The Astronomy Thread

Tuco

Tuco

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Sentagur said:
Oh i am definitely an avid user of hyperbole, it makes every conversation more fun. It is a very interesting topic and i am sure smarter people than I already thought of most of this crap.
I do remember someone mentioning that any asteroid mining attempt will have to first jump through some international law loops that were made to prevent militarization of space. Because it would be trivial to modify a system designed to capture asteroids for near earth mining into something that lets you bombard shit on earth with huge space rocks.
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Yeah I think if it was done "properly", no matter who goes out to park a massive rock near earth would have to be vetted by US, Russia, China, India and EU (if it exists, lol) space agencies (and more) to verify they weren't a bunch of jackasses.

AS for the weaponization ramifications, who knows. Shit might just be wild west up there.
 
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iannis

iannis

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Sentagur said:
Oh i am definitely an avid user of hyperbole, it makes every conversation more fun. It is a very interesting topic and i am sure smarter people than I already thought of most of this crap.
I do remember someone mentioning that any asteroid mining attempt will have to first jump through some international law loops that were made to prevent militarization of space. Because it would be trivial to modify a system designed to capture asteroids for near earth mining into something that lets you bombard shit on earth with huge space rocks.
Click to expand...

It's unavoidable. But really it's not even a legal argument. That shit that they wrote in the sixties was irrelevant before the ink dried. On the ground it'll come down to two basic questions for the competitors. Do you have nukes and are you willing to use them to stop the other group? That should be majority yes and no, but there might be a yes yes in there. It's not really even a legal or economic struggle, it's a dominance struggle. And it will indeed spark wars. No matter how rich the first haul, it won't be enough to cut everyone in. And let's be real. AmeriCorp Space Mines ain't gonna cut anyone in except Swiss bankers. Not on the first haul. There will be a first in line and a last in line. Because that's what a line is.

A multinational moonbase actually would serve a purpose in averting that conflict. It lets interested parties begin to hash out a practical and more relevant arrangement. It's more of an idealistic diplomatic effort. And a pretty dumb one if you feel you can win the race to space gold without getting nuked. But you know.

It's something they'll have to deal with in a few generations.
 
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Tuco

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
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iannis said:
It's unavoidable. But really it's not even a legal argument. That shit that they wrote in the sixties was irrelevant before the ink dried. On the ground it'll come down to two basic questions for the competitors. Do you have nukes and are you willing to use them to stop the other group? That should be majority yes and no, but there might be a yes yes in there. It's not really even a legal or economic struggle, it's a dominance struggle. And it will indeed spark wars. No matter how rich the first haul, it won't be enough to cut everyone in. And let's be real. AmeriCorp Space Mines ain't gonna cut anyone in except Swiss bankers. Not on the first haul. There will be a first in line and a last in line. Because that's what a line is.

A multinational moonbase actually would serve a purpose in averting that conflict. It lets interested parties begin to hash out a practical and more relevant arrangement. It's more of an idealistic diplomatic effort. And a pretty dumb one if you feel you can win the race to space gold without getting nuked. But you know.

It's something they'll have to deal with in a few generations.
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It can go any number of ways, but I can see it going:
1. AmeriCorp Space Mines brings in asteroid, makes trillions over the next few years.
2. IndiaCorp Space Mines launches giant rickshaw to bring asteroid in, obliterates Bangalaru and a large portion of the Tanami desert (nobody notices).
3. Everyone comes together and creates regulation so #2 doesn't happen again. #1 pays for it.
 
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Dandain

Dandain

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Gravitationally lensed supernova

https://phys.org/news/2017-04-rare-supernova-discovery-ushers-era.html

raresupernov.png


lightraysfro.jpg
 
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Oldbased

Oldbased

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Tuco said:
What kind of impact are we looking at if a building sized asteroid in LOE gets its orbit fucked up and the orbit decays until it falls to the earth? It seems like asteroids with long orbits around the sun are traveling much faster relative to the earth than our orbitting satellites. It'd be a bad day for sure, but it wouldn't be a hemisphere ending event right?

This is the kind of argument I know so little about and have so little influence over I don't care about it, but putting an asteroid into a massive gravity well (the moon) makes zero sense to me when the cost of lifting out of that gravity well is pretty extreme right now. That in addition to any given area of the moon only having visibility to the sun 50% of the time (or whatever) means that your solar power will be cut in half compared to whatever you get if you have something in low, medium or high earth orbit (or at lagrange points).
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I didn't ever take a asteroid impact physics class but the ones going super fast slow way the hell down and superheat and the ones going super super slow speed up to terminal velocity or something or something.Anything weighing hundred of tons and greater will wake up neighbors though.
 
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meStevo

meStevo

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Earth and the Moon from Cassini, through Saturn's rings.

C95Je13VwAARFEV.jpg


C95JgZrVoAAbNTl.jpg
 
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Sentagur

Sentagur

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Olebass said:
I didn't ever take a asteroid impact physics class but the ones going super fast slow way the hell down and superheat and the ones going super super slow speed up to terminal velocity or something or something.Anything weighing hundred of tons and greater will wake up neighbors though.
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Found a fun site trying to get more info on this.
Crater Impact
Have fun cratering the world!
keep in mind that the Meteor attributed with wiping out the dinosaurs was 10km in diameter
More info The Impact That Wiped Out the Dinosaurs | Planetary Science Institute
 
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khorum

khorum

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Sentagur said:
Found a fun site trying to get more info on this.
Crater Impact
Have fun cratering the world!
keep in mind that the Meteor attributed with wiping out the dinosaurs was 10km in diameter
More info The Impact That Wiped Out the Dinosaurs | Planetary Science Institute
Click to expand...
After about 20 mins with this I'm heartened to learn that my "asteroid mining accident" would only need a 4-km rock travelling at 15km/s to wipe out San Francisco.

Suddenly asteroid mining makes total economic sense.
 
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Dandain

Dandain

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This is not a new clip, but I thought it was impressive enough perspective to share.

 
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Masakari

Masakari

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What are your thoughts on the idea of Trump challenging China and Russia to be the first country to put a man on Mars just for the sake of a little friendly competition and superpower ball swinging?
 
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Oldbased

Oldbased

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Masakari said:
What are your thoughts on the idea of Trump challenging China and Russia to be the first country to put a man on Mars just for the sake of a little friendly competition and superpower ball swinging?
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Smart. Dangerous. Necessary.
Smart- Russia would almost be out by itself but more likely it will team up with China or USA. The cost factor mostly. Russia has lots to offer when it comes to space however. It would force China to spend great deals of money to advance the space programs it has a great deal. That is money that won't be able to go into defense spending. On the flip side China gains technical progress.

Dangerous- Going to the moon did not come without loss of life and many dangers. Mars would be no different. Even with improved technology and science, it would be more dangerous than a moon landing. Still there would be no shortage of people willing to try I'd imagine.

Necessary- Look, the big countries can talk about going to Mars for the next 5 decades, but without a solid push to git er done it would likely just be pushed back more and more and more due to budgets, support issues and not running the risk. A space race to Mars means someone gets it done and done sooner.
 
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iannis

iannis

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Unfortunately there's just not much reason to go.

The space race took a really big push, and it took a generation of men who had returned from WW2 and probably, at that point, held a deep cyncism about life in general. They'd also won it. They were also in the center of a scientific explosion.

It's a lot of things that really came together. But they didn't come together organically. Without giants like Clarke and Bradbury and the thousand worker bees working the pulp outlets of the time... without the fact that rocketry really is weaponry and with these tools you don't have to fight a war like the one that was just fought ever again... a lot of things just came together.

They didn't have ICBM's in the 40's. You had to actually go over there.

The impetus to mars. I don't see that we send a manned mission to mars until we've sent robot prep crews beforehand.

We need to start shooting robots at that planet. It would be nice to see a manned mission to mars in the next 20 years. But honestly -- rocketry for them is robotics for us.

A robot requires a fraction of the investment (both money and engineering) for a relatively equal return.

It's a lot less shitty once we've set up a few greenhouses remotely and baked a few million mars-bricks to serve as frames for our structures.
 
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