On June 29 2013 11:10 On_Slaught wrote: It gives me chills thinking about how truly alone these probes are. During every second of every day these things are floating out there in the literal middle of nowhere. Furthest humanity has ever stretched its influence, and possibly ever will. Though I'd like to think that hundreds, if not thousands of years from now how cool it would be if a human ship found one of these things. Cool thing to imagine.
goof thing these probes are not sentient, or else they would have died from psychosomatic illnesses due to depression or would have just committed suicide.
another thing, why is it in non-metric? 12 inches and 12 feet??!!! Seriously NASA, you are a science institution for god's sake!
It's not an issue if they put the metric value in parentheses right beside it...
It is an issue here since the base measurement they used is non-metric. Is there any significance to having a 12 foot antenna, which converts to 3.7 meters? Obviously they had feet-measurement in mind when building this thing, which I find troubling because they are supposed to represent humanity's scientific knowledge. Putting the metric value is an external issue.
NASA launched 1.5 tons of technology in 2 pieces - probes that have lasted for decades - onto hyperbolic escape trajectories from the sun's gravity, the farthest things man has ever launched, and the thing you take away is how dare the diameter of the antenna be closer to a round value of feet than a round value of meters? You know they were built in the 1970s, right?
On June 29 2013 10:37 Le Cheque Zo wrote: I loled at "The Sounds of Earth" in the disc... what are the chances that the aliens have actually evolved a language similar to English right?
It seems reasonable. I mean, that's what happens in Star Trek, right?!
In all seriousness, I love the fact that we sent the Voyagers out not only as explorers, but also messengers. The likelihood of them ever being examined by intelligent beings is incredibly remote, but still, it's just so romantic. I think Carl Sagan really knew what he was doing by trying to bring science and space exploration to the masses. We no longer have a cosmic ambassador that's quite as charismatic or wise as he was. Nowadays if anyone wanted to do something similar in a space project, it would probably be shot down as "impractical" or not within the project budget. His idea to shoot the Pale Blue Dot image despite the risks to the camera was equally brilliant, for the same reasons. As a species, we needed to hear his message about the importance of space exploration for more than just political and economic incentives.
well there is Neil de Grasse Tyson.. but he seems more populists than actually an erudite geek. Sagan is deep and has the aura of mystery and profundity. NdGT just seems to be a garden variety scientist with all his internet presence.
I've always felt chills everytime I really thought about the Voyager spacecraft and the fact that they are still working and doing their thing long after they were expected to go off-line. Stephen Baxter wrote a sci-fi novel (Titan I think it was called) where long after humanity is extinct the Voyager spacecraft are the last remnants of the human space still travelling the gulf between stars until they too disintegrate into nothingness.
On June 29 2013 17:26 aZealot wrote: I've always felt chills everytime I really thought about the Voyager spacecraft and the fact that they are still working and doing their thing long after they were expected to go off-line. Stephen Baxter wrote a sci-fi novel (Titan I think it was called) where long after humanity is extinct the Voyager spacecraft are the last remnants of the human space still travelling the gulf between stars until they too disintegrate into nothingness.
Any scientists here or anyone who knows when if Voyager is left alone, meaning not hitting something or be toast in cosmic waves, would just disintegrate?
On June 29 2013 12:09 -niL wrote: If we made a new voyager, one with much increased speed, couldn't we explore more in less time? Oh and give it better battery(?) life
Much more difficult to do than you think.
First of all, catching up to voyager 1 is rather difficult to do
But due to something called the rocket equation, and the fact that voyager got a pretty massive gravitational assist, we can't realistically make something go that far in a reasonable amount of time. Yes we could explore more, but most of that exploration would be of areas we've already explored already because voyager 1 is so far ahead of any spacecraft we can launch today.
It doesn't use a battery, it uses a radioisotope generator which generates electricity from the decaying of a radioactive substance. That far from the sun, you can't get enough sunlight to get a meaningful amount of power from solar panels and a nuclear generator can't be launched into space due to weapons treaties which leaves a radioisotope generator as the only option.
You may be able to get something slightly more power efficient but overall, not really worth sending a new probe since you aren't doing anything new really.
On June 29 2013 17:26 aZealot wrote: I've always felt chills everytime I really thought about the Voyager spacecraft and the fact that they are still working and doing their thing long after they were expected to go off-line. Stephen Baxter wrote a sci-fi novel (Titan I think it was called) where long after humanity is extinct the Voyager spacecraft are the last remnants of the human space still travelling the gulf between stars until they too disintegrate into nothingness.
Any scientists here or anyone who knows when if Voyager is left alone, meaning not hitting something or be toast in cosmic waves, would just disintegrate?
It wouldn't disintegrate, at least not in a meaningful human timescale. In ~500 years the radioisotope generators will be generating less energy than a laptop computer and in 1000 years, they'll be generating less than your phone. At that point the voyagers will have radiated most of their heat away and be closer and closer to the temperature of the universe, probably in the area of 10-20K if not lower.
No part of it has energy to break apart and if it doesn't hit anything, it'll keep floating on and on into the galaxy.
The time scale in the novel was millions of years in the future (IIRC) and humanity was long extinct. The metal of which Voyager is made just breaks up into into little pieces and the long journey comes to an end.
On June 29 2013 17:51 aZealot wrote: The time scale in the novel was millions of years in the future (IIRC) and humanity was long extinct. The metal of which Voyager is made just breaks up into into little pieces and the long journey comes to an end.
Why does the metal break apart into little pieces? It's in the vacuum of space. No atmosphere to wear away at it, no moisture to make it rust, no corrosive chemicals, why would it break apart, unless it hit some sort of micrometeorite? Are we supposed to believe that cosmic rays would eventually tear it apart?
On June 29 2013 17:51 aZealot wrote: The time scale in the novel was millions of years in the future (IIRC) and humanity was long extinct. The metal of which Voyager is made just breaks up into into little pieces and the long journey comes to an end.
Why does the metal break apart into little pieces? It's in the vacuum of space. No atmosphere to wear away at it, no moisture to make it rust, no corrosive chemicals, why would it break apart, unless it hit some sort of micrometeorite? Are we supposed to believe that cosmic rays would eventually tear it apart?
He was just giving a synopsis of a work of fiction, he didn't claim this would happen? Why are you on him, he didn't write the story.
On June 29 2013 11:10 On_Slaught wrote: It gives me chills thinking about how truly alone these probes are. During every second of every day these things are floating out there in the literal middle of nowhere. Furthest humanity has ever stretched its influence, and possibly ever will. Though I'd like to think that hundreds, if not thousands of years from now how cool it would be if a human ship found one of these things. Cool thing to imagine.
goof thing these probes are not sentient, or else they would have died from psychosomatic illnesses due to depression or would have just committed suicide.
another thing, why is it in non-metric? 12 inches and 12 feet??!!! Seriously NASA, you are a science institution for god's sake!
It's not an issue if they put the metric value in parentheses right beside it...
It is an issue here since the base measurement they used is non-metric. Is there any significance to having a 12 foot antenna, which converts to 3.7 meters? Obviously they had feet-measurement in mind when building this thing, which I find troubling because they are supposed to represent humanity's scientific knowledge. Putting the metric value is an external issue.
Dude. Shush. You're being ridiculous. You're complaining that an American space program sent out a program in the 1970s that uses the imperial system of measurement. Like. Really? It's fine. It's. Fine. An alien isn't going to known what what a meter is. They're going to look at it and see a thing that equates to 98.643762 merfaplushisueh units or some shit if they're capable of that sort of thought. For all we know sentient aliens that might find it use base 12 instead of 10 because they have twelve fingers or penises pr some shit and a 12 foot, 12 inch probe makes more sense
On June 29 2013 17:51 aZealot wrote: The time scale in the novel was millions of years in the future (IIRC) and humanity was long extinct. The metal of which Voyager is made just breaks up into into little pieces and the long journey comes to an end.
Why does the metal break apart into little pieces? It's in the vacuum of space. No atmosphere to wear away at it, no moisture to make it rust, no corrosive chemicals, why would it break apart, unless it hit some sort of micrometeorite? Are we supposed to believe that cosmic rays would eventually tear it apart?
He was just giving a synopsis of a work of fiction, he didn't claim this would happen? Why are you on him, he didn't write the story.
I'm not "on him". I'm wondering how realistic that work of fiction was. Obviously he didn't write it, and I'm sure the work of fiction is a good piece of writing even if it isn't totally realistic. It just got me thinking about whether that would be the ultimate fate of the Voyager.
man. Every time I read about stuff like this, I can only think about:
and
tldr: If the universe is as old as we think it is..where are all the aliens? Even slow species compared to humans should have practically colonized everything by now. Why do we feel so alone here?
On June 29 2013 11:10 On_Slaught wrote: It gives me chills thinking about how truly alone these probes are. During every second of every day these things are floating out there in the literal middle of nowhere. Furthest humanity has ever stretched its influence, and possibly ever will. Though I'd like to think that hundreds, if not thousands of years from now how cool it would be if a human ship found one of these things. Cool thing to imagine.
goof thing these probes are not sentient, or else they would have died from psychosomatic illnesses due to depression or would have just committed suicide.
another thing, why is it in non-metric? 12 inches and 12 feet??!!! Seriously NASA, you are a science institution for god's sake!
It's not an issue if they put the metric value in parentheses right beside it...
It is an issue here since the base measurement they used is non-metric. Is there any significance to having a 12 foot antenna, which converts to 3.7 meters? Obviously they had feet-measurement in mind when building this thing, which I find troubling because they are supposed to represent humanity's scientific knowledge. Putting the metric value is an external issue.
Dude. Shush. You're being ridiculous. You're complaining that an American space program sent out a program in the 1970s that uses the imperial system of measurement. Like. Really? It's fine. It's. Fine. An alien isn't going to known what what a meter is. They're going to look at it and see a thing that equates to 98.643762 merfaplushisueh units or some shit if they're capable of that sort of thought. For all we know sentient aliens that might find it use base 12 instead of 10 because they have twelve fingers or penises pr some shit and a 12 foot, 12 inch probe makes more sense
Well everything's given in base 2 and based on how fast a hydrogen atom switches its electron's state. I wouldn't know that if it weren't explained in the OP, but I think it would be interesting if that side of the record was crafted secretly by the US, and then given to scientists in a different country to see if someone of the highest caliber of intelligence on Earth could figure it out. The only part I understood is how to use the record.
Hell, Ikea could've made a great set of instructions for this thing. I think.
On June 29 2013 12:09 -niL wrote: If we made a new voyager, one with much increased speed, couldn't we explore more in less time? Oh and give it better battery(?) life
Much more difficult to do than you think.
First of all, catching up to voyager 1 is rather difficult to do
But due to something called the rocket equation, and the fact that voyager got a pretty massive gravitational assist, we can't realistically make something go that far in a reasonable amount of time. Yes we could explore more, but most of that exploration would be of areas we've already explored already because voyager 1 is so far ahead of any spacecraft we can launch today.
It doesn't use a battery, it uses a radioisotope generator which generates electricity from the decaying of a radioactive substance. That far from the sun, you can't get enough sunlight to get a meaningful amount of power from solar panels and a nuclear generator can't be launched into space due to weapons treaties which leaves a radioisotope generator as the only option.
You may be able to get something slightly more power efficient but overall, not really worth sending a new probe since you aren't doing anything new really.
I think the real problems are that they run out of fuel quicker than RTG's, they weigh more than RTG's, and few spacecraft need the extra electricity a reactor provides.
Technically lifespan is short and nobody can travel quicker than light speed? Humanity is just about to grasp Dark matter/energy, conception of time and space interaction but at the same time we are about to destroy ourselves too. We have more atomic weapons than Nuclear Power Plants (even though they are so primitive and capable only of heating water in the reactor). Sadly, If Darwin's theory " survival of fittest" is correct, than other species destroyed themselves before they could reach the stars. If Bible is correct, than scientists still have to discovered other dimensions with different type of physical or "spiritual" laws, something what Bible calls " spiritual realm". Maybe we are not worthy yet to communicate with other (either physical or "spiritual"- other dimensions) civilisations.
On June 29 2013 11:10 On_Slaught wrote: It gives me chills thinking about how truly alone these probes are. During every second of every day these things are floating out there in the literal middle of nowhere. Furthest humanity has ever stretched its influence, and possibly ever will. Though I'd like to think that hundreds, if not thousands of years from now how cool it would be if a human ship found one of these things. Cool thing to imagine.
goof thing these probes are not sentient, or else they would have died from psychosomatic illnesses due to depression or would have just committed suicide.
another thing, why is it in non-metric? 12 inches and 12 feet??!!! Seriously NASA, you are a science institution for god's sake!
It's not an issue if they put the metric value in parentheses right beside it...
It is an issue here since the base measurement they used is non-metric. Is there any significance to having a 12 foot antenna, which converts to 3.7 meters? Obviously they had feet-measurement in mind when building this thing, which I find troubling because they are supposed to represent humanity's scientific knowledge. Putting the metric value is an external issue.
Dude. Shush. You're being ridiculous. You're complaining that an American space program sent out a program in the 1970s that uses the imperial system of measurement. Like. Really? It's fine. It's. Fine. An alien isn't going to known what what a meter is. They're going to look at it and see a thing that equates to 98.643762 merfaplushisueh units or some shit if they're capable of that sort of thought. For all we know sentient aliens that might find it use base 12 instead of 10 because they have twelve fingers or penises pr some shit and a 12 foot, 12 inch probe makes more sense
Well everything's given in base 2 and based on how fast a hydrogen atom switches its electron's state. I wouldn't know that if it weren't explained in the OP, but I think it would be interesting if that side of the record was crafted secretly by the US, and then given to scientists in a different country to see if someone of the highest caliber of intelligence on Earth could figure it out. The only part I understood is how to use the record.
Hell, Ikea could've made a great set of instructions for this thing. I think.
Have you seen the movie Contact ? Although overall pretty naive, it depicts a way of how decryption could happen. Basically try everything until it makes sense.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3KvLgOA.png)
