SPACE

[Darkflame]

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!

Might be the fault of the interviewer, but I do find it hard to understand what he is saying there at times.
For example, at the end when talking about fusion he says for the last 50 years we have been doing big engineering projects rather then science.

It would be nice to know details here - why doesn't he see those projects as science? what non-engineering science on fusion is he wanting funding instead ?

[Darkflame]

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.

wow

[gumboot]

For example, at the end when talking about fusion he says for the last 50 years we have been doing big engineering projects rather then science.

It would be nice to know details here - why doesn't he see those projects as science? what non-engineering science on fusion is he wanting funding instead ?

I think he means that fusion turned from science to engineering when people started bashing at atoms with a spanner trying to turn them into money. Science would be bashing atoms with a spanner just to see what happens.

[Absolute_Zero]

There isn't much new science in ITER, it's mostly what's been tried in the past... on a much larger scale. Ditto the costs.

[gumboot]

"We're gonna' need a bigger spanner!"

[pogo]

[Darkflame]

Mr Musk does want some things known regarding that mind;
https://twitter.com/elonmusk?ref_src=tw ... r%5Eauthor

(I dont blame him either, given some of the headlines)

[Orava]

We are looking for hardcore software engineers. No prior experience with cars required. Please include code sample or link to your work.

Oh go on then coders, you get to be a rocket scientist.

[gumboot]

What does 'hardcore' mean in this context? It seems like a pretty vague job spec.

[Darkflame]

I love the "no experience with cars" bit myself.
I mean, no coding on car systems? or just, like, never seen one

Either way I wont be sending him my work - he'd probably give up saving the world.

[gumboot]

I would like to think that software engineers in the automotive industry are the very worst in the world; because I can't bear the thought of anybody finding a way of producing worse code that what I've seen there. I totally get why he would want to filter out their kind.

On the other hand I wouldn't fancy driving a car with software duct-trapped together with Python, either.

[pogo]

A couple of very zoomed in photos of Pluto have been in the news lately; here’s the source image they are cropped from:

Spoiler: show

New Horizons clearly just pointed its camera at Pluto as it went past to capture whatever was under it, and came up trumps with the varied terrain it captured. Frustratingly that is probably it for photos of these things. With no plans to return to Pluto any time soon this is the closest look at it we will get in many if not most of our lifetimes.

[Darkflame]

So hard to tell scale. Whats a pixel on that thing? (at least at the bottom)

[pogo]

77 to 85 meters per pixel, via Ars. Here’s a movie that shows where it is on Pluto.

[Barney]

NASA planning to drop the ISS. Literally.

"debate rages inside and outside of NASA about what happens in low-Earth orbit in 2024, or 2028 at the latest, when the space agency stops supporting the space station. The most likely outcome is that the station will be safely deorbited, break apart in the atmosphere, and fall into the Pacific Ocean."