A thread about SPACE

Steve Carlton · 07-31-2025, 01:16 PM

Australian launch failure. Looks like one engine was not contributing.

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/after-54-year-wait-australias-first-attempt-at-an-orbital-rocket-crashes-14-seconds-after-liftoff

flatbutt · 07-31-2025, 01:23 PM

Looks like NASA in the 50's.

stevej37 · 01:57 PM

Should have used Premium fuel.
It's only a dollar more than Reg.

herr_oberst · 07-31-2025, 01:31 PM

Psssh. Gilmour again. Should have used Gilbert.

GH85Carrera · GH85Carrera's Garage

Space is HARD!

The USA and USSR had to figure it out from what Germany figured out in WW2.

afterburn 549 · 07-31-2025, 11:45 PM

Is space nothing?
I hear that said.
As in a Vacuum.
I think it is some sort of property, as there is such a thing as space sailing, as in space winds?

flatbutt · 08-01-2025, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

Is space nothing?
I hear that said.
As in a Vacuum.
I think it is some sort of property, as there is such a thing as space sailing, as in space winds?

If you are referring to solar wind it is a stream of particles coming off of the Sun which can theoretically exert pressure on a solar "sail".

As for it being a vacuum. Well yes but space isn't entirely empty but that's a topic that is a discussion that is IMHO entirely for the theorists.

SPACE is also a great Michener novel.

GH85Carrera · GH85Carrera's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

Is space nothing?
I hear that said.
As in a Vacuum.
I think it is some sort of property, as there is such a thing as space sailing, as in space winds?

The sun emits trillions of particles per second that would fry us without our magnetic field generated by the liquid iron core on Earth.

In theory, humans could build a space ship to use as thrust to "sail" to the outer planets. The ship would continue to accelerate from the thrust. The problem is slowing down to land, and the return trip.

afterburn 549 · 08-01-2025, 05:42 AM

Sort of like tacking back from the Pacific Islands? In a sailboat? (coming back)^^

rcooled · 08-01-2025, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

Is space nothing?

red 928 · 08-01-2025, 12:57 PM

GH85Carrera · GH85Carrera's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

Sort of like tacking back from the Pacific Islands? In a sailboat? (coming back)^^

The distances ffrom here to Mars is just immense. Tacking would make it a really really long return trip. And the trip is only viable at all when the Earth and Mars are on the same side of the sun.

afterburn 549 · 08-01-2025, 02:05 PM

And Mars to Earth? It's not even a distance to cover if one actually wants to get somewhere.
It turns out the speed of light is even too slow.
The space between things is just unimaginably huge!

wdfifteen · wdfifteen's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

Is space nothing?
I hear that said.
As in a Vacuum.
I think it is some sort of property, as there is such a thing as space sailing, as in space winds?

When I worked at the lab at WPAFB I was assigned a project that required testing specimens in a very cold environment. I had to come up with a vessel that would maintain liquid helium at something like -450 degrees F. (I didn't invent it)
Anyway, it involved making a thermos bottle with a hard vacuum in it.

Most of the time, we think of a vacuum as a lack of pressure. At some point when "drawing a vacuum" the pressure is so low that continuing to measure the vacuum as pressure no longer makes any sense. Pressure is caused by moving particles with mass. We have to transition to a second way of thinking about vacuum as the lack of moving particles.
So, in space there are few particles of mass moving around, and that makes it a vacuum in the sense, not of a lack of pressure, but a lack of masses moving around.
I don't know if the Solar Wind is caused by mass or light or electromagnetic forces, so I can't help you there.

afterburn 549 · 04:22 PM

The point is , it is described as being nothing.
However the nothing is a something as it has things in it and travels through it.
SO the nothing is a something.
Perhaps we need to think of solar systems as atoms, that's how big space is

Bill Douglas · 08-01-2025, 11:45 PM

I'm scared of heights. But I've often wondered if I was on one of those space shuttles and had to go outside to do some repairs would I still be scared. I think not. I think the fear of heights is the fear of feeling gravity trying to pull you to your death.

KFC911 · 08-02-2025, 01:17 AM

Space .... the final frontier ... or the gap between my ears?

It's too early to ponder

No such thing as nuthin' ... so they say .... molecular activity slows to next-to-nuthin' ... ?

Way to early ....

afterburn 549 · 08-02-2025, 05:00 AM

We are all on a spaceship flying through somethin

Crowbob · 08-02-2025, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

The distances ffrom here to Mars is just immense. Tacking would make it a really really long return trip. And the trip is only viable at all when the Earth and Mars are on the same side of the sun.

Not necessarily.

If the sun is emitting ‘wind’ a journey away from the sun is not so hard to imagine. In addition, Mars, like all the other plants, revolve around the sun in very predictable ways. As such, the smart people can come up with a trajectory whereby the space craft can rondayview with Mars, with its back having been to the sun at all times for the entire journey, and at a very precise moment in space and time. With calculators and stuff.

The return trip, as you said, would be a challenge in that the tack would be at such an oblique angle to the source of the wind, it would take a few minutes (time being relative and all).

Other than such a journey forcing us to rethink the origins and composition of the universe (which I can do right now from my couch-for free) why bother?

3rd_gear_Ted · 3rd_gear_Ted's Garage

After 46 years, the Voyager's are only a solar day in distance from Earth.