Space In General

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Oh my gosh.... I just wanted to post this, but yours is even more heartbreaking.
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Sheesh no kidding. Just no love for Pluto. First it is removed as a planet and now this. :(
 
Yeah, poor thing even has a heart drawn on it to welcome us. :( It's been waiting since the dawn of time for some company....

I really wish it would be made a planet again, especially as they have now found out it's bigger than previously thought.
 
Just as we are getting used to the idea that Pluto is a lovable, laughable Disney cartoon, some other mythologists throw underworld demons from Lovecraft and Tolkien into the punchbowl! Lost Carcosa is how I'd like to name that crater with the central peak, located in NE Cthulhu not far from the peach-colored area. Maybe it's ruled by the Yellow King?
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http://space.io9.com/places-on-pluto-are-being-named-for-your-darkest-imagin-1717825166
 
^Well it is named after the god of the underworld... and not the loveable dog :lol:

I'm really surprised Nasa didn't use Pluto in their mission patch, if I recall they have used Disney characters on logo's before.
 
^Well it is named after the god of the underworld... and not the loveable dog :lol:

I'm really surprised Nasa didn't use Pluto in their mission patch, if I recall they have used Disney characters on logo's before.

They have used many characters (and symbols) from the realm of mythology. Remember, NASA was born of JPL, which in itself was born in mythology.
 
Yeah, poor thing even has a heart drawn on it to welcome us. :( It's been waiting since the dawn of time for some company....

I really wish it would be made a planet again, especially as they have now found out it's bigger than previously thought.

Actually the size wasn't even necessarily the primary issue. It's not a planet, no big deal. Lots of objects in our solar system aren't planets. Titan has more of a claim to planethood than pluto IMHO. How come nobody loves Titan? It's bigger than pluto (and it's not the largest moon in the solar system), and it has an atmosphere at all times unlike pluto.

And why no love for Ceres as a planet?
 
Images with 10x the resolution of previous images will be shown at 3pm EDT during the NASA briefing which you can view here:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Edit: Not sure if it's just me but the stream is crap. Skipping all over the place, audio is off, etc.
 
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If Pluto still has active geology this mission will certainly raise more questions than answers. Even more than it already will.

Edit.

Charon.

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Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 289,000 miles (466,000 kilometers).



A swath of cliffs and troughs stretches about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from left to right, suggesting widespread fracturing of Charon’s crust, likely a result of internal processes. At upper right, along the moon’s curving edge, is a canyon estimated to be 4 to 6 miles (7 to 9 kilometers) deep.



Mission scientists are surprised by the apparent lack of craters on Charon. South of the moon’s equator, at the bottom of this image, terrain is lit by the slanting rays of the sun, creating shadows that make it easier to distinguish topography. Even here, however, relatively few craters are visible, indicating a relatively young surface that has been reshaped by geologic activity.



In Charon’s north polar region, a dark marking prominent in New Horizons’ approach images is now seen to have a diffuse boundary, suggesting it is a thin deposit of dark material. Underlying it is a distinct, sharply bounded, angular feature; higher resolution images still to come are expected to shed more light on this enigmatic region.



The image has been compressed to reduce its file size for transmission to Earth. In high-contrast areas of the image, features as small as 3 miles (5 kilometers) across can be seen. Some lower-contrast detail is obscured by the compression of the image, which may make some areas appear smoother than they really are. The uncompressed version still resides in New Horizons’ computer memory and is scheduled to be transmitted at a later date.



The image has been combined with color information obtained by New Horizons’ Ralph instrument on July 13.



New Horizons traveled more than three billion miles over nine-and-a-half years to reach the Pluto system.
 
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I'm interested in that deep canyon that runs from 2 to 3 o'clock in that image.

Really? That gash on the top right seems a lot deeper.

Also.

Hydra.

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Potato shaped moon, picture taken with New Horizons potato camera.

Since its discovery in 2005, Pluto's moon Hydra has been known only as a fuzzy dot of uncertain shape, size, and reflectivity. Imaging obtained during New Horizons' historic transit of the Pluto-Charon system and transmitted to Earth early this morning has definitively resolved these fundamental properties of Pluto's outermost moon. Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) observations revealed an irregularly shaped body characterized by significant brightness variations over the surface. With a resolution of 2 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel, the LORRI image shows the tiny potato-shaped moon measures 27 miles (43 kilometers) by 20 miles (33 kilometers).



Like that of Charon, Hydra's surface is probably covered with water ice, the most abundant ice in the universe. Observed within Hydra's bright regions is a darker circular structure with a diameter of approximately 6 miles (10 kilometers). Hydra's reflectivity (the percentage of incident light reflected from the surface) is intermediate between that of Pluto and Charon. "New Horizons has finally nailed the basic physical properties of Hydra," says Hal Weaver, New Horizons Project Scientist and LORRI science operations lead. "We're going to see Hydra even better in the images yet to come."



Hydra was approximately 400,000 miles away from New Horizons when the image was acquired.
 
Go away.

Space is awesome.

Like science space is awesome, however when taxpayers get put onto the hook for a program that could be otherwise accomplished via private means that is when science loses its luster.

So just about $2.20 a person. Sounds like a great deal to me.

That $2.20 per person is $2.20 per person that should not be printed, borrowed or taxed. And people wonder why countries like United States, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Brazil to name a few are in a fiscal tsunami. Ontop of that $2.20 represent a form of currency destruction.
 
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Like science space is awesome, however when taxpayers get put onto the hook for a program that could be otherwise accomplished via private means that is when science loses its luster.

Yeah, because I can really imagine a private company investing $700m at a time when privately-operated spacecraft haven't even hit the Moon. But hey, don't let that get in the way of penny-pinching.
 
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/why-nasas-new-horizons-mission-pluto-such-big-deal-n391426

Apparently this guy thought it was great that taxpayers bilked out $700+ million on this mission. If anything someone should remind this guy that this country is in debt.

Whut? Do you know when this was paid for and when it launched? 2006 was a completely different time. The cost was about 2 hours' tax per taxpayer in a year with overall receipts of 2.5 trillion. Small beer when you look at it... especially when you consider that about 85% of that year's 32-billion-dollar budget went on taxable employee pay (and therefore was taxed back into the coffers). You also ignore the university funding from (Cornell, I think?) that went onto the New Horizons platform.
 
Apparently this guy thought it was great that taxpayers bilked out $700+ million on this mission. If anything someone should remind this guy that this country is in debt.
But where does the money go? It's as much an investment as anything else. Alot of it will go straight to US-based manufacturers, suppliers etc., and also into the hands of skilled labourers and research facilities who produce skilled labourers... all of that is a tremendous boon to the US economy. Add to that the scientific and technological advances that are a direct or indirect result of this mission, and you get a lot more than just some cool pictures and bragging rights. I agree that taxpayers cash ought to be spent wisely, but I can scarcely think of a better thing to do with taxpayers cash than this sort of thing. You can't just put a price tag on it and say 'Look how much this cost!' - it is only fair to give proper consideration of the tremendous benefits/gains - both to the US and beyond - lest you be considered somewhat myopic.
 
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/why-nasas-new-horizons-mission-pluto-such-big-deal-n391426

Apparently this guy thought it was great that taxpayers bilked out $700+ million on this mission. If anything someone should remind this guy that this country is in debt.

Don't even get us started on other space program items that you use every stinking day of your ungrateful life.

Obviously, miniaturized electronics, like the computer or smartphone you posted that from.
GPS
Velcro
Weather forecasting, including (a BIG one for me) hurricane tracking
Television beyond the three basic networks of the 60s (none of those cable channels exist without satellites)

Just a short list off the top of my head. All of them an huge waste of taxpayer dollars, obviously!
 
Let us not forget all the memory foam bits of beds. All originally developed for use in space. I think that of all things, most people would be quite happy knowing a small amount of their money is going into the Space Programmes.
 
Touring Mars
But where does the money go? It's as much an investment as anything else. Alot of it will go straight to US-based manufacturers, suppliers etc., and also into the hands of skilled labourers and research facilities who produce skilled labourers...

You're right on the fact that these dollars go manufacturers and guess what, there is a term for that e.g. corporate welfare aka crony capitalism as oppose to free market capitalism.

Touring Mars
of that is a tremendous boon to the US economy. Add to that the scientific and technological advances that are a direct or indirect result of this mission, and you get a lot more than just some cool pictures and bragging rights. I agree that taxpayers cash ought to be spent wisely, but I can scarcely think of a better thing to do with taxpayers cash than this sort of thing. You can't just put a price tag on it and say 'Look how much this cost!' - it is only fair to give proper consideration of the tremendous benefits/gains - both to the US and beyond - lest you be considered somewhat myopic.

First of all government cannot grow an economy only take from it. If this were the case then everybody in america would be extremely wealthy and no talk economic inequality(even though I don believe in it). That said any form of government "investment" only takes from and destroys a real economy as oppose to stimulating it via spending. I mean Brazil, Japan and the eurozone are prime examples of economic destruction via government spending.

As for the NASA innovations, I hear this argument all the time when people try and make a case for its existence. Truth is, all of these "NASA innovations" are made possible via external contractors and individual inventors. In fact they've would've still existed even if NASA didn't exist. Sputnik? rocket technology?
 
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