SPACE

[Mat]

Could we be on the cusp of a new Space Race?
I hope so!

NASA's Red Planet discovery turns China green

[carolen]

The Project Apollo Archive has uploaded 8000+ photos to Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/. They seem to be fairly random and unsorted but there are some gems in there. This one in particular makes be think of You Only Live Twice...

AS07-4-1569 by Project Apollo Archive, on Flickr

[pogo]

Could we be on the cusp of a new Space Race?
I hope so!

NASA's Red Planet discovery turns China green

There is this, the biggest radio telescope in the world, or at least it will be when finished, in South China.

If any country could challenge the US in space it’s China. In fact they could in some ways do better than the US. As they are discovering central planning and state ownership is not very good for the economy. But it’s ideal for large scale vanity projects such as a space program. See e.g. the USSR, happily putting people in space while ruining the economy. The US on the other hand has discovered how when political sentiment changes money for such can dry up.

They also have the advantage of building on all the technologies and discoveries of the US and USSR, so not having to re-run the space race all on their own. So they can if they want dive straight into exploring Mars, or comets, or the outer planets. Or building big telescopes. A manned mission to Mars is probably impossible, but another lander to a different part of Mars, e.g. where there is thought to be water, would be quite possible.

[ElfQrin]

New Horizons images show Pluto has blue skies and red water ice

[Mark]

An interesting star with lots of stuff orbiting around it...

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... xy/410023/

[Istar]

An interesting star with lots of stuff orbiting around it...

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... xy/410023/

Oh, crap.

[zip accident]

I think this is the same story, but it's written so differently I can't be sure:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html

Via /.

As was this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/11 ... interview/

[Barney]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... fling.html

I love how the scientific community, (unlike with previous claims by nutjobs that shout ALIENS! at everything, where they immediately start disproving the ET influence) are taking this with some credibility and actually booking time with radio telescopes and saying "Hey, it might be aliens, so let's check it out further". I suspect that's purely because there is no hypothesis in current science that explains the data they've got.

So it's either something completely new that possibly throws our current models of solar system formation back to the drawing board.... or it's an alien civilisation doing something to their sun. Either way, it's pretty cool.

[funkstar]

Oh, crap.

That picture, that's the cover from Blood Money. Weird.

[Barney]

Yeah, that's what I thought when I first saw Blood Money back in the day

One of my favourite Niven books, that!

[Firefox]

I love his Known Space books! (Alright, all of his books, but especially the Known Space ones.)

[gumboot]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/11/freeman_dyson_interview/

Poor old Dyson appears to believe there's a place in the world for pure, apolitical scientific discourse.

So out of touch!

[F-ZeroOne]

Wait, Freeman Dyson is still alive?! Its just from the way hes written about, I'd just assumed he'd died back in the early 80s or something...

[Barney]

I love his Known Space books! (Alright, all of his books, but especially the Known Space ones.)

I've almost got a complete collection of Niven, but am missing a couple. Also looking for a decent archive in ebook (epub or whatever) format if anyone has one...

My favourite author, ever. Shaped my teenage years, that man did.

[carolen]

1969 documentary (propaganda?) about the Apollo 11 mission with loads of excellent footage you just don't see any more. Narrated by Werther bon Braun himself, too.