SPACE

[KlaxonCow]

I don't think that SETI has much statistical chance of finding anything useful, but I don't oppose their endeavours in any way. So, indeed, why not?

But, as I covered before, the grand problem for me is that the statistics that tell me that, most likely, there is other life out there - we are made of the most common elements that exist in the universe and the universe is very, very, very big - is the same facts that tell me that, well, you could hide thousands of space empires, spanning thousands of world, for millions of years, inside this galaxy and still have negligible chance of them overlapping or being close enough to each other to meet.

Because what's thousands of planets in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars? What's a million years in some 13 billion?

And, even with radio signals, you're still limited to the speed of light, so there's only so far you can practically reach. For example, the nearest star to us - other than Sol, of course - is 4 lightyears away. So even if there were advanced aliens living on a planet in Alpha Centauri, who could perfectly well respond with their own radio signals and they are listening, we wouldn't get the return "ACK" from them for at least 8 years. And that's the very best case scenario.

Then, as the universe is expanding, any signals sent out will be gradually red-shifted with distance. This presents another limit, because it's not just the time it takes the signal to get out there, but that its wavelength is continually being stretched, so it's dropping in frequency. The upshot of this is that you might pick a nicely empty part of the electromagnetic spectrum to send out your signals, but it'll eventually drop down to a frequency range that's noisy - and then it becomes really hard to find the signal in amongst the general "noise" of the universe itself.

The grand problem for me is that the same fact - "space is big" - which tells me that, no matter how rare "the spark of life" might be, the universe is so mindbogglingly gargantuan that the spark must surely have happened more than once, is the exact same fact that tells me that the odds of two needles being anywhere remotely near each other in this ludicrously massive haystack is not very likely.

But, yes, we are talking statistics. Likelihoods. It might be unlikely, but that doesn't mean that the unlikely didn't actually happen. It might turn out that we struck gold on this universal lottery and the Vulcans are only over there. Or not. It's worth at least looking. But - and I wish I had better news - it just doesn't seem very probable.

So, you know, by all means, we should give it a shot. But just don't get your hopes up too much.

[oktup]

That was fucking awesome.

[Mark]

Yep! Astonishing. Damned close to magic watching the 2 boosters land so beautifully. Utterly gobsmacking.

[WiteWulf]

Wow

[Rhythm]

NASA was a fucked up bloated org with pointless aims but I can't see how replacing it with a private endeavour led by someone with genuine megalomania goals improves things. His work with Tesla (and recent cuntery with the flamethrowers) shows he's not a humanitarian. He uses space launches to advertise and brag about how much extra funding he'll be able to pull form the gov't (actual tax money, y'all).

He's got aims on controlling personal transport, planetary power, space travel.... guy is a boné fidé Bond villain-in-waiting.

Fuck sake, he basically appears to be using Hank Scorpio as a role model.

[zip accident]

NASA was a fucked up bloated org with pointless aims but I can't see how replacing it with a private endeavour led by someone with genuine megalomania goals improves things. His work with Tesla (and recent cuntery with the flamethrowers) shows he's not a humanitarian. He uses space launches to advertise and brag about how much extra funding he'll be able to pull form the gov't (actual tax money, y'all).

He's got aims on controlling personal transport, planetary power, space travel.... guy is a boné fidé Bond villain-in-waiting.

Fuck sake, he basically appears to be using Hank Scorpio as a role model.

I'm a lot more interested in what people do than what their motives are.

We need to get people into space.

I don't approve of NASA's "we have to trash the old one to get funding for a new one" attitude, it may be how congress allocates funds, it's ridiculous however it started.

[Dio]

[Dio]

NASA was a fucked up bloated org with pointless aims but I can't see how replacing it with a private endeavour led by someone with genuine megalomania goals improves things. His work with Tesla (and recent cuntery with the flamethrowers) shows he's not a humanitarian. He uses space launches to advertise and brag about how much extra funding he'll be able to pull form the gov't (actual tax money, y'all).

He's got aims on controlling personal transport, planetary power, space travel.... guy is a boné fidé Bond villain-in-waiting.

Fuck sake, he basically appears to be using Hank Scorpio as a role model.

I don't think he's got megalomania. I'm not sure he's grown up much since he left university, but hey. It's genuinely interesting, and the electric work is enormously important. The space stuff is more of a show - but, honestly, what a show. Landing them at all is genuine witchcraft; landing two at once, in absolute synchronisation? There are no words.

[Yak]

Well that was fucking amazing. My eyes nearly fell out of my head when I saw those two boosters landing in synchrony. I've not been so moved by a launch since the Apollo days. Early days yet but seems to be a powerful statement of intent from Spacex that they intend to Get Shit Done after all these years of pootling up to LEO with tiny payloads. And yes it wasn't the most serious payload, but given they thought there was a good chance shit'd get blown up why the fuck not. And you'd have to have a stone cold heart not to have got a bit of a lump in your throat when the shroud blew off, Bowie started playing and DON'T PANIC came up on the Tesla's screen. Showboating, yes, but why the fuck not on this occasion. Crazy human stuff mixed in with an astonishing technical achievement. I am certain it will have made a bunch of people remember that actually yes spaceflight is pretty damn cool.

I don't think the Muskatron is trying to be a villain, I think he's a guy who's been fortunate enough to get a crapload of money whilst still being young enough to retain the lack of cynicism to actually want to try to do some straight up life on Earth (and beyond) changing stuff with it. Some of his stuff will probably be stupid and not amount to anything, but some of it could be profoundly important. Hell, the reason I'm driving an EV right now is probably because of the kick up the arse Tesla gave to the car industry that seems to be precipitating into an increasing wave of EV adoption that'll eventually change cars forever.

At least he's not spending it on pointless crap like gold toilets and diamond studded ipad covers eh .

[RiK]

21:50ish for the good stuff

[Dio]

Watching that video back again the synchronisation of the boosters is simply unbelievable. They make the exact same course corrections and steering maneuvers to within a video frame!

[Zoot]

What Jeff said. It was magical. First time I have watched a launch since the Shuttle, and it just oozed cool. It’s like Apple would do if they did space.

The boosters were pure, wonderful, theatre. My missus was just as gobsmacked as me so, yes, space just got good again.

[Rhythm]

And you'd have to have a stone cold heart not to have got a bit of a lump in your throat when the shroud blew off, Bowie started playing and DON'T PANIC came up on the Tesla's screen.

So I'm stone hearted, I guess. I'd kinda like to think that Adams would have rolled eyes at the live-streaming of a billionaire making more billions too, but it's very plain from looking in here, Reddit and on Twitter that I'm *very* much in the minority. But hey, I reckon Tesla cars shouldn't have ever been allowed on the road either, so I can't say I'm coming at this from a very objective place.

[Muttley]

But hey, I reckon Tesla cars shouldn't have ever been allowed on the road either, so I can't say I'm coming at this from a very objective place.

WTF?! What kind of ridiculous reason do you have for that?

[Rhythm]

But hey, I reckon Tesla cars shouldn't have ever been allowed on the road either, so I can't say I'm coming at this from a very objective place.

WTF?! What kind of ridiculous reason do you have for that?

Not a car fan in general but I know they're necessary to some degree in this day/age. However, high horsepower/speed cars, especially ones that are largely silent, have no place sharing public roads.