Artificial looking object at Titan Beach

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: MeanMinistry

USA likely found WMD's there

It was the UK that told the USA WMDs were there.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: MeanMinistry

USA likely found WMD's there

It was the UK that told the USA WMDs were there.

Someone had a humour bypass today.

a reply to: MeanMinistry

where did you find the "corrected" map ? i couldnt find it on google.

edit:

got it...wiki. So the map is made by a guy Minton based off of PIA 100003.

According to Arthur C Clarke in his Space Odyessy - LIFE!

a reply to: eriktheawful

Try getting them to use some of that 800 BILLION or so they use on the military.

Both are a waste of time. Theres been threads on the Europa probe…

The reason space based telescopes are better for exploration (besides comparative cost) is a telescope can move to near infinite targets, learn much more over its lifespan. Hubble is still teaching us that.

Oh, and any time you think risking hundreds of millions to launch a single probe to a single moon is "worth it", go soak your head in compressed, liquid volatile gasses.

a reply to: 0zzymand0s

Eventually, we will move out into the greater solar system and everything we find there will be "grist for the mill" as we construct our own "solar civilization."

We already have that, right here.

Needs work…

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: eriktheawful

Try getting them to use some of that 800 BILLION or so they use on the military.

Both are a waste of time. Theres been threads on the Europa probe…

The reason space based telescopes are better for exploration (besides comparative cost) is a telescope can move to near infinite targets, learn much more over its lifespan. Hubble is still teaching us that.

Oh, and any time you think risking hundreds of millions to launch a single probe to a single moon is "worth it", go soak your head in compressed, liquid volatile gasses.

I'm sorry mate, I don't understand what you mean. can I ask how we would have found out about pluto features since even the Hubble could only give us a blurry photo? Have you not seen New Horizons images?

Have you seen the WEALTH of new things Cassini has given us? How would a telescope have discovered the jets coming from Enceladus?

a reply to: intrptr

You really need to learn more about telescopes.

Good thing I made a thread about it:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

When it comes to having a probe do a low fly by or get into orbit around another body with a high definition camera, there is NO contest at all with a telescope.

Probe with camera will win hands down everytime.

There is NO way for a telescope to perform a huge amount of scientific tests and observations that a probe with that equipment on board can.

There is NO way for a telescope to land on another body, search out it geology, and start drilling/grinding/cutting into it to search for fossils and to see it's geological make up.

There is NO way a telescope can fly by or insert into orbit of another body, there by giving us that body's exact mass.

With out probes, we would not know what the far side of the moon looks like. Your telescopes can't do that. Unless they leave Earth orbit and get out there....in which case they are a probe with a telescope.......

Need I go on?

BTW - nice mature last comment in your post........... not really conducive to civil debate now is that?

a reply to: eriktheawful

You know, i just looked at that thread you created and i only just realiased that you can actually see the heart shaped feature on Pluto in the Hubble image. Blurry as hell of course, but its there. Thats pretty damn impressive for a telescope. Wow

originally posted by: eriktheawful
a reply to: intrptr
When it comes to having a probe do a low fly by or get into orbit around another body with a high definition camera, there is NO contest at all with a telescope.

Not to mention that many cameras on space probes are actually telescopes, such as HiRISE and LROC around Mars and the Moon respectively.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

OMG. BIg Damn Deal.

Frozen ice, geysers, and many, many moons ago… all that stuff is well understood, right here.

Hubble is ongoing, revealing the bigger picture, not a flyby of dirty, lifeless snowballs.

BTW, the pluto encounter shows us what, more of the same. Flash in the pan of… more of the same.

Its really cold, unremarkable ores, ice and rock. Just like we could suppose it would turn out to be.

Some expeditions to the deepest ocean and highest peak confirm man's vanity. "Because it is there". Because we are first. Because we weren't sure until we got there that it would be 'ordinary'.

Like going to the moon, mars and beyond. Actually going there isn't a good return on the investment. Not compared to say, Hubble type exploration.

Now thats wonder, and wonderful.

Whats left to ponder about Pluto now, its spherical, has mountains, ice, a whispy atmosphere, and a moon.

Before the close up, we yearned to see the pixels from afar, now we see its another planet, moon, space rock, whatever.

I'm gonna spend millions to walk far away on earth and take a million pics of some rock, because I haven't been there before. Better yet, Im gonna spend your money to do it.

pfft…

a reply to: eriktheawful

Like others you confuse my statement about space based telescopes vs. probes.

I know Hubble can't explore pluto like a probe would. That wasn't my point. Hubble is ongoing, bigger picture, returning ongoing data about the wider Universe, not one icy rock.

For the money, comparatively speaking.

a reply to: intrptr

It did not just go by Pluto.

It went by 132524AP (and asteroid), Jupiter, Pluto and is now on it's way to 2014 MU69, a Kuiper belt object that can only be seen as a few pixels of light by Hubble, and will then continue on to other objects.

The Voyager probes flew by more than one place, and gave us stunning images of those places, well before Hubble was in orbit.

Cassini. It's in orbit around Saturn and has been since 2004. 12 years it has given us images and data that no telescope here on Earth or in orbit around Earth ever could. It carried and dropped the Huygens probe which landed on Titan and gave us images that even Cassini couldn't give us, in detail of the moon's surface. A moon with a thick atmosphere, and hydrocarbon oceans.....

So you didn't get alien cities, or life walking about on these places. No did it give you something that has an affect on your every day life.

What an arrogant and huge entitlement thought process.......

What they have given us (the entire world) is knowledge. Information that otherwise would have not been known if only telescopes were used.

The cost? About 700 million dollars. Less than a billion. Compare that to the amount of money the US has given away to other countries. Compare it to the cost of the US military on a yearly basis (up wards to 800 billion....that's 1,142 times more money), or the 668 billion we spend in welfare......

The cost of New Horizons was a drop in the bucket. And NASA had to get congress to approve it. Which they did.

So if you feel that we're wasting money with probes, write your congressperson or senator about it.

You keep going on about how "lifeless" these worlds are. Yah, chances are great that they are lifeless.

We thought the same thing about a lot of places here on Earth......until we went there and found out we were completely WRONG, and that there was life teaming in those places.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: eriktheawful

Like others you confuse my statement about space based telescopes vs. probes.

I know Hubble can't explore pluto like a probe would. That wasn't my point.

If that wasn't your point then you explained it very badly. Plus as Erik says above me, it didn't just go to Pluto.

And what about Cassini? Can i ask your opinion of that mission? 10 years of incredible data that has quadrupled our knowledge of the Saturnian system..worth the money?

a reply to: eriktheawful

I am so in love with Cassini. I think after the Voyagers its my favourite Nasa mission. What an incredible little craft. What incredible things she has discovered for us. I will be VERY sad to see her go next year. It will be a long time before we see another mission of that caliber again. Very sad.

The cost is trivial compared to the the knowledge we got. A tunnel through a mountain can cost more...

a reply to: MeanMinistry

Looks life some kind of massive alien Particle Accelerator.

a reply to: schuyler

Well that's what happens when you listen to Tony Blair.

a reply to: eriktheawful

You keep going on about how "lifeless" these worlds are. Yah, chances are great that they are lifeless.

We thought the same thing about a lot of places here on Earth……until we went there and found out we were completely WRONG, and that there was life teaming in those places.

Ya, we should study life here on earth more instead of destroying it. Life has spread everywhere on earth adapting to the remotest most hostile environments because life was already here.

Life won't spread into CO2 fire extinguishers, though.

Most of the reports or hints of water and life out there in the solar system are to justify the cost of more missions. Some go on (and on) about how cheap they are relatively, and how much we get from them. Thats subjective. People here at home that live indoors with running water and electric light think that way.

Poor people don't but nobody cares what they think anyway. When you say we, say we, the scientific community. I think they should pay for explorations, not use the taxpayer.

That drop in the big bucket is relative, the whole big bucket should be poured out down here, not on war, rape of the natural world, and yes, 'space missions'.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

And what about Cassini? Can i ask your opinion of that mission? 10 years of incredible data that has quadrupled our knowledge of the Saturnian system..worth the money?

Ultimately…. no. Zero return on the investment. Lots of return data for a few space nerds to pour over.

Bully for them.

Edit: They'll keep the really juicy tidbits of knowledge secret anyway. Only they will have access to them. If it doesn't support the agenda, it won;t be revealed.

a reply to: intrptr

Who cares?

I am not terribly interested in politics, celebrities or current events. I'm a long-term big picture kind of guy.

Regardless, I'll keep voting for more space-probes and exploration, as long as others are voting for more war, which I also find boring.

My philosophy is simple: you can't fix stupid, but if you can accelerate to 11.2 km/ sec, you can leave it in the dirt, forever.