3175375
Old Man with a Hat
It’s amazing that they did what they did, with the calculations coming from slide rules and log tables!
Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!
- Thread starter Turboomni
- Start date
ah, those were the days.
i can still use these ancient tools. Probably not that well any more, but I still have my deluxe slide rule (won it in a math competition in 11th grade - i was "king of the nerds" that day ) from high school about 1,000 years ago it seems.
Came with a pocket protector that matched the leather case
not mine, but similar.
Last edited:
I'm lost with the chart and the slide rule.
It is absolutely amazing how much has changed in 60 years in terms of pictures and access.
It is absolutely amazing how much has changed in 60 years in terms of pictures and access.
slide rules were "productivity" tools ... pre-digital calculator days (like before 1972 or so). you could, of course, do any math (multiplication/division) you could do with pencil and paper (to even greater significant digit precision than any slide rule could do, but not nearly as fast.
any job where maths were applied (engineering, chemistry, physics, etc) in high volume (repetitively) and with the need for productivity (if 3-4 digit decimal point accuracy was enough), slide rules were indispensable.
got us to the moon. wow, the nerd still in me envies how well-made Neil & Buzz's slide rules were.
source: Moon landing: No small step, no giant leap without NJ slide rules
like any tool with repetitive use, a person could get quite proficient with one.
yup, we've come - and gone (as in miles into space, manned and unmanned - a long way with 'em over the decades.
source: https://sliderulemuseum.com/Aerospace.shtml
any job where maths were applied (engineering, chemistry, physics, etc) in high volume (repetitively) and with the need for productivity (if 3-4 digit decimal point accuracy was enough), slide rules were indispensable.
got us to the moon. wow, the nerd still in me envies how well-made Neil & Buzz's slide rules were.
source: Moon landing: No small step, no giant leap without NJ slide rules
like any tool with repetitive use, a person could get quite proficient with one.
yup, we've come - and gone (as in miles into space, manned and unmanned - a long way with 'em over the decades.
source: https://sliderulemuseum.com/Aerospace.shtml
Last edited:
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
Mobile Launcher 2 (ML-2), the launch tower and platform to be used by the Block 1B variant of the Space Launch System (SLS), recently had its tenth and final tower module stacked on July 2.
Module 10 will support the Orion crew access arm and related systems, and its installation brings the ML-2 tower’s height to 106 m. The overall ML-2 structure will be over 122 m tall and mass over 5,600,000 kg.
In other good news for the SLS and Artemis programs, Congress recently approved additional funding to preserve the Artemis IV and V missions, thereby maintaining SLS Block 1B and the rationale for using ML-2, which is only compatible with SLS vehicles from Block 1B forward.
For all thr details check out thr full overview by Justin Davenport, link below
Module 10 will support the Orion crew access arm and related systems, and its installation brings the ML-2 tower’s height to 106 m. The overall ML-2 structure will be over 122 m tall and mass over 5,600,000 kg.
In other good news for the SLS and Artemis programs, Congress recently approved additional funding to preserve the Artemis IV and V missions, thereby maintaining SLS Block 1B and the rationale for using ML-2, which is only compatible with SLS vehicles from Block 1B forward.
For all thr details check out thr full overview by Justin Davenport, link below
Lotta silliness/craziness in government (subject for the FCBO political forum) these days, but, this is good news IMHO.
I had to go back and remind myself about the next gen of rockets to the moon and beyond. The 1-B vehicles are our biggest ever (not counting Elon's biggest that he can't get to work yet), 1-B block tallest (vs. the Saturn V).
source: How NASA's new megarocket stacks up against its legendary predecessor
source below: SLS Block 1 Crew, Block 1-B Crew, Block 1-B Cargo and Block 2 Cargo Evolution - NASA
The first four variants (R to L below, block 1-B and Block 2) are the big boys. The last two (Block 1 Crew and Cargo) on left not as tall, but with more lifting capacity vs. the Saturn V
Last edited:
Every thing we see in space from earth is moving. Most of all of it is too far away to see such movement. Things like the sun, the moon, the planets, etc, that we can SEE moving, are IN our solar system (i.e., our sun and everything going around it, a huge space on human scale but cosmically quite small).
We now have found the THIRD thing (first thing was "Oumuamua" in 2017, the second was "2I/Borisov" discovered in 2019) that appears to be IN ("passing through") our solar system, but came from OUTSIDE (from some other "sun") of it. It gets here in October this year and it's a comet named 3l/ATLAS. (pronounced "three - eye - atlas")
It is NOT even remotely going to hit us on this pass through (closest approach to eath is 150 million miles, inside the orbit of Mars, but the Earth and Mars aare far apart when it gets here.).
Our sun's gravity will "bend" its trajectory, something else will affect it after it passes through. Or, it may crash into something, and its trek through the universe will end.
Basically, we found it in all that space/dots of light out there because its going 137,000 MPH, too fast and too far away for OUR sun to be doing that to it ... it got here with time, at a trajectory, that something else/somewhere else got it all moving (e.g., ejected from some OTHER solar system in the Milky Way, or [unlikely] another galaxy?).
Anyway, a lot of explanation at these rather nerdy sources if one wants to dig deeper into the following images: Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth
Comet 3I/Atlas: Astronomers spot object that's travelled from outside the Solar System
We now have found the THIRD thing (first thing was "Oumuamua" in 2017, the second was "2I/Borisov" discovered in 2019) that appears to be IN ("passing through") our solar system, but came from OUTSIDE (from some other "sun") of it. It gets here in October this year and it's a comet named 3l/ATLAS. (pronounced "three - eye - atlas")
It is NOT even remotely going to hit us on this pass through (closest approach to eath is 150 million miles, inside the orbit of Mars, but the Earth and Mars aare far apart when it gets here.).
Our sun's gravity will "bend" its trajectory, something else will affect it after it passes through. Or, it may crash into something, and its trek through the universe will end.
Basically, we found it in all that space/dots of light out there because its going 137,000 MPH, too fast and too far away for OUR sun to be doing that to it ... it got here with time, at a trajectory, that something else/somewhere else got it all moving (e.g., ejected from some OTHER solar system in the Milky Way, or [unlikely] another galaxy?).
Anyway, a lot of explanation at these rather nerdy sources if one wants to dig deeper into the following images: Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth
Comet 3I/Atlas: Astronomers spot object that's travelled from outside the Solar System
Last edited:
Think of #807 another way.
one day, in untold thousands/millions of years, the V'gers (now that they have left our solar system and entered interstellar space) are gonna pass through some other solar system and THEIR space kids (assuming there's capable "life", if any, on any of THAT sun's planets) are gonna say "WTF is that" and then they'll figure out "that thing aint from 'round here"..
www.forcbodiesonly.com
Post in thread 'Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!' Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!
one day, in untold thousands/millions of years, the V'gers (now that they have left our solar system and entered interstellar space) are gonna pass through some other solar system and THEIR space kids (assuming there's capable "life", if any, on any of THAT sun's planets) are gonna say "WTF is that" and then they'll figure out "that thing aint from 'round here".
.
Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!
I had no idea they were all relatively that close to us.
www.forcbodiesonly.com
Post in thread 'Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!' Voyager 1 and 2 still alive!!!! 38,000 mph!
Last edited:
35 years of Hubble. Well within my adult lifetime.
Centuries of human learning in just 35 years. remarkable discoveries to come i am sure.
source: What we've learned after 35 years of NASA's Hubble
Centuries of human learning in just 35 years. remarkable discoveries to come i am sure.
source: What we've learned after 35 years of NASA's Hubble
- When the Hubble Space Telescope launched on April 24, 1990, there was so much we still didn’t know about the Universe.
- We had never seen baby galaxies, exoplanets, didn’t know about dark energy, and had a 100% uncertainty in how fast the Universe was expanding.
- Over the past 32 years, we’ve uncovered and discovered so much. Excitingly, in many ways, the journey to the beginning of the Universe is only getting started. I'm
Last edited:
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
Only 1 Light Day!
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is now the most distant human-made object in history. After 48 years speeding through space at 17 kilometers per second, it is more than 24 billion kilometers away from Earth. That’s about one light day a distance light travels in 24 hours but it took Voyager nearly five decades to get there. This comparison is more than humbling. It reveals just how massive and mysterious our universe truly is.
Even at its incredible speed, Voyager 1 would need over 73,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, our closest neighboring star. And if we ever wanted to cross the Milky Way galaxy, which stretches 150,000 light years, it would take Voyager around 2.7 billion years at its current pace. Let that sink in. These numbers are a reminder of the true scale of space and how tiny we are in the grand picture.
Voyager 1 has already flown past Jupiter and Saturn, sending back stunning images and priceless data. Today, it continues its solo journey into interstellar space, far beyond the bubble of our solar system. It still sends signals back home and carries a message to the stars the Golden Record, filled with Earth’s music, greetings, and sounds of nature.
No spacecraft has gone farther or lasted longer. Voyager 1 is a testament to human curiosity, ambition, and our need to explore. Its journey shows us how far we have come and how far we still have to go.
It whispers across space, reminding us that even the smallest steps into the universe can lead to the biggest dreams.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is now the most distant human-made object in history. After 48 years speeding through space at 17 kilometers per second, it is more than 24 billion kilometers away from Earth. That’s about one light day a distance light travels in 24 hours but it took Voyager nearly five decades to get there. This comparison is more than humbling. It reveals just how massive and mysterious our universe truly is.
Even at its incredible speed, Voyager 1 would need over 73,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, our closest neighboring star. And if we ever wanted to cross the Milky Way galaxy, which stretches 150,000 light years, it would take Voyager around 2.7 billion years at its current pace. Let that sink in. These numbers are a reminder of the true scale of space and how tiny we are in the grand picture.
Voyager 1 has already flown past Jupiter and Saturn, sending back stunning images and priceless data. Today, it continues its solo journey into interstellar space, far beyond the bubble of our solar system. It still sends signals back home and carries a message to the stars the Golden Record, filled with Earth’s music, greetings, and sounds of nature.
No spacecraft has gone farther or lasted longer. Voyager 1 is a testament to human curiosity, ambition, and our need to explore. Its journey shows us how far we have come and how far we still have to go.
It whispers across space, reminding us that even the smallest steps into the universe can lead to the biggest dreams.
Cool.
Cant help but feel "two ways" about this. No doubt a great achievement, but in the context of "what"?
I recall Carl Sagan narration (gotta be around 30 years ago) in the picture Voyager 1 took of the Earth, in vast blackness of space, from about 6-8 billion miles away.. 'a mote on a sunbeam' as Sagan said. A Pale Blue Dot.
A Pale Blue Dot
three minute video some of you might remember below in Carl's own words
Last edited:
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
My thoughts on V’ger reaching a light day away is a couple:
1) it’s a testament to the dedication and smart work that the team has done
2) it helps me put the universe in perspective. It’s been scorching through space for decades and it’s only approaching a light day?!?
3) it really shows the imaginations of the sci-fi authors who dreamt of flying at warp 8+ to places far, really flippin’ far away.
heck man, i have been a trekkie/science nerd for nearly 60 years. The stories inspire, the imagination they show is exhilarating, ... all that cool stuff.
Then the realist in me, sharpened with age and hard knocks, make me go .... hmm. time for the nerd stuff.
the speed of light is 186,000 miles PER SECOND (or, 672 million MPH, or, 6 TRILLION miles in a year)... and it can still take a million years to even get to places we can see in space with the naked eye.
Example to pile on. The closest galaxy is The Andromeda Galaxy at 2.5M LY away. If we could move at 670 million mph, without "folding" space (warp drive), it would take 2.5 million years to get to just there.
The distance calculation is easy: 2,500,000 miles/year x 6,000,000,000 miles equals 1.5*10^16 miles. Thats a pretty friggin' big number ... and even thats TINY on the scale of the universe (and thats just the part we can see). makes me truly feel kinda small AND "sprains my brain" at the same time
.so, we need to somehow break the universe's apparent "relativistic" (i.e., light speed) speed limit .. "warp drive" to shorten galactic distances, "subspace radios' to communicate, "inertial dampeners" so people in the ship dont turn into tomato paste when the starship Enterprise goes into/drops out of warp, "tachyon emitters", "neutrino capacitors", or whatever exotic technology a writer can come up with to tell an entertaining sci-fi story .. that we have (currently) NO REAL WAY to do.
it still fun to dream, and its inspirational to try. world is full of "impossible" things smart, motivated people figured out how to do ... like the quantum machines we are using right now to participate on this thread
.might take another 10,000 years to figure out warp drive but i believe we'll figure it out one day.
Last edited:
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
In December 1965, two astronauts climbed into a capsule no bigger than the front of a compact car—and stayed there for 14 days straight.
Their names? Frank Borman and Jim Lovell.
Their mission? Gemini VII.
Not to walk on the Moon or dazzle the world—but to prove that humans could endure space.
It wasn’t glorious. It was grueling.
There were no spacewalks. No dramatic landings. Just the slow, quiet test of human patience—331 hours of floating, eating, sleeping, and staying sane in a space the size of a phone booth.
NASA even made them shower with anti-dandruff shampoo for two weeks before launch—because in zero gravity, a single flake of dead skin could float into a control panel or an eye.
Food? Forget it. Crumbly freeze-dried protein cubes made a mess. Breakfast was bland. The smell? Manageable—until the waste bins had to be opened.
Borman volunteered to wear his spacesuit full-time—sweating for days while Lovell went without. Eventually, NASA relented and let them both go suitless—a small mercy in a mission built on discomfort.
But they did it.
For two weeks, they proved humans could live in space—not just survive the launch, but endure the mission.
Gemini VII wasn’t flashy. But it paved the way for everything that came after—Apollo, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and beyond.
Because before we could walk on the Moon,
We had to learn how to sit still in space—and survive it.
Their names? Frank Borman and Jim Lovell.
Their mission? Gemini VII.
Not to walk on the Moon or dazzle the world—but to prove that humans could endure space.
It wasn’t glorious. It was grueling.
There were no spacewalks. No dramatic landings. Just the slow, quiet test of human patience—331 hours of floating, eating, sleeping, and staying sane in a space the size of a phone booth.
NASA even made them shower with anti-dandruff shampoo for two weeks before launch—because in zero gravity, a single flake of dead skin could float into a control panel or an eye.
Food? Forget it. Crumbly freeze-dried protein cubes made a mess. Breakfast was bland. The smell? Manageable—until the waste bins had to be opened.
Borman volunteered to wear his spacesuit full-time—sweating for days while Lovell went without. Eventually, NASA relented and let them both go suitless—a small mercy in a mission built on discomfort.
But they did it.
For two weeks, they proved humans could live in space—not just survive the launch, but endure the mission.
Gemini VII wasn’t flashy. But it paved the way for everything that came after—Apollo, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and beyond.
Because before we could walk on the Moon,
We had to learn how to sit still in space—and survive it.
NERD ALERT
The most energetic event in the universe, since the Big Bang ~14 billion years ago, is about to happen (old news that i am just catching up with).
When?
In the cosmic "blink of an eye" -- about 10,000 years from now.
(artist's conception)
source: Solved: Astronomers Identify Origin of Mysterious Flares in Galaxy OJ 287 - JSTOR Daily.
In galaxy OJ 287 (4 billion LY from earth), two super massive black holes (SMBH) are about to collide (in 10K earth years). one SMBH is ~150 million solar masses (150 million times bigger than our sun), while the other is ~18 billion solar masses).
The energy release of that collision will be ginormous. Who or whatever, is on earth by then if its even still here, wont be destroyed, but they'll know it happened because of the gravity waves that will tsunami out from the event (it happens in 10,000 earth years but the gravity waves don't arrive here for 4 billion years).
That's getting to near the end of our sun's natural life (it will be approaching 10 billion years old) when, if earth is still here, the EOL sun will expand past current earth orbit and obliterate the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, & Earth) anyway.
Nothing to lose any sleep over (depending on one's belief system there will be 200 million generations of humans after everybody who is alive right now) as we all will be LONG gone -- but darn fascinating anyway.
The most energetic event in the universe, since the Big Bang ~14 billion years ago, is about to happen (old news that i am just catching up with).
When?
In the cosmic "blink of an eye" -- about 10,000 years from now.
(artist's conception)
source: Solved: Astronomers Identify Origin of Mysterious Flares in Galaxy OJ 287 - JSTOR Daily.
In galaxy OJ 287 (4 billion LY from earth), two super massive black holes (SMBH) are about to collide (in 10K earth years). one SMBH is ~150 million solar masses (150 million times bigger than our sun), while the other is ~18 billion solar masses).
The energy release of that collision will be ginormous. Who or whatever, is on earth by then if its even still here, wont be destroyed, but they'll know it happened because of the gravity waves that will tsunami out from the event (it happens in 10,000 earth years but the gravity waves don't arrive here for 4 billion years).
That's getting to near the end of our sun's natural life (it will be approaching 10 billion years old) when, if earth is still here, the EOL sun will expand past current earth orbit and obliterate the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, & Earth) anyway.
Nothing to lose any sleep over (depending on one's belief system there will be 200 million generations of humans after everybody who is alive right now) as we all will be LONG gone -- but darn fascinating anyway.
Last edited:
jimbo webb finds 29th moon around Uranus couple weeks ago. Voyag 2 didnt pick it up in its flyby in 1986 and nothing else has had the "eyesight" before Webb. its small and faint but its there.
about five minute read plus one minute video.
source: Scientists find tiny new moon around Uranus with the James Webb
about five minute read plus one minute video.
source: Scientists find tiny new moon around Uranus with the James Webb
Last edited:
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
Most people remember Apollo 11… but very few know that Apollo 12 almost ended in disaster just seconds after liftoff.
On November 14, 1969, as the Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 12 thundered into the stormy Florida sky, something shocking happened.
Just 36 seconds after launch, a bolt of lightning struck the rocket, traveling down its exhaust plume.
Then, another strike hit just 16 seconds later.
Inside the command module, alarms went off everywhere. Nearly every warning light flashed red. The astronauts were staring at failing fuel cells and instruments going dark.
For a moment, the mission was on the brink of total abort.
But then, flight controller John Aaron remembered a rarely used system fix. He calmly told the crew:
“Try SCE to AUX.”
None of the astronauts even knew what that meant. Luckily, astronaut Alan Bean recalled the obscure switch and flipped it. Miraculously, the instruments came back to life.
That one line of technical brilliance saved Apollo 12. Without it, the second Moon landing might have been lost forever in the storm.
And yet… this incredible near-disaster is rarely talked about compared to Apollo 11.
On November 14, 1969, as the Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 12 thundered into the stormy Florida sky, something shocking happened.
Just 36 seconds after launch, a bolt of lightning struck the rocket, traveling down its exhaust plume.
Then, another strike hit just 16 seconds later.
Inside the command module, alarms went off everywhere. Nearly every warning light flashed red. The astronauts were staring at failing fuel cells and instruments going dark.
For a moment, the mission was on the brink of total abort.
But then, flight controller John Aaron remembered a rarely used system fix. He calmly told the crew:
“Try SCE to AUX.”
None of the astronauts even knew what that meant. Luckily, astronaut Alan Bean recalled the obscure switch and flipped it. Miraculously, the instruments came back to life.
That one line of technical brilliance saved Apollo 12. Without it, the second Moon landing might have been lost forever in the storm.
And yet… this incredible near-disaster is rarely talked about compared to Apollo 11.
3175375
Old Man with a Hat
While traveling between Earth and the Moon, Apollo spacecraft were rotated slowly in a maneuver known as passive thermal control (PTC) mode, or informally the “barbecue roll.” This slow rotation along the main axis helped prevent one side from overheating in constant sunlight and the other from becoming too cold. The process was typically carried out using the reaction control system on the Service Module (SM). During Apollo 13, however, this system was unavailable due to an explosion during the translunar coast, so the crew used the Lunar Module’s reaction thrusters instead.
Similar threads
