corner of the universe. Admittedly our methods seem perverse and destructive in so many ways but spreading and sustaining life is what evolution is about and is our purpose.
Forget grand ideas about free will, we ultimately do what we're hard coded to do. Procreate and spread life.
Plus, Musk was as disappointed about the stalling space race as anybody. That is why he is pursuing this. He is aiming at manned Mars missions.

orraloon

Yebbut, one has to say that was cool. The way it was staged and the imagery, set aside the technical achievements. And if it encourages some watching kids, not us cynical jaded old duffers, to think that science can be cool, then is A Good Thing.

mamba80

morstar wrote:

We are hard coded to strive to overcome challenges and I would argue it is an evolutionary necessity.
Our purpose is to spread life through our corner of the universe. Admittedly our methods seem perverse and destructive in so many ways but spreading and sustaining life is what evolution is about and is our purpose.
Forget grand ideas about free will, we ultimately do what we're hard coded to do. Procreate and spread life.
Plus, Musk was as disappointed about the stalling space race as anybody. That is why he is pursuing this. He is aiming at manned Mars missions.

If this is correct, we ve singularly failed, unless there are some little Morstars out in the universe? on earth yes, i agree.

look, i not against exploration, land or space but our greatest advances have come from land based discoveries and as we ve absolutely no technical means to get to Mars in the medium term, let alone return to earth, then we d better look after the "base camp" we ve here because if we re not careful, we ll wreck this place before we get anywhere near landing men on Mars.

awavey

mamba80 wrote:

If this is correct, we ve singularly failed, unless there are some little Morstars out in the universe? on earth yes, i agree.

look, i not against exploration, land or space but our greatest advances have come from land based discoveries and as we ve absolutely no technical means to get to Mars in the medium term, let alone return to earth, then we d better look after the "base camp" we ve here because if we re not careful, we ll wreck this place before we get anywhere near landing men on Mars.

but Musk is developing those means, yesterday imo was the biggest step forward to sending men or women, to Mars for nearly 50 years, that was one of those significant small steps historians will look back on in decades to come that was either the sound of the starting gun being fired, or at the very least the trigger being pulled back for the race to Mars to begin.

as weve gone from having basically no chance of sending anyone even back to the moon before 2030 realistically via NASAs proposed methods, and NASA have been working on that Apollo-lite programme for nearly 15 years now already.

to literally you could fit the crew capsule SpaceX have developed, albeit its not tested yet so you might struggle for volunteers, but apparently some are willing, fit it to this Falcon heavy rocket, and go to the moon tomorrow, and for about 1/9th of the cost of launch than the current alternative launch vehicles.

thats the leap forward weve made, this rocket can take people back to the moon this year, not 15-20 years from now and if we can do that we can start solving the problems for a Mars mission, and by solving those problems, we actually solve problems on Earth through new learning and science, technology & engineering.

<steps down off STEM ambassador high horse>

it was a beautiful thing to watch live, it made me cry.

rjsterry

mamba80 wrote:

morstar wrote:

We are hard coded to strive to overcome challenges and I would argue it is an evolutionary necessity.
Our purpose is to spread life through our corner of the universe. Admittedly our methods seem perverse and destructive in so many ways but spreading and sustaining life is what evolution is about and is our purpose.
Forget grand ideas about free will, we ultimately do what we're hard coded to do. Procreate and spread life.
Plus, Musk was as disappointed about the stalling space race as anybody. That is why he is pursuing this. He is aiming at manned Mars missions.

If this is correct, we ve singularly failed, unless there are some little Morstars out in the universe? on earth yes, i agree.

look, i not against exploration, land or space but our greatest advances have come from land based discoveries and as we ve absolutely no technical means to get to Mars in the medium term, let alone return to earth, then we d better look after the "base camp" we ve here because if we re not careful, we ll wreck this place before we get anywhere near landing men on Mars.

Notwithstanding views on our 'purpose', it's not an either/or choice. We can do both and one is likely to help the other.

mr_goo

I hope these couple of images go down in history as human kind's first step to colonising the solar system.

focuszing723

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zZ7fIkpBgs

pinno

"We just gotta work on that landing a little bit..."

Well... $90,000,000 could be better spent on conservation.

focuszing723

Half of me agrees with you with regards conservation.
Making sure humanity is multi planetary is important though, given examples in history. I guess he does offset it with Telsa and Solarcity.

Interesting Jeff Bazos stepping down from Amazon so he can concentrate on the environment and blue horizon. Musk keeps saying he would be glad of the competition.

Pross

pinno said:

"We just gotta work on that landing a little bit..."

Well... $90,000,000 could be better spent on conservation.

But then you don't have a giant phallic symbol to boost your ego.

thistle_

Pross said:

pinno said:

"We just gotta work on that landing a little bit..."

Well... $90,000,000 could be better spent on conservation.

But then you don't have a giant phallic symbol to boost your ego.

His phallus getting destroyed and surrounded by firey balls just at the point of climax doesn't sound pleasant.