The thread for space cadets!

[Kaitzilla]

Ah, the best thread going!

Here is what is sounds like to be a booster rocket from launch(ish) to splashdown in the ocean.

Hopefully it hasn't been posted before.


Link to video.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=43632

No more info releases to the public, huh?

The conspiracy theorist in me is seething with rage.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Ah, the best thread going!

Here is what is sounds like to be a booster rocket from launch(ish) to splashdown in the ocean.

Hopefully it hasn't been posted before.


Link to video.

It IS the best thread evah!
Awesome video brah. I'm genuinely surprised that things are that loud in the high atmosphere.

http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=43632

No more info releases to the public, huh?

The conspiracy theorist in me is seething with rage.

Well, this is just one of the consequences of our dysfunctional government.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

NASA: I Can Haz Asteroid?

So I used to think NASA was run by a bunch of geezers, but apparently I was wrong:

Spoiler :

It's really run by 5 year olds

NASA's budget request for the 2014 fiscal year may include plans for an ambitious mission to send a robotic probe into deep space, capture an asteroid and haul it back within the reach of astronaut explorers, according to a press report.

The space agency is apparently including a request for $100 million in its 2014 budget request to help fund the audacious asteroid capture mission, an Aviation Week report said.


The asteroid- retrieval mission was first proposed last year by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. That study, released last April, revolved around an Asteroid Capture and Return mission that would snag a 25-foot-wide (7 meters) space rock and place it in high lunar orbit by 2025 — the deadline set by the Obama administration for NASA's human mission to an asteroid.

Total estimated cost of the asteroid mission: $2.6 billion.

It's actually a pretty cool mission, they want to haul the asteroid back to high Lunar orbit and then send astronauts to it to check it out. Very cool, but it won't ever happen. I'm not even sure NASA will have the funding to finish the new rocket to send the astronauts there in the first place.

 

[dutchfire]

I think NASA should focus on actually getting any of their plans done, instead of making increasingly bizarre schemes that dont get funded in the end.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well the bizarre plans don't really hurt (typically) their efforts to get stuff done. It's generally Congress's fault for not ever funding programs and the Presidents fault for tasking them with programs without pressing Congress for funds. Then there is a nice helping of gross mismanagement coupled with the occassional contractor price-gouging that also contribute.

The bizarre plans are usually just design studies that cost next to nothing and they can actually help inform serious plans by exploring the limits of possibilities.

But your point that more focus is needed is well taken - it's just there are many things that makes this hard and the bizarre plans are probably the least of those issues.

 

[LamaGT]

Many of the non-bizarre plans got aborted anyway, I'd say why not?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's impossible to abort a miscarriage. These things are usually paper plans that the media picks up as a real thing because they have flashy graphics and huge pricetags.

They are fun to talk about nonetheless.

 

[ace99]

If we can do asteroid retrieval then can we also mine it once was bring it close enough?

Further can we fire it from our space weapons platform at the arrogant nation of North Korea?

The possibilities....the possibilities.....

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes and yes, though even in lunar orbit we'd likely lose money on a mining effort. I dont know for sure though.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

http://www.universetoday.com/101172/astronomers-watch-as-a-black-hole-eats-a-rogue-planet/

With every mention of Integral, I keep thinking the CFC user of the same name has some damn good eyesight.

 

[Kaitzilla]

So help me out on this one.

Say I really really really want to find an asteroid loaded with platinum to mine and become filthy rich.

What technical thing would I have to do to find it?


From what miniscule things I know about mining on Earth, most discoveries involving poking holes in the ground everywhere, finding a nugget of something useful in a stream and backtracking it, or some other obscure method.


So to get that trillion dollar asteroid (since none of those earth methods are very practical), is there some special radio frequency that plantinum molecules chirp back on? Or some platinum coated optical filter that makes it so I can shine light and only get reflections in the color of platinum? Maybe some math model that predicts where all the good stuff should be after 6 billion years of solar system formation?


I just know that whatever death star'd that planet between Mars and Jupiter probably vacuumed up all the gold before heading to the next star system, but I want my plantinum house sooner rather than later so even a hint in the right direction would be useful.

Not gonna poke a hole in all 100 trillion asteroids

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You need a telescope and a spectrometer for sure. A spectrometer will hear the 'chirps' of platinum and other atoms to use your spot-on phrasing. However, usually you don't see - or even necessarily look for - platinu, itself. Despite being in greater abundance on certain asteroids, there just isn't enough of it to see easily. So instead you look for large amounts of other elements like nickel or iron. We know from meteorite fragments that there are a few broad classes of asteroids that can be lumped togethet based on the abundance if certain elements. So while your spectrometer might not pick up the platinum directly it will pick up the elements that it is associated with. From that you might take other measurements such as density measurements and so forth to help pin down the specific subtype within the broader group it is. Next you will have to sample it to be sure - though in a few lucky (and exceedingly rare) instances, certain meteor showers can be proven to come from specific asteroids or comets based on their orbits. In these instances their exists catalogs that contain the composition of the parent rocks based on measurements of the fallen meteor fragments that you can look up.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Got it!

So buy up all the asteroid impact catalogs and keep the info to myself.

Maybe buy up some domain names like minedatasteroid.com too.


Then mass spectrometer the asteroid belt
700,000 to 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more mmm

and phobos and deimos?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/05/25/735153/-Mining-the-Moons-of-Mars


Woo

Approximately one-third of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are members of an asteroid family. These share similar orbital elements, such as semi-major axis, eccentricity, and orbital inclination as well as similar spectral features, all of which indicate a common origin in the breakup of a larger body. Graphical displays of these elements, for members of the asteroid belt, show concentrations indicating the presence of an asteroid family. There are about 20–30 associations that are almost certainly asteroid families. Additional groupings have been found that are less certain. Asteroid families can be confirmed when the members display common spectral features.[64] Smaller associations of asteroids are called groups or clusters.

Nice, just go take some samples from each of those 30 associations and you have a good idea if 33% of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are giving the plantinum and gold $$$$$$$


Now I see the rush to get that $2 billion sample back to earth. We can know which 1/3rd of the solar system is most lucrative for exploitation for only $70 billion.

 

[warpus]

Let's launch a kickstarter campaign to find the best candidate and bring it back to Earth - and offer everyone who chips in $x or more a stake in the profits. We'll keep 10% of the profits and share it.

Who's with me??

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I am in.

I will be the entropy maximization engineer for this endeavor.

(awesome phrase btw warpus)

 

[ace99]

Let's launch a kickstarter campaign to find the best candidate and bring it back to Earth - and offer everyone who chips in $x or more a stake in the profits. We'll keep 10% of the profits and share it.

Who's with me??

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

So NASA isn't the only place led by 5 year olds then.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I can donate $10, but I'm not sure how far it'd get us.


Here is Earth, 2012! Be sure to watch full screen in hi def quality!


Link to video.


Pretty sure that is Hurricane Sandy Clobbering the US at 1:50

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Incoming! Asteroid miners are getting financial boost from NASA cash
I haven't had a chance to read it all yet but on first skim, it seems very interesting.

Skylab II

Now that would be cool - a deep space mission in a space station bigger than the ISS. And that rocket, the Space Launch System, well I've been trying to get a job working on that thing.