After getting hooked on the great BB2 program 'Wonders of the Solar System' im now a space exploration convert. I find myself constantly amazed & in awe of what these scientists & the human race in general is capable of.(well some of it anyways)

Just getting to grips with some of the figures, boggles the mind. A few examples:

• Cassini will travel 3.2 billion kilometres (2 billion miles) in order to reach Saturn.
  

• The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft weighs over five tons & its maximum recorded velocity was over 98,000 mph
  

Just to put this into perspective the maximum recorded speed of a man made machine on earth is a poultry 2,500 mph! or mach 4.3(limited googling, might be wrong). Cassini was launched over 12 years ago & is anticipated to still be collecting data in 2015.The cassini huygens mission was the first to find a body of liquid on another planet in the known universe. The temperature on Titan the largest of Saturns moons is -180 centigrade.

All this human endeavor & discovery of new worlds kind of begs the question: "How come we can send send complex spacecraft billions of miles into outerspace & yet we cant stop nutters in turbans hating the world?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens

Quote from anttt69 :

After getting hooked on the great BB2 program 'Wonders of the Solar System'

The best documentary programme I've ever seen on TV. That guy is brilliant.

Quote from anttt69 :

All this human endeavor & discovery of new worlds kind of begs the question: "How come we can send send complex spacecraft billions of miles into outerspace & yet we cant stop nutters in turbans hating the world?

Because when someone's foundation of personal deliverance and purpose of life is under threat, human acts like a cornered animal.

I'd love to see a chicken traveling at 2,500mph.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I'd love to see a chicken traveling at 2,500mph.

At first I wondered what on earth you were on about. But then I saw it.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I'd love to see a chicken traveling at 2,500mph.

Wheyyyyyy good spot Ben!

I personally LOVE this series of great documentaries, the 3rd has easily been my favourite mind...

Quote from anttt69 :

Just to put this into perspective the maximum recorded speed of a man made machine on earth is a poultry 2,500 mph!

Space shuttles (and obviously the astronauts on board) need to accelerate to ~18000mph before leaving Earth's atmosphere.

Quote from anttt69 :

All this human endeavor & discovery of new worlds kind of begs the question: "How come we can send send complex spacecraft billions of miles into outerspace & yet we cant stop nutters in turbans hating the world?

It's not just "nutters in turbans" that are violent.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I'd love to see a chicken traveling at 2,500mph.

Lol so would i, but the laws of physics say no.

Quote from amp88 :

Space shuttles (and obviously the astronauts on board) need to accelerate to ~18000mph before leaving Earth's atmosphere.

It's not just "nutters in turbans" that are violent.

True Amp, but i was looking for an earth bound machine as a comparison.
There's a big difference between being violent & plotting to plant bombs, crash aircraft etc murdering & maiming innocent people.

Quote from anttt69 :

True Amp, but i was looking for an earth bound machine as a comparison.

What were you using as the reference for 2500mph?

Quote from anttt69 :

There's a big difference between being violent & plotting to plant bombs, crash aircraft etc murdering & maiming innocent people.

I totally agree with you. That's why I'm appalled at all the governments in the world who have in the past and continue to plant bombs, crash aircraft and kill and maim innocent people. UK/US/France/Israeli to name but a few.

The speed comparison is a bit odd, in space there's no limitation on your terminal velocity except the laws of relativity, you can reach that speed in space just by coughing in the same direction for a very long time.

I love space exploration too, especially the bits about Voyager 1 and 2, Voyager I has reached the extreme end of solar system, 8.7 billion miles away! what is more impressive is it is still sending images 32 years after its launch, and will be expecting to work till 2020.

I love space.
I mean, a rought quote from the hitchhikers guide: "We are an invisible dot on an invisible dot."
I love the fact that there's SO much more out there.
There are even people searching for some sort of Earth #2, which is more or less succesful. Just, wow!

And don't even get me started on dimensions.

What if space isn't the final frontier? What if, after a lot of space, it just becomes... milk...

"Milk, the final frontier"!

(source: Men Behaving Badly)

mmmmm...milk.
breastmilk!

Quote from tristancliffe :

What if space isn't the final frontier? What if, after a lot of space, it just becomes... milk...

"Milk, the final frontier"!

(source: Men Behaving Badly)

The universe is one giant chocolate chip cookie.

Who was it that posted the links to the mars rovers and kept us updated on thier progress? Was it here on on RSC. Was really intresting.

Space has always been fascinating, Nearly as much so as the deep sea. The bloop still amazes me, as do most deep sea creatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

Quote from amp88 :

What were you using as the reference for 2500mph?

USAF S71 Blackbird & yes i was wrong, the top speed reached was 2200mph which in our atmosphere is pretty impressive. I also picked up some tecky facts about the limitations of jet engines.

Quote from JJ72 :

The speed comparison is a bit odd, in space there's no limitation on your terminal velocity except the laws of relativity, you can reach that speed in space just by coughing in the same direction for a very long time.

I disagree with you there, if that were the case then why would scientists waste 7 years getting to Saturn? They had to use borrowed energy from earth & other planets to slingshot the craft to Saturn. I guess the limitations are how much fuel it could carry to propel itself, & the borrowed energy idea makes a lot more sense for an exploratory mission.

I will read up on the Voyagers, sounds awesome.

Quote from tristancliffe :

What if space isn't the final frontier? What if, after a lot of space, it just becomes... milk...

"Milk, the final frontier"!

Lol, the irony is that there probably is nothing out there in space that is of any use to us as a race. We are just exploring for the hell of it, (& the ground breaking science) its a bit like exploring a desert or Antarctica, theres nothing much there. Certainly no cows anyway.

I think there are lots of things that would be use to us 'out there'. Whether or not we'd be able to make use of them is a different matter.

This image (below) just gives a jaw dropping perspective of how far we have managed to get in 30 years of space travel & the general scale of things. Voyager 1 is the farthest man made object from earth.(& probably always will be)
If it were sent towards our nearest neighboring star it would take 75,000 years to get there.

I think this basically means if we cant find find life within our own solar system or invent a faster way to travel through space we will never find alien life. Unless it finds us first . I'm going to stop now, my heads gona explode.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi ... stem-probes-4407b.svg.png

I've read (can't remember where, it may have been National Geographic) that given an unlimited budget and recent technology, we could get a probe to Alpha Centauri in less than 100 years.

It's that 'unlimited budget' clause that's the kicker.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

we could get a probe to Alpha Centauri in less than 100 years

Lets hope its not going by Royal Mail.

Quote from amp88 :

What were you using as the reference for 2500mph?



I totally agree with you. That's why I'm appalled at all the governments in the world who have in the past and continue to plant bombs, crash aircraft and kill and maim innocent people. UK/US/France/Israeli to name but a few.

Oh not, not another tin foil hatter.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

I've read (can't remember where, it may have been National Geographic) that given an unlimited budget and recent technology, we could get a probe to Alpha Centauri in less than 100 years.

I'd love to read about the proposed method of getting there in such a short time frame. So far the articles i have read are mostly theory which rely on future technology to get us there. Using pulses of energy from nuclear explosions seems to be the most doable with present tech although they'd probably want to be clear of our solar system before leaving random bits of spent nuclear material all over the place.

In the next 10 years they also want to send another manned spacecraft to the moon.

One method I heard quite some years ago is by solar sailing, just like a yacht with a sail on earth it will be powered by the solar wind. Another method is ion propulsion, it is a miniature jet engine which shoot ions, the initial acceleration is almost negliable but it will last for decades, and will gradually pick up a lot of speed.

This was using an ion drive IIRC.

Using s = ut + 0.5at^2 and plugging the numbers in:

distance, s = 4.3 ly = ~4.06 * 10^16 metres
starting speed, u = 0
time, t = 100 years = ~3.15 * 10^9 seconds

only gives an acceleration of 0.0082 m/s/s to cover that distance in 100 years - I suppose the real challenge is making an engine that can burn for that length of time.

(can someone check my math? Just in case I've made a fool of myself... )

EDIT: Actually even that tiny acceleration mounts up. Accelertaing constantly at that rate, you'd be doing over 10,000mph after just a week.