I don't disagree with you on the private sector. I just worry about the oversite required on a bid situation to build a inherently danger filled vehicle using the cheapest parts to increase your profit margin.
THe problem with NASA is that they have so many redundant safety checks in there... which is obviously a good thing when it comes to a government funded project.
As for the private sector, the Companies with the Safest record will likely succeed. Safety will be driven by the market. Safety innovations will happen faster that way.
The Solar Observatory satellite launches through the clouds where a Sundog was visible. You can see the shock waves fan out and the Sundog disappear as the ice crystals move.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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Nereus dove to 10,902 meters (6.8 miles) on May 31, 2009, in the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, reports a team of engineers and scientists aboard the research vessel Kilo Moana.
The dive makes Nereus the world's deepest-diving vehicle, and the first vehicle to explore the Mariana Trench since 1998.
Only two other vehicles have succeeded in reaching the Mariana Trench: the U.S. Navy-built bathyscaphe Trieste, which carried Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh there in 1960, and the Japanese-built robot Kaiko, which made three unmanned expeditions to the trench between 1995 and 1998.
10 902 meters = 35 767.7165 feet
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This is more technology that's cool but that's been around for ever than science but, my mother and father-in-law are are sailing around the world and have been doing so for 10 years. They just passed through the Panama Canal this morning and I captured this video of them from a webcam at the Mineflores locks at the Pacific end of Gatun Lake, Panama. They are in the centre of the three boats that are rafted together and those locks are big enough for really really big ships.
That major cable landing on the Oregon coast is the only part of the state's coastline that's not public. There's this big pipe coming out of the ocean into a cliff face surrounded by barbed wire and lots of really dramatic signage. The first time I saw it I had to think for a few seconds what "cable landing" meant.
Not really news, but an interesting article that sums up a lot of the thoughts I have on space travel and such.
I'm as hopeful as anyone, but really unless there's a game-changing discovery like free energy from the vacuum or something there are huge hurdles to getting out there in a bigger way.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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WOW! That's unbelievable! 1.5m years is nothing in the scheme of things. A blink of the eye in the cosmos.
Although, by then, if humans happen to still be around, or some evolutionary trace of them, i'm sure we'd be long gone. We should be a Type III civilization by then. A galactic civilization.
Hmmph, too bad we will never get to see the outcome of humanity. I would love to know if we're actually going to "make it" or not. I think in order to survive, we need to get off this rock. If we can spread to many different worlds, our civilization may live on for millions of years!
Not really news, but an interesting article that sums up a lot of the thoughts I have on space travel and such.
I'm as hopeful as anyone, but really unless there's a game-changing discovery like free energy from the vacuum or something there are huge hurdles to getting out there in a bigger way.
That's pretty much how I feel about it too and why I doubt that we are being visited.
I always figured that our best shot at space colonization would be to send our genome and genetic material to different star systems, along with a DVD (or Blueray disc) about who we are and hope that some alien race decides to "create" us in their systems. Being humans, it would only be a matter of time until we decided to conquer them (or try). Of course, those humans probably wouldn't care about Earth any more and for all intents and purposes, would be "aliens" to us.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
All we need is some red matter, and some pointy eared dude from Venus to destroy that star.
Otherwise Venus is in trouble because some pissed off dude from Ft Mcmurray with a confusingly powerful mining ship will be the only human left and take it out on that pointy eared dude and his planet. He might try and change the timeline to a point where there is a black president, a skinny ginger who says cheesy lines with sunglasses is considered badass, and flames fans reminisce of the days of Mike Keenan.....
