Optimism is a beautiful thing!

[Snake-Aes]

That application of the Hubble makes me wonder if people could arrange for their satellites, space probes and the like to take pictures on the way or anything like that. It'd be a good way to gather extra money if publicity is done right.

Hubble itself is one of the proofs that optimism pays off. Deep Space discoveries started with a "what if we took a very long picture of that black spot?". Same goes for that rover in mars who outlived its projected time like 20 times now.

[Fivelives]

soooo they scraped off space dust with a microscope from something thats been floating around since 1986? And it had a bad landing?... where is the optimism?

I think discovering materials that are completely foreign to Earth is a fair reason to be optimistic. This could prove to be an indicator of "space mining" in the future.

Not sure if Trollite is good for that, pretty sure it'd be very flammable indeed.

I C Wut U Did Thar.

[masterpoobaa]

I would say that the knowledge and technology involved in launching a rocket and meeting up with an asteroid is very useful indeed.

Im talking about NEO's (Near earth objects). Asteroids, comets and meteorites in orbits that pose a threat to earth.

Unlike in dumb Hollywood movies, you cant just blow up an asteroid. All that would do is seperate the asteroid into fragments - so its like the earth gets blasted with a shotgun instead of a single bullet.
Other options are getting a space probe near to the asteroid and using the probes very slight gravity to slowly shift the asteroid to a safer orbit, or land a probe and use a rocket to push the asteroid out of its dangerous orbit (efficient motor such as an ion engine)

[Brutalicus]

God I love space, so this was really interesting to me. I aaaaaalmost wish I'd been born in the '40s or '50s to witness the space race firsthand. I feel so bad that the organization that put people on the moon (multiple times!) gets its funding cut and ambitions denied with each new administration. Normally I'm proud to be American, but not when it comes to the space program...

[masterpoobaa]

I like this youtube space-ey video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

[Fivelives]

I would say that the knowledge and technology involved in launching a rocket and meeting up with an asteroid is very useful indeed.

Im talking about NEO's (Near earth objects). Asteroids, comets and meteorites in orbits that pose a threat to earth.

Unlike in dumb Hollywood movies, you cant just blow up an asteroid. All that would do is seperate the asteroid into fragments - so its like the earth gets blasted with a shotgun instead of a single bullet.
Other options are getting a space probe near to the asteroid and using the probes very slight gravity to slowly shift the asteroid to a safer orbit, or land a probe and use a rocket to push the asteroid out of its dangerous orbit (efficient motor such as an ion engine)

The idea is more sound than you represent it as, though. Smaller objects (shotgun pellets) will burn up in the atmosphere, where one big object (shotgun slug) will lose some of its mass, but still impact with enough force to be catastrophic.

[masterpoobaa]

Or instead of 1 cataclysmic 1km wide rock, you get two only mildly cataclismic 500m rocks
Effectiveness of Nukes depends alot on the type of projectile, as well as positioning of the nukes.

I do like the idea of using the shockwave of a nuclear explosion to nudge the projectile into a different orbit.

[Fivelives]

When in doubt... C-4

Use more explosives and break it into 4 harmless 250m chunks (or 8 even more harmless 125m chunks!) instead of 2 mildly catastrophic 500m chunks, then.

[Flex]

Which amounts to a yearly expenditure of 10 dollars per year per person. It's a different view :p

I'd gladly pay 10 dollars per year if that would bring us closer to the stars.

This thing drew a lot of criticism initially, but it has provided some of the most beautiful images you could never imagine.

I'd say the people paid to color the images provide some of the most beautiful images you could never imagine.

[Snake-Aes]

I would say that the knowledge and technology involved in launching a rocket and meeting up with an asteroid is very useful indeed.

Im talking about NEO's (Near earth objects). Asteroids, comets and meteorites in orbits that pose a threat to earth.

Unlike in dumb Hollywood movies, you cant just blow up an asteroid. All that would do is seperate the asteroid into fragments - so its like the earth gets blasted with a shotgun instead of a single bullet.
Other options are getting a space probe near to the asteroid and using the probes very slight gravity to slowly shift the asteroid to a safer orbit, or land a probe and use a rocket to push the asteroid out of its dangerous orbit (efficient motor such as an ion engine)

The idea is more sound than you represent it as, though. Smaller objects (shotgun pellets) will burn up in the atmosphere, where one big object (shotgun slug) will lose some of its mass, but still impact with enough force to be catastrophic.

It's still sort of a problem though. Generally a rock bigger than a car will hit the ground about the size of a peanut. By then it's harmless in the sense that nothing past a few meters from its trajectory and impact point will be harmed. Rocks big enough to be considered a "threat" at least to a city is likely going to be too big to break apart into harmless levels.

Or at least I suppose so...

[Korola]

There actually is a method to coloring the gray scale images.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_th ... /index.php

[Kiorken]

God I love space, so this was really interesting to me. I aaaaaalmost wish I'd been born in the '40s or '50s to witness the space race firsthand. I feel so bad that the organization that put people on the moon (multiple times!) gets its funding cut and ambitions denied with each new administration. Normally I'm proud to be American, but not when it comes to the space program...

I'm bummed about this myself. I would say it would be nice to see space exploration in any sense, but I think it's just a modern thinking thing, more human, than just purely American. I mean, if anyone but us would do it, it would prolly be G. Britain, or Japan. But then again, they aren't doing either. It will prolly be a few generations from now, and suddenly, our children's children will wonder why the crap it's 2132, and we still aren't on the moon/Mars.

[Korola]

I look forward to my clone sharing those thoughts with my children's children.

[Gladia]

I'd gladly pay 10 dollars per year if that would bring us closer to the stars.

This thing drew a lot of criticism initially, but it has provided some of the most beautiful images you could never imagine.

I went through a mere 100 pictures (about half of which didn't have desktop versions) and I already have 10 new desktop options.

<Space nerd.

Imagine working for the company that helped build it... When the last mission up there to replace/repair it was going on, there was no work done while the walks were taking place, everyone was standing around a computer or tv tuned to the Nasa live feed.