Voyager I is leaving the neighborhood

[Chas_svo]

I remember in one of my Aerospace classes back in 85 or so, that the discussion was to wait for technology for propulsion, because if we tried to reach some of the farther away places, the people that left years or decades later would arrive first. It's an interesting concept.

[Jester]

absolutely astonishing. sad to know that we can have such brilliant intelligence on this tiny speck of dust in the universe and waste it with wars and reality shows.

[01vnms4v]

Anv today of the launch as well, and it keeps going. What amazes me 35yr old technology and its still working in deep cold space, and transmits signals of information back to NASA. Only takes 16hrs avg as of right now to send info back to earth even at 11 billion miles away.

But, we cant get cell phone signals at all in our homes, or other places.

[CJ]

Check out RTGs. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

They use the heat from radioactive decay and the same process that thermocouples use to turn heat into an electrical signal (based on temp differentials but I can't think of the name)


edit: I'm talking about power generation for instruments not propulsion... Not sure if it works the same way.

Like a Peltier plate in reverse?

[Nash B.]

But, we cant get cell phone signals at all in our homes, or other places.

It isn't that we can't.

[CJ]

It isn't that we can't.

conspiracy!

[Forever_frost]

Hell, nowdays we have throw away cars that at 100k they're trash. We're still using (were until Barry) shuttles built in the 80's. We SHOULD have war drive by now

[Jewrrick]

Hell, nowdays we have throw away cars that at 100k they're trash. We're still using (were until Barry) shuttles built in the 80's. We SHOULD have war drive by now

assuming you meant warp drive then you have about another 50 years lol.

The episode "Metamorphosis", also from the original series, establishes a backstory for the invention of warp drive, stating that Zefram Cochrane discovered the 'space warp'. Cochrane is repeatedly referred to afterwards, but the exact details of the first warp trials were not shown until the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact. The movie depicts Cochrane as having invented warp drive on Earth in 2063

[Sgt Beavis]

Pretty fucking sad, but it seems as if the glory days of space exploration are behind us. Watch this-

I'm a bit more optimistic. I think we are steadily setting the stage for a great space exploration age. Our past space exploration endeavors were never sustainable in the long term but now these guys have finally realized that we need an infrastructure that can be used over and over again and again. These commercial space providers are the first step to making that a reality.

This is going to sound super corny but Neil Tyson has changed the way I view life and the solar system.

I have watched every video he has on YouTube, read a few things of his and still cannot get enough.

This video, is similar to what you posted but it is truly inspirational.

I watched a show on the History channel the other night about our mission to Mars that was supposed to take place this year but has been pushed out a few more decades. It was amazing and beyond intriguing to hear our plans to Mars. It also gave me chills..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlGemHL5vLY&feature=plcp

Tyson is the mouth piece that scientists have needed for decades. Not only is he incredibly smart, but more importantly, he can communicate what we benefit from science and space exploration better than anyone else. IMO, he is the best chance we have at getting our space exploration budget increased to 1% of the national budget.

If space travel was continuiosly invested in, then we would easily be able to travel to anywhere in our solar system by now. Governments care so much about buying $50 muffins and $75 sandwiches that they can not see past the front of their nose. No one seems to understand that the earth cannot and will not support us forever. It will outlive us, but it will not house us.

People in general are living in the NOW and not thinking about 50 or 100 years from now. Politicians are just following the same trend as their constituents. We really have to generate more interest in the populace if we really want to see more investment in space technologies. That is why we need guys like Neil Degrasse Tyson. But we also need guys like Elon Musk that have the balls to get out there and do what they dream of doing. IMO Musk has re-energized a lot of the interest in space exploration with his little company.

Pretty killer that "old" technology is still kicking ass like that. Too bad we can't build anything near that quality today.
.

We can and have built better. Just look at the Opportunity rover on Mars. It was supposed to last only 90 days but has been going for almost 9 years. Flying through empty space is one thing, crawling around in the dirt on Mars is, IMO, more challenging.

I'm curious how a nuclear power cell would even function. Traditionally they generate power via using cobalt rods to heat water and spin a turbine, without an atmosphere how exactly do they generate power? Is there a way to convert heat into electricity without an atmosphere or way to cool the rod?

As you've already seen, RTGs are one way to get nuclear power but those thermocouples are limited in how much power they can produce because they are so inefficient. We will need a lot more power for propulsion.

IMO we are going to have nuclear reactors attached to multiple stirling engines. That gives you a minimal amount of moving parts but gives you a lot more power generation capacity. It is estimated that we are going to new at least 1 megawatt to make electric propulsion worthwhile for human exploration beyond the moon. IMO, the VASIMR rocket motor is the most promising of the electric propulsion technologies but it needs that kind of electrical power to be useful in the long term.

As far as the reactor itself, I'm wondering why there isn't more funding to develop it. NASA is dead in the water when it comes to RTGs for future missions because they are nearly out of plutonium but there is barely any funding to create more plutonium or work on nuclear alternatives like Thorium Fluoride reactors. IMO those reactors have the most promise because their fuel is less controversial an thorium is readily available all over Earth. The US has TONS of it buried out in the desert.

Hell, nowdays we have throw away cars that at 100k they're trash. We're still using (were until Barry) shuttles built in the 80's. We SHOULD have war drive by now

Just a clarification. George Bush CORRECTLY made the decision to retire the Space Shuttle fleet based on the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Obama was just continuing the policy. IMO the Shuttles should have been retired a decade ago but that was impossible because our Congress has never firmly supported any replacement program. Even today the commercial and NASA space craft are constantly under budgetary pressure, which is likely going to delay our ability to fly Americans on American spacecraft. Some of these idiots (both Republicans and Democrats) would rather we spend $50million per person to fly our Astronauts on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They bitch and moan about having private companies do the job. Then there is the group of politicians (like Sen. Hutchinson) that see NASA as nothing more than a jobs program. We would be flying our own space craft next year if that bitch didn't force NASA to build their new huge ass rocket, the SLS (Space Launch System... derided as the Senate Launch System).

I have to hand it to Barry. When it comes to space policy, this is one thing he has gotten half way right.

[Forever_frost]

I'm also of the mindset we shouldn't be paying for ISS. There should be an American ship up there with weapons to shoot down incoming missiles

[347Mike]

I'm also of the mindset we shouldn't be paying for ISS. There should be an American ship up there with weapons to shoot down incoming missiles

Not sure if serious....... Yep. Definitely serious....

[Strychnine]

http://www.space.com/18743-voyager-spacecraft-solar-system-edge.html

Voyager 1 Spacecraft Enters New Realm at Solar System's Edge

by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com
03 December 2012 Time: 02:12 PM ET


NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has discovered a new layer of the solar system that scientists hadn't known was there, researchers announced today (Dec. 3).

Voyager 1 and its sister probe Voyager 2 have been traveling through space since 1977, and are close to becoming the first manmade objects to leave the solar system.

Scientists haven't been sure exactly when that exit would occur, and now say the spacecraft are likely in the outermost region of the solar system, which is defined by the extent of the heliosphere, the large bubble of charged particles the sun puffs out around itself. Voyager 1, in particular, has entered a new region of the heliosphere that scientists are calling a "magnetic highway," which allows charged particles from inside the heliosphere to flow outward, and particles from the galaxy outside to come in.

"We do believe this may be the very last layer between us and interstellar space," Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, Calif., said during a teleconference with reporters. "This region was not anticipated, was not predicted."


This artist's concept shows how NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is bathed in solar wind from the southern hemisphere flowing northward. This phenomenon creates a layer just inside the outer boundary of the heliosphere, the giant bubble of solar ions surrounding the sun. Image released Nov. 29, 2012.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech


"We don’t know exactly how long it will take," Stone said. "It may take two months, it may take two years."

The scientists don't think the Voyagers have left the solar system yet because of the orientation of the magnetic field they detect. So far, this field still runs east-west, in agreement with the field created by the sun and twisted by its rotation. Outside the solar system, models predict the magnetic field to be orientated more north-south.

As Voyager 1, the outermost of the two spacecraft, gets farther and farther away, it measures more and more of the higher-energy charged particles thought to originate beyond the solar system, compared to the lower-energy particles thought to come from the sun.

"Things have actually changed dramatically," said Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator of the low-energy charged particle instrument, based at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "The particles from outside have increased a lot and those on the inside … have dropped quite a bit."

The Voyagers are NASA's longest-running spacecraft, and will keep traveling outward even after they've left the sun's neighborhood. However, it will be at least 40,000 years before they ever come close to another star, Stone said.

Long before that the probes will run out of power to operate their scientific instruments and beam their findings back home.

"We will have enough power for all the instruments until 2020; at that point we will have to turn off our first instrument," Stone said. By 2025 the last instrument will have to be turned off.

"We're very lucky that there seems to be a compatibility between our mission and the extent of the heliosphere," Stone said

[lowthreeohz]

That's bitchin!

[Butch]

Man has come a long way in such a relatively short period of time. Even shorter if you're one of those that believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

[Slowhand]

Fuckin' a, man.