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HiveIndustries

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Everything posted by HiveIndustries

  1. Is that serious or just trying to get a book in? I honestly don't think 2027 is even remotely possible, even if we were to "moon shot" it I think we'd wind up missing it. You realistically have 3 windows to get everything right and I'd probably narrow that down to 2 in terms of anything that would involve any kind of core mission hardware being launched. I don't even think you could launch anything to gather in situ resources in time for the next window. 2027 would be difficult even for the sample return mission.
  2. You're absolutely correct but I would hope we go through similar medical trials to what we'd do on earth for a drug on mammalian reproduction and development before embarking on something like this. Mice, primates, etc. before. Even if you've somehow made an environment for 1g and solved for radiation, who knows what we'll encounter. The Netflix show I think does a good job of showing what the assembly line will look like back and forth to Mars. You're going to run out of competent and willing "one-way" candidates pretty quickly so you'll probably be able to plot your way back. It's worth noting that getting back from an energy standpoint is way, way, way easier and cheaper once the tech is established as opposed to initially escaping Earth's gravity well and atmosphere. That should give you thousands of colonists, giving you 10+ years to figure out the science of reproduction on a different planetary body with vastly different characteristics across the board from what we've only known since life's inception.
  3. I would honestly hope that every man and woman gets sterilized before they go, perhaps even as a requirement. Sex happens, rape happens, if we had executive control over this as a species, abortion wouldn't happen, right? If humans are going, sex and reproduction is a risk and complicating factor to an absolutely mission failing, resulting in death, degree unless you do the ridiculous thing you talk about, fully staffed out maternity ward with reasonable science to back up "what might happen to this child and mother." This is a rough one but when you look at it from a numbers and risk perspective, it's kind of a scientific reality, we're meant to procreate and will put aside all logic to do it and I don't think anyone has proven intelligence, capabilities or anything space related is going to change peoples in the moment behaviors for reproduction.
  4. Musk talks about it openly man, I don't think it's political. The only thing up for debate is the word "suicide" which I, probably like you, would disagree with but certainly worth debating. We know enough to know there's going to be damage to humans on the way and when you get there and that they're more than likely to shorten life, at least speculatively, coupled with a "one way" trip, whether or not that qualifies as suicide, isn't that fair game?
  5. This is short sighted backwards, imho. As a species we should constantly try and increase our production and consumption of energy and transportation is obviously one of the places this energy is manifested in useful ways. Perhaps we should stop blaming people for their personal behaviors and start investing in the long-term harder ways we're avoiding that are needed to solve the equation. It could not be any clearer that hydrogen is the future, or at least the one we should be pursuing in earnest for air travel and it could not be any more equally as clear that there are many obstacles that can and do need to be overcome to get there that we're only giving passing glances at. You could even marry these two issues (mars+transport), perhaps if we (the US) mandated 0 emission rockets that could make point to point suborbital hopping a reality. It's not like Musk has been shy about postulating the possibilities.
  6. Speaking of Perseverance, you'd really think NASA would be better about collimating their sample tubes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_sample-return_mission#/media/File:PIA24742-MarsPerseveranceRover-SampleTube233-20210806.jpg
  7. I've watched that video 3 times! It's so hard to predict if we'll get to the scale of it mattering before coming up with alternate means of propulsion. If we're launching Starships like they're passenger planes with methane closed-cycle engines that's a clear problem but is that realllly the near term future? When you get to the 20+ year range can we reallly speculate what the preferred propulsion method much less required fuel for orbital launching is? Also, when you get to those time scales, it's pretty obvious hydrogen will be a major component of industry making it and the tech to store it more developed. In a world where hydrogen is plentiful I think making things less polluting becomes a whole lot easier in rocketry (even if currently flawed as per the video).
  8. Well, I said "starting" and I'll include any kind of nuclear propulsion that's not "dumb" like RTGs. There are so many aspects to nuclear propulsion that aren't launch-ready even if we understand the technology. Project Orion I said "starting" because that was demonstrated working interstellar technology... started in the 1950s! The international stage is getting so so so complicated. 10 years ago I would have said it was as simple as the US playing nice with China in space but now that "simple" seems 100,000x more complicated and Russia / the US seem headed for at least marriage counseling. I love the ESA but they're not the ones who are going to push proliferation issues for exploration in space. Honestly, bottom line is I do agree with you, we should be splitting atoms to get around our solar system, starting years ago! I don't want to argue with you because I'm 50-50 on the thing. I said before "I get there" and I do, it's infinitely harder to un-screw something you've screwed on this subject. I can't even get myself to 60-40 one way or the other because the aforementioned "out of Africa" argument gets me 60-40 one way and then I can easily be like, "there's really not too much harm if any on waiting on a species-scale" to go the other.
  9. For the record, unless you put extremely exotic propulsion into play, starting at project Orion, you'll always been waiting for orbital windows. There's absolutely no chance under any circumstances, under any conceived chemically propelled rocket that you'd ever try and just go to Mars "whenever." Even if you could you'd be sacrificing literally 99% of your payload to do it.
  10. I get myself here and then when I get there I try and remind myself how extreme of a position this is. Should humans have never left Africa? Maybe as life we're pursuing the absolute core mission of it which is iterate, spread, iterate, spread, iterate, spread. I think there's a spectrum, and that spectrum is landing on a fully formed plant with complex multi-cellular life and a barren, dead rock and where you start to consider contamination comes somewhere in between. I think we can safely bet that Mars is more the latter than the former but that's not saying I don't think it should be a consideration. It's the fear of not knowing what we could be harming that's causes this anxiety but at the same time we need to make a decision and if we can conclude contamination is highly unlikely and the ramifications if it did occur wouldn't be altering life as we know it on earth, I don't know, I think it's an acceptable risk by the odds even if the unknown is legit scary.
  11. Even private companies are patsies for governments in this scale of a mission. SpaceX wouldn't be a fraction of where they are right now if NASA didn't see the Falcon 1 and then bestow them the keys to NASA's tech, unfettered. At "best" this will be like Columbus. Spain gets the credit and we don't even know what country he's originally from.
  12. I wish the paper boy would bring more.
  13. Yeah you know I find the sweet spot on that scope to be about 10mm so you're spot on. I find it to be my "I'm nauseous and don't feel like setting crap up, oh wait, I can just walk outside with this" extreme grab and go setup. I just plop it on the floor in the driveway and bam I'm lookin at the moon or a planet. I'll some day wind up with a tube 6" or tube 8" for that spot in my life but right now I kind of like walking around with a scope that cost me next to nothing that I actually get use out of. It's been literal months I've been trying to plan a cloudless trip to a nice dark sky but I really want to see what things like Orion and Andromeda look like at 10mm. If those pay off nicely I may keep it forever as it's kind of the ultimate "show someone how to use a reflector on a dob" setup. Nice red dot finder scope, not intimidating at all, it's like people can't fail and will always get the payoff. For my sister, she's related to me so she's kind of as crazy in willingness to do things, (but not as crazy!) so I'm kind of leaning towards the 8" dob at this point. Gonna actually have to make a decision within the next few days though cause of stock reasons. Man I used to hate October Christmas shopping people and here I am.
  14. These are incredibly difficult to speculate because you're talking about political programs on the scale of decades. SLS for instance is toting engines from the old Space Shuttle (for now), was redesigned hardware from Constellation and still took decades to get off the ground (we hope). If you truly want a good yard stick as to when we'll make it to Mars (America+ a few friends, China is another story) you should look at the latest Mars rover mission. Right now the plan is before any human goes to Mars we'll send a robotic mission to retrieve collected rock samples from Perseverance. While getting Martian soil home is obviously a top priority for NASA the real goal of this is kind of like a Gemini mission getting ready for Apollo. This mission will be the unmanned test of whether or not we can land a rocket that can achieve orbit from the Martian surface. So if this hasn't happened yet you're still years away from getting humans there unless the plan has drastically changed though I'd have to think unmanned testing for orbital insertion from the surface is going to be a mission pre-req no matter what (at least I hope for the astronauts!). I think China may make a play at a manned Mars orbiter, maybe even try and beat us, though their success in landing a rover can't be overlooked either. Right now they're still way, way behind but they have the one thing that has kept the west from getting there, solid, undeterred will. We could have been to mars decades ago if we had the will. 2035 is my bet. Hopefully China does some cool moon missions at the end of this decade that scares us into being first and we get a real race going.
  15. I dunno why you're all so outraged, they've gone through such great lengths to color match with the other lights and make it soothing to the eye. Anyone who says the Brits don't understand class needs to visit this person's backyard. Enchanting evening under the basking glow, a bella sera as we'd say in Italian.
  16. They have to be messing with you. Even my neighbors saw me outside with the telescope and started to turn their motion sensitive one off, no conversation needed.
  17. It's this. It's actually a pretty amazing little thing for what it is. I'm probably going to buy a little tripod for it as pictured (not mine) https://www.telescope.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=102007&gclid=CjwKCAjw5c6LBhBdEiwAP9ejG_ZnHnCXF0_hxWfHvcufcgbn9w-wLP2hlzPWAjtrxY8uMOdg4PJBUhoCxQoQAvD_BwE
  18. So much of this has to do with positioning and presentation of expectations. I get 0 disappointment from kids if I say that the planets are so far away we can barely see them even with a powerful telescope and then tell them the moon is going to be the coolest thing they've ever seen. In fact, being new in the hobby and having kids and having had this experience recently I'm finding I like to go in reverse order of what would seem intuitive on showing them. Jupiter first, Saturn second, Moon last. I find that order of presentation keeps the wonder while gradually increasing in the visual details and clarity. With adults I just start off before even putting them to the scope, "every picture you've ever seen of space has been from the Hubble" (I know that's not true but you gotta keep it simple) and then go through the same presentation. If you show someone a moon crater a 1km resolution and then tell them you're about to show them Mars, they're going to have their expectations shattered in the course of your showing. Just because you're super excited you can see the polar ice cap barely, they see a blurry dot when they had a mars orbiter in their heads.
  19. I look at Obsession and things like Teeter and they're fun to look at but I'm the kind of guy if I'm going to be trucking a 24" dob, I'm going to want to build it myself. I have a carpenter brother-in-law (his house: Bortle 3) who spent a year creating the damn most gorgeous canoe you've ever seen out of wood, just flat out gorgeous. I know nothing about canoes so maybe he had good reason but he wound up selling it for "only" a few thousand dollars and giving up on boats. He's also the kind of guy who does chainsaw sculpting. If I ever have a 24" dob it's going to be by getting someone like that in my life to look at his sky and providing him mirrors and weekends of unskilled labor+beer Or whatever, give lengths of Cedar and I'll make a 24" dob that looks like a Khan's trebuchet that takes 6 people to move. Point is I want to feel like a constructive ape if I ever get to this point in my hobby
  20. I've seen that in the shop and I thought to myself that at 8" the collapsible part is almost a gimmick. The 10"+ though, kind of amazing. For me personally, at that point I'd rather the simplicity of the tube and you're paying a few hundred dollar premium for that collapsibleness This is why this is so hard, everything is so damn personal. The collapsible part could be the deal breaker for whether or not it fits in the boot for some people and the premium is a small price to pay.
  21. I came in here thinking I'd get easy confirmation that I was making the right choice and all you guys have done is scramble that confidence equally among all the avenues you're bringing me down with valid points. Including the without borders scope. I can't even confidently eliminate a grab and go refractor at this point. I will say this - she will at a minimum drag this scope out to Bortle 2/3 skies 2-3 times per year. She is a smaller person in NYC so one thing I was kind of surprised at is she only goes with her son or my father so even with the 4" on a dob that's obviously the extreme in portable she texts me, "nah he's got too much homework" when I ask her if she caught Venus that night. I had predicted she'd take it out solo every night but in hindsight it makes sense. What woman seeks out the dark wooded places in a city to sit quietly at 1:00AM? I think the above reality talks me out of a grab and go refractor setup for opportunistic stargazing because if she's traveling for stars multiple hours, I think the 8" dob is the best bet. So maybe the leading two options are the largest dob that's reasonable (currently 8" in my head) or a nice pair of binoculars. There's another non-astronomy factor, do I want to bring in my entire family and monopolize her Christmas? Something like the aforementioned without borders scope, maybe I can bring it down to me and my other sister or something splitting.
  22. I was kind of excited last night in the near full moon to have clarity here in NY. However, this is the forecast for a dark site I was planning to road trip to at some point over the next week while I had off
  23. Echo the "not drab" the moon doesn't always have to contain electric blues lol. What you lose in detail with lower contrast/saturation you gain in immersion as far as I'm concerned. Just more believable as "real" even if it's still manipulated.
  24. So you probably don't even notice much of a difference in real life with your level of astigmatism and your noticeable correction likely comes from your distance correction. I wouldn't quote me as gospel on this but my own personal way of handling was completely ignoring my eye, specifically when purchasing the EP because of having such a slight diagnosis. When I finally understood what I was seeing in my EP was related to any kind of astigmatism, eye or equipment, I learned for me it wasn't the end-all. I'm still learning myself but I think the only real effect it has is I pull the target (manual dob, no tracking) back into the center sooner as the aggregate of distortions including the astigmatism reaches a point where I do that. Before my distance got worse I was even allowed to drive without glasses and my astigmatism in my right eye I believe is .50 or .75 (can't remember + or -). For me, in a sea of confusing new information it was nice to be able to not have to worry about my own eyesight and understand the effect was minimal and completely livable for me. I definitely have not even thought about it once I went from my 20mm Orion 1.25" Plossl that came with a 4" reflector to a 17mm TeleVue Nagler Type 4. Who knows 6 months from now when I have a couple hundred hours through the EP, maybe I'll have a different opinion but it's also an EP that has value on the secondary market like your Hyperion, so I can address that if it happens, which I consider unlikely atm.
  25. Fellow newb with a similarly slight astigmatism. I like taking my glasses off, too. My left eye, which I view through I believe is .25 off and I barely notice a difference glasses on or off. There is a difference, but it just means I need to position my head a little differently. I noticed a difference going from crap plossls to a nice nagler but I'll still notice it. I appreciate the help but don't blame the nagler for still having issues, it's my eye that's mis-shapen not their lens I've always hated contacts as a matter of life or death but I'm considering changing that stance just to see if it makes a difference. I'll probably hate the contacts more but we'll see! My guess is how much it matters and is noticeable varies from person to person. I'd relax and get data on your own preferences before purchasing anything. You probably already googled this before you made the thread but I found this page and this blurb to be helpful as I was trying to discern what was me, what was the EP, scope, etc.
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