This is what mankind can do

...and why we do not need to send a human into space again.

NASA Declares a Beloved Mars Mission Over
The space agency will stop trying to contact the Opportunity rover, which was sent to Mars to search for evidence of water.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/opportunity-rover-nasa-mars/582691/

The Mars Rover Opportunity was only slated to last 90 days, but instead lasted 14+ YEARS. As the article will state, its sister rover, Curiosity is still roving around AFTER 5 years of service.

Our space probes Voyager 1 & 2, launched in July and August 1977 are still going strong, reporting data back from beyond our solar system at 13 and 11 TRILLION miles from Earth.

We launched the Hubble Space Telescope, in 1990. It is still publishing unbelievable vista of the heavens and still has years of useful life left. It was the first space telescope in NASA's Great Observatories program.

The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) was the second of NASA's Great Observatories. Compton, at 17 tons, was the heaviest astrophysical payload ever flown at the time of its launch on April 5, 1991, aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. This mission collected data on some of the most violent physical processes in the Universe, characterized by their extremely high energies.(1)

The third member of the Great Observatory family, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO), was deployed from a Space Shuttle and boosted into a high-Earth orbit in July 1999. This observatory is observing such objects as black holes, quasars, and high-temperature gases throughout the x-ray portion of the EM spectrum.(1)

The Spitzer Space Telescope represents the fourth and final element in NASA's Great Observatory program. Spitzer fills in an important gap in wavelength coverage not available from the ground -- the thermal infrared.(1)
(1)https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/postsecondary/features/F_NASA_Great_Observatories_PS.html
The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA with the purpose of researching several of the Solar System bodies, including the dwarf planet Pluto.

New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern,[4] the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which as of 2019 includes 2014 MU69. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.

If you haven't seen what Pluto looks like up close:

Other countries, notably China and Japan are also launching probes to the Moon and beyond. We will can a lot more information for a lot less money (and human risk) by sending very smart probes into our Solar System.

Japan Will Land a Spacecraft on Asteroid Ryugu This Month to Snag a Sample.

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which has been studying the 3,000-foot-wide (900 meters) near-Earth asteroid Ryugu up close since last June, will make its first sample-grabbing dive just two weeks from now.
https://www.space.com/43254-japan-asteroid-ryugu-landing-date-2019.html

This probe has already imaged an asteroid. If you wonder why we should be spending money finding where these planet killers are, versus trying to inhabit another planet here is what may be heading our way:

We do not need to risk life and fortune for a very small increment in knowledge by sending humans into space, whether it be to the Moon or Mars or elsewhere. We are  centuries away from needing to think about moving humankind off of Mother Earth in order to save a species that needs to go away at some point.

A truly stellar post Miki.

Hey! stop throwing rotting veggies at me

Thanks Miki, that was an interesting read.

All those blibs and blobs whizzing about up there's amazing!!!

Well, not impressed with the pic from the multi billion dollar camerara! I poked my camerary against my door spyhole thingy sometime ago. Oh, long before that shot was taken and captured a much truer shot!!!!

Lesley Niyori wrote:Hey! stop throwing rotting veggies at me

Furiously scratching head trying to figure out what Lesley was ducking!

I think she is referring to the pics, coz they look like vegetables!

Celia Eriksson wrote:I think she is referring to the pics, coz they look like vegetables!

Oh, I am going to my room now!

I thought it would be the reaction to my comment actually.

Perhaps it was too stellar and went over your heads hehe

Lesley thought she was being funny.  *giggles*

MichaelaSJ wrote:...and why we do not need to send a human into space again.

NASA Declares a Beloved Mars Mission Over
The space agency will stop trying to contact the Opportunity rover, which was sent to Mars to search for evidence of water.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/opportunity-rover-nasa-mars/582691/

The Mars Rover Opportunity was only slated to last 90 days, but instead lasted 14+ YEARS. As the article will state, its sister rover, Curiosity is still roving around AFTER 5 years of service.

We do not need to risk life and fortune for a very small increment in knowledge by sending humans into space, whether it be to the Moon or Mars or elsewhere. We are  centuries away from needing to think about moving humankind off of Mother Earth in order to save a species that needs to go away at some point.

Absolutely agree, reluctantly I came to the same conclusion some time ago. Dreaming about human missions to Mars and moon bases are just that; dreams and should be consigned to science fiction because that's what it is.

I speak as an enthusiastic child of the space age who stayed up all night to watch the Apollo 11 on the moon. Someone who thought that perhaps by now 50 years later I would have been to the moon and even Mars. At the very least orbited the Earth perhaps even spent time on a space station by now.

I was wrong and little realised the moon landings were in fact the apogee of human space exploration. Not the beginning but the end, not the 'giant leap' but a 'small step'.

Not that this reality has yet dawned on the dreamers who think Star Trek and other science fiction actually represents a possible future. The continue with their Quixotic plans without any hope of them being realised. Back in 1969 - 1972 we had men on the moon and the first supersonic airliner on the starting blocks. Now we have neither. We proved both are technically possible and even practical in their use. But they're unaffordable. Mounting a manned mission to Mars is going to be spectacularly expensive and ultimately futile. Little more than a stunt. A grand adventure to be sure but no more than that. Very little benefit will accrue other than make a few people famous and probably some of them dead.

Unmanned vehicles are the way to go. With the technology we have today anything we need to know can be gathered by these machines and robots.

As things stand unless there is a propulsion breakthrough we are rooted to this Earth for as long as we survive.

I'm disappointed to have written the above because I was a dreamer. But reality dawns as it must eventually for everyone.

I was watching a NOVA program last night titled 'Rise of the Rockets'. One of the segments was about the next heavy lift rocket to replace the Saturn V monster. It is called the 'Space Launch System' and its target mission is once again send a human to the Moon.

It is already 100% over budget and at $8.1 BILLION will not only be the biggest, BUT MOST EXPENSIVE rocket ever made.

Yes, Marie, we need another way to get into space or we should simply let the small privateers hawk their proprietary rockets.

Well, one thing I always wondered and maybe you can answer it here, is how do ya get past the asteroids and the keiper belt? Coz I 'aint all that up on stuff like this but I do know my planets and that kind of thing from schooling and I know that there's lots of rocks out there all in a clump whizzing round willy nilly.

So were the Voyagers lucky or is it possible to get through 'em?

Celia Eriksson wrote:Well, one thing I always wondered and maybe you can answer it here, is how do ya get past the asteroids and the keiper belt?

The simple answer, and also the complicated answer is 'with luck'.

There are billions of asteroids between Mars and Juptier, but even then the density of asteroids is really not that great. So, with a bit of luck we shoot an object at the outer planets. About half the mass of the belt is contained in the four largest asteroids: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. The total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon.

The asteroid that the Japanese mission will reach this month is a near-Earth asteroid meaning it is between the Earth and Mars and actually crosses the Earth's orbit at times. See the image below:

Ryugu, 0.85–0.88 kilometers in size and the other near-Earth objects are the ones we are really concerned about. Another is Apophis, a 370 meter wide asteroid that for a while had raised concerns of a possible Earth collision in 2029.

The Kuiper Belt is where the minor planets like Pluto, Eris, Maumea and Makemake lie. It also where a possible Planet Nine lies.
Beyond the Kuiper Belt is another object(s) that is only speculated now because the objects within the cloud are simply too small to see and the density of the individual objects is very low and this is called the Oort Cloud. This is where the long period comments may lie. Comets like Halley's and Hyakutake likely originate in the Kuiper Belt or were originally in the Oort Cloud but captured closer to the Sun. Whereas the Kuiper Belt and planets lies on a plane around the Sun, the Oort Cloud is visualized as a spherical cloud WAY OUT THERE!

Michaela is right of course. But at it's simplest the asteroid belt is nowhere near as dense as science fiction drama would have you believe. We've all seen the Star Trek stuff as the starship carefully navigates the dangerous boulders.

In reality they are much further apart. No more than a ship navigates coastal waters.

I'm afraid all too often our impression of space is informed by sci fy. But that's mostly imagination.

Imagination and fantasy drives the popular impression of space. Everyone seems to believe we're just about on the verge of the great breakthrough.
A fallacy really.

Wow, the Oort cloud sounds wonderfully weirdy!!! Are the Voyagers past that? Coz maybe it's the cosmical lock and we are all futiley forlorn! Trapped forever like a young Princess, locked in a nasty lecherous Lord's castle, never to be able to pass the celestial, wicked barrier moat of Oort!! I'm gonna look it up!


Just looked it up!!! It will take Voyager 1 no less than 300 years to reach it and 3,000 years to pass through it!!!! We're trapped, woe, woe and thrice times, woe!!!!!!!!!

Bing is so great, type in - 'Is Voyager beyond the Oort Cloud'? and voila:

While it's unclear exactly how far away from Earth the Oort Cloud lies, Voyager 1 won't get there for quite a while. NASA scientists have estimated that Voyager 1 will emerge from the Oort Cloud in 14,000 to 28,000 years. The craft launched in September 1977, about two weeks after its twin, Voyager 2.
https://binged.it/2GPSLYL

14,000 to 28,000 years; I don't think I am going to calendar that event.

Celia Eriksson wrote:Just looked it up!!! It will take Voyager 1 no less than 300 years to reach it and 3,000 years to pass through it!!!! We're trapped, woe, woe and thrice times, woe!!!!!!!!!

Oops, looks like we have conflicting information. In any case, I am still not going to calendar the event.

Oh, yours is probably right! My information was on yahoo answers.... anyway the wonderful wierdy-odd Oort cloud is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out there!!!!

Celia xx

No Voyager will be back in a couple of hundred years time and threaten to destroy the Earth unless it meets it's maker. Having been intercepted and upgraded by a silicon based lifeform and sent back to Earth.

At least according to Star Trek The Motion Picture.

I am not generally a Sci-Fi fan but I have started watching a series on Prime Video called 'The Expanse'. If has a decent if not somewhat easy script/plot and fantastic CGI that reviles a Star Wars production.

I think you idea of Voyager being hijacked by an alien civilization and returned to infect humanity with some common sense might work.

mariehart1 wrote:
I'm afraid all too often our impression of space is informed by sci fy. But that's mostly imagination.

More specifically, that's space opera, as opposed to good, hard science fiction (SF, as opposed to Sci-Fi). Writers like Niven, or Le Guin, or Neal Stephenson, or Kim Stanley Robinson wouldn't make that sort of mistake about asteroid fields. But hack screen writers love the visual effect of the ace pilot, violating all laws of motion, navigating through a crowded asteroid field, maybe bumping a few, maybe using blasters to eliminate a few.

And that brings up another thing. Blast an asteroid to smithereens, and you have... a bunch of smaller asteroids hurtling off in all directions, some coming right at you at high speed, and probably super-heated. Bad idea!

Tara, like I said I am not much of a Sci-Fi fan. But this particular show does pay attention to the physics.

The last couple of episodes was about an out of control asteroid,  the very large Eros being hurtled towards Earth. The Earth administration decided to try to halt the advance by rockets equipped with nuclear bombs. It was pointed out that that would simply give us a bunch of little Eros.

Yes, this series is more high level soap opera than fantasy Sci-Fi but it is good watching. It is aimed at an intelligent audience. There is no warp drive or unrealistic aliens walking around on 8 legs.

While the plot may not be to the liking of true Sci-Fi fans, the CGI is good, really effing good and consistent. My biggest issue is that it takes place in the 2300s and there is simply not enough time between now and the then to have created the environment. Add a 1,000 years and it becomes more real to me.

The video series information can be found at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/ and is based upon a book(s) by James S.A. Corey.

I watched a couple of episodes a few weeks ago, and was impressed. But, sadly, my time is limited, and I have not found space (and I don't ask pardon for that pun!) in my day to watch it regularly.

The time-frame doesn't bother me. As to what can happen in over 300 years, it's hard to know. 300 years ago was 1719. It had only been half a century since Galileo had dared to openly challenge the status quo of astronomy. Leibniz had died only three years before, and Newton was still alive, and people were just figuring out how to use the Calculus those two had worked out. The uses of electricity and steam power were in their infancy. The the actual Industrial Revolution hadn't even begun yet.

Given that human knowledge has tended to grow exponentially since then, I suspect that 300 years from now will see even more change than the last 300. I like what Roy Amara said: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

Also don't underestimate what greed for resources can accomplish. There are precious metals in asteroids and comets? We're on our way!

I can see us living in a reality somewhat like that in The Expanse within 300 years, unless we destroy ourselves first.

A phrase I actually coined:

Some greed is good and promotes innovation, unfettered greed is robbery!

We are only guessing at the resources asteroids contain. I am sure the first one to find  rare-Earth element in an asteroid will be the first to exploit the resource as it is essential to communications and is very expensive on Earth.

I'd take a look at it too, Tara and iki, but I 'aint got Prime.... but as for getting stuff off asteroids, it might get tricky to do soon, with all the space junk accumulating out there, I read something the other day about a paint chip, one of hundreds of thousands whizzing about, that cracked a porthole (?) on the space station thingy!

Not only do they have to dodge paints chips and other things scurrying around at tens of thousands of mile per hour but:

Who Sabotaged the International Space Station?

NASA and the Russian space agency on Aug. 29 discovered a hole in the International Space Station that was leaking the station's limited supply of breathable air out into space.
And immediately the question that presented itself, ready made for a grim outer-space thriller, is who done it? The implications are so sinister—sabotage by someone on the ground, or, creepier still, one of the six astronauts on board—that initial reports suggested it was a puncture by some random space junk. But that no longer appears to be the case.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-sabotaged-the-international-space-station