Space In General

Has anybody heard of white holes? :)

I read that everybody lives in their own reality but I personally think that quantum entanglement is accounts for one's reality to interact with anothers, lol. :)

Welcome to the forum!

There are some interesting things that have been hypothesized or theorized that have been problematic to confirm by direct observation and measurement. I personally would put white holes, quantum entanglement, even the Oort cloud into this category. In general, space is overflowing with fun and interesting phenomena to discuss. Opinions are good, but images and data make it better.
 
All rovers on Mars: "It is just rocks. Just rocks! What do you guys want!"

Lol. :)
Water. The purpose, or mission, of the current generation of Martian rovers is to look for signs of water. Have they found what they were looking for?

The coming generation of rovers will be designed and given the mission of finding signs of life. Do you suppose they will find what they are to look for?
 
^
On that note it may be a good moment to add that POTUS just announced at the WH that he would be returning astronauts to the Moon, with the intention of using it as a springboard to Mars.
 
^
On that note it may be a good moment to add that POTUS just announced at the WH that he would be returning astronauts to the Moon, with the intention of using it as a springboard to Mars.
I saw such an announcement reported, but it was woefully lacking in any details at all.

As far as I know, our return-to-the-moon plan is either stalled or moving at a snail's pace.:grumpy:

It makes for very dismal reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)
 
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It's easy to imagine that he thinks that's exactly how it could work. Boing.

I, myself, leave that kind of imagination to NASA. ;)
I'm talking about the rocket-science sort of imagination, of course - the kind of imagination relating to POTUS I leave to ABC News.
 
Why spend government funding on space? :) There are better areas that that money could go into. :)
I think the scientific exploration of the solar system by robotic probes and missions is wise and well-justified. On the other hand, the human crewed missions have admittedly come under some criticism.
 
Why spend government funding on space? :) There are better areas that that money could go into. :)

Like what? First off you'd have to actually understand that the amount of the national budget into the space program is quite small compared to what most people tend to bring up when making this claim. The money NASA has from the budget for the past 10-15 years has been quite steady, with it being as low (this year) as .47 % of the overall budget. I find it hard to see how the not even 1% of the budget is a wasted cause, on an area that yields very many possibilities as a gate way for human expansion and sustainability through space exploration.
 
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SpaceX ISS resupply launch on Tuesday. Booster and capsule have both been used before.

Edit: Delayed until Wednesday Friday.

 
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THE SUN IS DIMMING: Yesterday at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX launched a new sensor to the International Space Station named TSIS-1. Its mission: to measure the dimming of the sun. As the sunspot cycle plunges toward its 11-year minimum, NASA satellites are tracking a decline in total solar irradiance (TSI). Across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the sun's output has dropped nearly 0.1% compared to the Solar Maximum of 2012-2014. This plot shows the TSI since 1978 as observed from nine previous satellites:


Click here for a complete explanation of this plot.

The rise and fall of the sun's luminosity is a natural part of the solar cycle. A change of 0.1% may not sound like much, but the sun deposits a lot of energy on the Earth, approximately 1,361 watts per square meter. Summed over the globe, a 0.1% variation in this quantity exceeds all of our planet's other energy sources (such as natural radioactivity in Earth's core) combined. A 2013 report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), "The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth's Climate," spells out some of the ways the cyclic change in TSI can affect the chemistry of Earth's upper atmosphere and possibly alter regional weather patterns, especially in the Pacific.

NASA's current flagship satellite for measuring TSI, the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE), is now more than six years beyond its prime-mission lifetime. TSIS-1 will take over for SORCE, extending the record of TSI measurements with unprecedented precision. It's five-year mission will overlap a deep Solar Minimum expected in 2019-2020. TSIS-1 will therefore be able to observe the continued decline in the sun's luminosity followed by a rebound as the next solar cycle picks up steam. Installing and checking out TSIS-1 will take some time; the first science data are expected in Feb. 2018. Stay tuned.
 
SOLAR SECTOR BOUNDARY CROSSING: On Dec. 22nd or 23rd, Earth will cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet--a vast wavy structure in interplanetary space separating regions of opposite magnetic polarity. This is called a "solar sector boundary crossing," and it could trigger geomagnetic activity around Earth's poles. Arctic sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the crossing occurs.
 
SpaceX just launched a Falcon9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California about 30 minutes ago and I guess you could see it all the way over here in Phoenix. My brother had no idea and posted a video on facebook asking people what the hell it was. :lol:

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