Author Topic: Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - Houston, we are go for launch!  (Read 104859 times)

Daryk

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Finally caught up, thanks for the links! :)

rebs

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We're going to miss this Juno mission once it's done.  This survey of 3 of the 4 Galilean moons is mostly all bonus mission. 

I think the team can run into 2026 some time on the current mission plan, and perhaps can increase the length on the end.  Not sure about that last bit, but I'd love to see encounters going on into 2028 or so.  Opportunity cost of getting such a robotic outpost out that far away in orbit is such that you just have to keep the wheel going as long as it will spin.
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Prospernia

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Just watched this,

https://youtu.be/lJG0jtYAhJY?si=qVyjomeqZE4aQMxs

Where Earth's Water Orginaly Comes from:

I saw one of the guest-lecturers from UCLA's Astrobiology Society, I remember.  During my senior year, get researched Greenland's environment, in Greenland, 3.8 BYA and discovered the hydrology of Earth was very similar to today with stream-beds.  I think his name is Prof. Moyes, but I could be mistaken.

Wrangler

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More pressing issue is effects of low gravity and cosmic radiation on Mars. Neither has good means of fixing.
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rebs

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Living on Mars longer than a mission or two is more boast than reality.  It can be done, I'm sure, but it may not be a comfortable time spent in some stifling small colony.  Especially when the wealthy proprietor owner pulls up stakes and goes back to Earth.
Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert

Wrangler

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Honestly, I think an orbital habitat is probably better for the sake of maintaining good human life while Mars is explored. I know that's a big asking, but full gravity versus little gravity likely more gravity protection.

To me until we get the technology to truly be able to inhabit a place where the elements may affect our bodies negatively. I do think perhaps we should have more artificial habitats where we are more control versus a hostile environment even Mars is considered one. I had forgotten how the moon has its dust that can be very fine and get all over the place.  NASA is trying to develop a type of low power magnetic field to repulse the dust, because Apollo astronauts even got the stuff in their lungs because they couldn't get the dust off them.
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
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rebs

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Lunar dust can be comprised of all kinds of metals.  Would be like blacklung in a coal miner in no time, I could see that. 
Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert

Prospernia

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Yeah, Moon dust is really bad, like breathing in shards of glass. Good colony-filters and lung-repair might be in order.

. . .Especially when the wealthy proprietor owner pulls up stakes and goes back to Earth.

I don't think a wealthy-proprietor will be able to return to Earth from Mars.

worktroll

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Yup. Lunar dust is shattered rock fragments from meteoric bombardment. It's also unoxidized - when the Apollo astronauts returned to the LEM and unsuited, they could smell it, like burned gunpowder.

Martian dust is the consequence of aeolian weatering - much finer, rounded particles, and also full of perchlorates that react with water (or vapour) to form toxic chemicals.
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rebs

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Put AI to work spotting anomalies, and found 27,000 + new asteroids documented in old footage and images.

https://www.space.com/google-cloud-ai-tool-asteroid-telescope-archive
Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert

Daryk

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It's good to see data scientists reminding everyone it's about more than just sensors... :)

Wrangler

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The forgotten rover, Perseverance Rover on Mars. Picture taken (released) Today.

Looks it has very rocky road to go.
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
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rebs

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Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert

Daryk

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Nice!  All the more reason to figure out how to shield Mars with a magnetic field...

rebs

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Nice!  All the more reason to figure out how to shield Mars with a magnetic field...

This is a HUGE reason for future missions to Ganymede, to understand how small bodies can retain a magnetosphere over the vast expanse of time since accretion.
Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert

Daryk

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That too! :)

worktroll

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Nice!  All the more reason to figure out how to shield Mars with a magnetic field...

Have you considered the sheer amount of energy in a planetary magnetic field? Currently something like 3x1016 joules. Which is about 10 megatons per second. Magnetic fields aren't strong, but they are expansive. If we could generate those sorts of energy, it would be easy to remove the Jovian atmosphere & expose the rocky (diamond?) core beneath.

Ganymede probably has the same mechanism producing a magnetic field as Earth - an electrically conductive outer core in circulation over a solid inner core. Except it would be salty water and rock for Ganymede, not liquid iron & solid (super-compressed) iron as with Earth. Decaying radioactive heat is Earth's power source, gravitational squeezing by Jupiter in Ganymede's.

(Counterpoint - Io has a magnetic field also. But it's coupled with and generated by Jupiter's magnetic field directly. Not safe for children, folks!)
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Daryk

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As I recall, the math has been done and it's almost doable with current tech.

Prospernia

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Nice!  All the more reason to figure out how to shield Mars with a magnetic field...

What could go wrong? 




Back in '99, there was a website called, Silent-Universe, which, humanity began to explore the neighboring star-systems centuries from now and discovered only the ruins of alien-civilizations.  I think on Procyon, they discovered a molten-world, that, apparently had an energy source so powerful, when the aliens turned it on, melted the surface. I have the images on CD, saved, somewhere.

Daryk

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The power requirements are a bit lower if you park the electromagnet at the L1 point with the sun...

Natasha Kerensky

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The latest iteration of the artificial Mars magnetic field concept comes from Jim Green, former head of the planetary science division within NASA’s science mission directorate.  The power requirement is in the tens of gigawatts.  (He cites 65GW, which is about what Germany consumes).  The field would deflect CMEs — a temporary problem that can already be dealt with via shelters — but do  little else.  It’s not going to stop omnipresent cosmic radiation, which is what will induce cancers that take decades off lives.  And it would only restore a fraction of the atmosphere on a timescale measured in tens of millions of years.

https://primordialscoop.org/2022/11/14/the-mars-magnetic-shield-would-not-work/
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
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Daryk

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So it wouldn't do it alone, but would be more of a long term maintenance sort of thing.  The BT universe is anything but power limited.

Natasha Kerensky

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Working alone, the 65GW artificial magnetic field at L1 would restore about 1/7th of Mars’ old atmosphere over a period of tens of millions of years, according to Green.  So it alone could not deliver the fantastical terraforming timelines measured in hundreds of years that are a staple of BT, Dune, and other sci-fi franchises.  It would need a lot of help.

But in terms of preserving a rejuvenated Martian atmosphere, however quickly regenerated, an artificial magnetic field is probably necessary over the long-term to reduce the solar wind stripping molecules out of the upper atmosphere.
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

Prospernia

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I'm thinking, our descendants, whom have lived in zero-G for centuries and have adapted their bodies to life in an orbital-colony, would find the gravity on Mars too high and wouldn't want to mess with a magnetic-field.

And has anyone else heard or seen Silent Universe?

Natasha Kerensky

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So far, multi-generational adaptation to 0g appears to be a non-starter.  That environment really screws with gestation.  In space station experiments, rodent embryos don’t implant in the uterine wall, blastulas/gastrulas don’t unfold correctly, and defects like brain voids appear if gestation gets that far.  Given that all Earth life evolved in a 1g environment, it’s not surprising that a 1g signal is important to various gestational processes.  (There’s also experiments showing that infant rodents don’t develop normally in a 0g environment, either.)

It’s unclear yet if a low-g environment, like 0.17g at the Moon or 0.38g at Mars, provides enough of a signal to keep mammalian gestation on track.  We just have not run the experiments in those environments.  But I’m doubtful.  Given our evolutionary history, I would guess that either a near-1g planet (like Venus at 0.9g) or a large centrifugal space station that approaches 1g would be needed for safe gestation in space.

The other roadblock is cosmic radiation, exposure to which over multiple years will induce cancers and shorten lifetimes by decades.  Unless settlers are comfortable condemning themselves and future generations to lives underground, a thick atmosphere is required to avoid the omnipresent irradiation.  This again points away from smaller bodies like the Moon and Mars and more towards Venus- and Earth-sized planets.  Or, again, large, well-shielded space stations.

FWIW...
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

Wrangler

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The Haven-1 commercial space station set launch in a few years is supposedly going to be fitting with additional modules or it's successor will try for centrifuge gravity generation.  I am taking the wait and see view with any of these independent paid endeavors.
"Men, fetch the Urbanmechs.  We have an interrogation to attend to." - jklantern
"How do you defeat a Dragau? Shoot the damn thing. Lots." - Jellico 
"No, it's a "Most Awesome Blues Brothers scene Reenactment EVER" waiting to happen." VotW Destrier - Weirdo  
"It's 200 LY to Sian, we got a full load of shells, a half a platoon of Grenadiers, it's exploding outside, and we're wearing flak jackets." VoTW Destrier - Misterpants
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truetanker

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If you want to laugh about cosmic stuff...

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rebs

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Short video of a tremendous solar flare erupting.  Views are two wavelengths presented back to back.

https://www.space.com/powerful-solar-flare-x-class-eruption-from-giant-sunspot-ar3664-may-10-video

Damn commercials are longer than the video and feature no skip option, lol. 
Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert

ANS Kamas P81

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And views of that storm's aurorae.
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rebs

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In 2029, an asteroid called Apophis will be passing near Earth.  Scientists have proposed a few small relatively low-cost projects to meet the visitor and enter orbit around Apophis to hitch a ride with it for a short time.

https://www.space.com/asteroid-apophis-satellite-spacecraft-mission-2029
« Last Edit: 11 May 2024, 22:21:04 by rebs »
Playing Guitar On My YouTube Channel:
Current cover tune: "The Wind Cries Mary" (by Jimi Hendrix)
https://youtu.be/m6a8wZiCsjM?si=0w7tVOgk7yylNv6a

"Thou shalt not create a machine in the image of the human mind." ~ The Orange Catholic Bible, Dune, Frank Herbert