Outer space thread

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billy.pilgrim
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Re: Outer space thread

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Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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bannination
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Re: Outer space thread

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Juno's flyby of Jupiter.....

https://vimeo.com/219993811


It's really something!

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Vrede too
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Re: Outer space thread

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Thanks!

Meteors have "a whistling sound" (I've heard it), Jupiter has Ligeti and 2001: A Space Odyssey. ;)
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Re: Outer space thread

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NASA wants to probe Uranus in search of gas

:o :lol:

Comments:
feels like I'm being trolled by the actual article...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sorry for being childish but...
Dear Yahoo, WE WILL DO THE TROLLING. Thank you.
Hahaha. They want to take the only thing we have left...
Come on guys, could you write a more obvious click-bait headline?
It worked!
I'm sure they'll go to Neptune first - Uranus is obviously number two.
Project name Pull My Finger.
Ok I didn't read the article but came to the comments because of the title :)
Like the rest of us.
They have to buy me dinner first, sorry I had to say it.
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Vrede too
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Re: Outer space thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.

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rstrong
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Re: Outer space thread

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The live YouTube Stream for the next SpaceX launch starts in an hour. Liftoff is planned for 12:31pm ET.

They'll be landing the first stage a few minutes later.

This is Commercial Resupply Services mission 12 (CRS-12), delivering supplies to the space station. It's also delivering both ice cream and ISS-CREAM (the ISS version of the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass Experiment).

This is the first launch of the Falcon 9 Block 4 - a transition between the Falcon 9 Full Thrust and the "final" Falcon 9, Block 5.

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Re: Outer space thread

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In space, no one can hear you scream for ice cream.

Thanks, I may watch.
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Re: Outer space thread

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Sweet!
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billy.pilgrim
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Re: Outer space thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:40 am
In space, no one can hear you scream for ice cream.

Thanks, I may watch.


https://youtu.be/CiycBw6H5B8
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Re: Outer space thread

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Re: Outer space thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.

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rstrong
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Re: Outer space thread

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Well, sure. I'd probably spend more time cataloging the ways Earth could be destroyed then solving those problems.

An interesting related article just recently:
In Homo sapiens 200,000-year history, we know about several close shaves with extinction. One came 70,000 years back when the numbers of fertile Homo sapiens dropped to just 10,000. The cause may have been linked to the Toba supervolcanic eruption around this time (74,000 years) — the biggest eruption in 2.5 million years — which would have led to a volcanic winter enveloping the planet, possibly for centuries. Indeed, eruptions continued 15-20,000 years after the first blast according to recent research. However, the supereruption theory for H. sapiens population crash is disputed.

The second close shave is a little more recent and linked to our love of cold beer. In 1928, scientists created "safe" new chemicals for refrigerators and air conditioners — CFCs. But the first C in CFCs is an angry little element, chlorine. Apparently unbeknownst to the scientists and their corporate overlords, these chemicals had a vociferous appetite for ozone in the upper atmosphere. The ozone layer has protected life on Earth for billions of years. Without it, the sun's radiation would sterilise the surface. Even weakening this shield would lead to crop damage making our survival questionable even if we shovelled on the sun cream. When the ozone hole was discovered in the 1980s nations agreed to outlaw CFCs and disaster was averted.

If we had not noticed the growing hole, or decided to sit on the problem, humans would have run into a catastrophe more serious than warm beer by the end of this century. Worse, if chlorine had been swapped out for its angrier, less stable sister, bromine — an entirely logical choice that would have kept beer just as cool — then H sapiens demise may have been sooner than expected. Bromine's ozone killing properties make it almost one hundred times more dangerous than chlorine. By the 1970s there could have been a catastrophic ozone hole everywhere all year round according to Paul Crutzen who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on ozone.
So we were lucky we didn't go with bromine. And even then we were lucky we noticed AND acted, lucky the British and US Antarctic research stations existed and that the US Congress didn't turn anti-science a few decades earlier.

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Re: Outer space thread

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BTW, the connection between lead and behavior problems was discovered all the way back in 1943. The researcher, Randolph Byers, was threatened with a lawsuit and the research ended. The neurotoxic effects finally led to leaded gasoline being widely banned in the 1990s. Atmospheric lead has been linked to increased levels of violence and criminality in cities, and its ban has been linked to the steady drop since then.

The same person, Thomas Midgley Jr., brought us both CFCs and leaded gas.
Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny." J. R. McNeill, an environmental historian, opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."

In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his own death when he was entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.

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Re: Outer space thread

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I know that CFCs are very bad, never thought of them as possibly extinction level bad. Thanks . . . I think.

The severely lead-addled are mostly too old to be violent and criminal, but they can still vote. Is this a possible contributory explanation for Dolt .45's "election" and do we have reason to hope that things will get better?

Speaking of lead:

Bunker Hill (Kellogg, Idaho) Superfund Site Is Still a Toxic Mess, With Legacy of Suffering

Tragic.
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rstrong
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Re: Outer space thread

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Lithium batteries are being adopted on a much larger scale and at a much faster rate than leaded gas and CFCs a century ago. First cell phone and laptop batteries and Roombas. Now cars. Soon garage wall power banks and tractor-trailers. Soon massive installations on hydro networks to charge when demand is low and supply power when demand is high.

Those can be recycled, but over time gigatons of it will end up back in the environment.

Of course just because a material explodes on contact with air, that doesn't mean it's bad for the environment.

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Re: Outer space thread

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rstrong wrote:
Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:58 pm
... Of course just because a material explodes on contact with air, that doesn't mean it's bad for the environment.
On the bright side, we may see a reduction in global rates of bipolar disorder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Medicine
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k9nanny
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Re: Outer space thread

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Holy shit, y'all, and a good Sunday morning to you. :shock:
Perhaps it's a blessing that the world ends tomorrow.
Se Non Ora, Quando?

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Re: Outer space thread

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k9nanny wrote:
Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:05 am
Holy shit, y'all, and a good Sunday morning to you. :shock:
Perhaps it's a blessing that the world ends tomorrow.
rstrong's in a dark place after losing out on a space job to a 9 year old. Maybe sitting on the battery compartment of a Prius will help.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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rstrong
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Re: Outer space thread

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k9nanny wrote:
Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:05 am
rstrong wrote:
Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:20 pm
The same person, Thomas Midgley Jr., brought us both CFCs and leaded gas.
Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny." J. R. McNeill, an environmental historian, opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."
Holy shit, y'all, and a good Sunday morning to you. :shock:
Perhaps it's a blessing that the world ends tomorrow.
Hey, I was being positive. Demonstrating that one person CAN make a difference!

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Re: Outer space thread

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rstrong wrote:
Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:08 pm
Hey, I was being positive. Demonstrating that one person CAN make a difference!
Trump’s Pick To Head NASA Doesn’t Believe Humans Cause Climate Change (and has no science education)

:roll:
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.

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