The thread for space cadets!

[peter grimes]

Praise from Caesaryoyo

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Considering the proximity to Earth's orbit, how long before Kepler's orbit destabilizes? Or will it stay there until Sol moves off the main sequence?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It will be there forever methinks. SO SAYETH CAESARYOYO

 

[r16]

voice of Russia with a certain amount of exciment declares the Moon has been blown up , a meteor crashing with massive speed ; making a "huge crater" of 20m across and the impact energy measures up to 5 tons of TNT . Oh dear , how eager they are for a deal in Syria , where naturally Esad now has the option of unrigged 2014 elections , apart from staying in power until then he also can go on , provided he wins the vote . For , Omsk is also tank production site , though the thing is still headed to D.C.

and by the way :

erm , watch out it's the tavern ...

 

[Kaitzilla]

Space mania is spreading. Check out the plans for a $2 billion space themed hotel:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...d-off-coast-of-Barcelona-provokes-dismay.html

The artificial island would be reached by a walkway from the mainland where a 984ft Space Hotel equipped with a vertical wind tunnel and the world's first zero-gravity spa will provide an "other worldly experience for guests wishing to travel to distant galaxies".

A multinational consortium led by US-based Mobilona unveiled its ambitious project last week when it lodged a request for planning permission with Barcelona City Hall.

With an initial investment of 1.5 billion euros (£1.27 billion), the hotel complex will also include a 24 hour shopping mall, a marina capable of mooring yachts up to 656 feet in length, and private apartments, some of which will be available on a "timeshare" system of 20,000 euros for an annual one-week occupancy right.

They're also thinking about making them in Hong Kong and Los Angeles.

Zero Gravity spa? OMG!

The Euros who live there are naturally horrified at how awesome it is projected to be. Will make the rest of Barcelona look like Zimbabwe.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Where did the term "space cadet" come from anyway?

Looney Toons, 1952
http://looneytunes.wikia.com/wiki/Duck_Dodgers_in_the_24½th_Century

[YOUTUBE-OLD]?v=PyZ42Csl4Xw[/YOUTUBE-OLD]


@0:10 Did Daffy Duck say Kerbal miles?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

hahaha he did say Kerbal miles!

Have you all seen the trailer for the new George Clooney space movie???? OMG It looks so freakin cool

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Check out this awesomesauce:

Link to video.

I really hope that this movie lives up to that trailer, I've been dying for a hard sci-fi movie (and I can look past the sounds of explosions and stuff )

 

[El_Machinae]

Unfortunately, neither Mobilona nor Apogee Investors seem to be real companies ...

 

[Kaitzilla]

Unfortunately, neither Mobilona nor Apogee Investors seem to be real companies ...

Really? It made it as a press release in the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130502-920868.html


That would be hilarious if the entire thing was fake. Like that Ukraine gas deal for $1.1 billion that, well, didn't really exist.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/30/ukraine-signs-gas-deal-mystery-executive

It was the deal of the century, a $1bn contract for a brand new gas plant that would rescue Ukraine from its dependence on energy supplied by Vladimir Putin's Russia.

The prime minister, Mykola Azarov, oversaw the signing ceremony as a video feed appeared to show welders already at work on the liquid gas plant, and the representative of the Spanish company Gas Natural Fenosa, Jordi Sardà Bonvehí, put his name to the agreement.

Not until several days after the event on Monday did it emerge that no one at Gas Natural had heard of Bonvehí. "This person does not represent the company," a spokesman for the firm said.

"Gas Natural Fenosa has not signed any contract to invest in a LNG plant project in Ukraine," the company added. "Nor does it have representatives working in Ukraine on this issue."

The deal had been hailed by the Ukrainian government as a chance to free the country from the Russian yoke. Vladislav Kaskiv, head of the state investment agency, reportedly proclaimed the signing to be Ukraine's "energy independence day".

And this space hotel would be in Spain too. Couldn't be the same Dr. Evil individual behind everything...

Apogee seems to have a website
http://www.apogeeinvestors.com/history.html


Maybe the whole thing is fake after all!

Another Barcelona space hotel, only actually in space.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/hotel-orbit-earth.htm

I should have known a zero gee spa on Earth was impossible




I went 18 months without being suckered by a Brit newspaper. Looks like I fell off the wagon again.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Check out this awesomesauce:
...

... I really hope that this movie lives up to that trailer, I've been dying for a hard sci-fi movie (and I can look past the sounds of explosions and stuff )

That is one intense trailer!

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4180v1

We report the discovery of an Earth-sized planet ($1.1\pm 0.2 R_\oplus$) in an 8.5-hour orbit around a late G-type star (KIC 8435766). The object was identified in a search for short-period planets in the Kepler database and confirmed to be a transiting planet (as opposed to an eclipsing stellar system) through the absence of ellipsoidal light variations or radial-velocity variations. The unusually short orbital period and the relative brightness of the host star ($m_{\rm Kep}$ = 11.5) enable robust detections of the changing illumination of the visible hemisphere of the planet, as well as the occultations of the planet by the star. We interpret these signals as representing a combination of reflected and reprocessed light, with the highest planet dayside temperatures in the range of 2300 K to 3100 K, and corresponding albedos of 0.6 to 0.2.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, they might be companies, but I don't see any evidence of any actual capital or assets.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I would take any news about private space companies (which seems to grow like mushrooms in autumn lately) with a grain of salt. While some as SpaceX are for real most seems marketing only at best or a way to steal money from gullible investors and space enthusiast at worst.

 

[Winner]

First (very preliminary) topographic map of Titan's surface from Cassini's data:

A question - do you think Titan-like worlds exist on a larger scale in other solar systems? Let's say, Mars-sized or even Earth-sized bodies with atmospheres and "climates" similar to that of Titan?

Seems that Titan has got a lucky break - it is in a sweet spot where temperatures are in the optimal range for methane/ethane/etc. to exist in all three phases, it is big enough to retain a sizeable atmosphere, and it likely has a source of heat in the form of tidal stressing in its interior (which is probably necessary to replenish the atmosphere).

I wonder if in extrasolar systems larger planetary bodies/moons formed in these conditions and developed into a "proper" Titanian state - by that I mean large oceans of liquid methane/ethane and a much more robust methane cycle in the atmosphere than that we see on Titan (which seems pretty "arid" by the standards of its form of climate).

[I've been trying to draft a personal planetary classification list, so I am thinking about all the possible weird combinations of size, composition, temperature, atmosphere, orbital shapes, etc.]

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Looking at the cylindrical map on the top, it actually kinda looks like Jupiter's moon Europa. Pretty interesting!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

First (very preliminary) topographic map of Titan's surface from Cassini's data:

A question - do you think Titan-like worlds exist on a larger scale in other solar systems? Let's say, Mars-sized or even Earth-sized bodies with atmospheres and "climates" similar to that of Titan?

Seems that Titan has got a lucky break - it is in a sweet spot where temperatures are in the optimal range for methane/ethane/etc. to exist in all three phases, it is big enough to retain a sizeable atmosphere, and it likely has a source of heat in the form of tidal stressing in its interior (which is probably necessary to replenish the atmosphere).

I wonder if in extrasolar systems larger planetary bodies/moons formed in these conditions and developed into a "proper" Titanian state - by that I mean large oceans of liquid methane/ethane and a much more robust methane cycle in the atmosphere than that we see on Titan (which seems pretty "arid" by the standards of its form of climate).

[I've been trying to draft a personal planetary classification list, so I am thinking about all the possible weird combinations of size, composition, temperature, atmosphere, orbital shapes, etc.]

I think there are lots of planets similar to Titan though it will be a while before we can spot them. I think one of the other factors that allows Titan to exist as it does with a methane cycle and dense atmosphere is it's distance from the Sun. If it were closer, I would think that it's atmosphere would have been stripped by the solar wind the way Mar's was - though I don't know if Titan has a magnetosphere. Also, I guess being in Saturn's magnetosphere would have helped with that as well.

I don't know if rocky planets can exist further out from their host stars than Mars without being a satellite. The only data we have at the moment suggests the answer is no, but that's basically exclusively based on our solar system as we can't currently detect small, rocky planets at AUish distances from their host stars.

In any case, my gut tells me there are lots of worlds like Titan out there, both as satellites and as independent planets.

Glad to see you back here Winner.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

BTW isnt Titan supposed to be covered with methane seas? I only see yellow rocks there.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It doesn't have methane seas, just a few large lakes and bunch of smaller lakes and rivers. Of course, that could change drastically with the seasons and we don't have everything fully mapped, but that's what we know about it for now.

 

[warpus]

How could would it be to have a rover down there?

Would something like that even be theoretically possible?