Shpaget

If you have something to say, say it. Do not just accuse others of being wrong announce your future explanation.

That is why I mentioned eccentricity. I just don't care enough to bother doing the calculations to see if it is eccentric enough, since it doesn't matter either way. There is no direction in which we can't point some telescope at least some of the time. We are limited by their resolving power, but for the purposes of this conversation, which seems to be going towards Nibiru nonsense, they are powerful enough.

Trains shmains. /jk I build a model railroad layout for a living. O.o

The only blind spot from ground based and Earth orbit observatories is the cone behind the Sun. That cone rotates as the Earth goes around the Sun. That means that every direction, that at this moment may or may not be behind the Sun is eventually observable. I'm too lazy to make an accurate model of the Earth's orbit right now, but, depending on the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, there might be a single, very small volume, that is never observable from Earth and that is the 1AU from the Sun on the opposite direction (Sun- Earth L3 point). However, that spot has been checked by STEREO probes, not to mention that anything of significance (>150 km in diameter) would be detected by the gravitational influence on other bodies, and would be ejected from the L3 by Mars and Venus long ago.

Every observatory has a blind spot, but when you combine them all, there is no place to hide.

Well, why don't you include that question in the poll I suggested you do? (What's "Dragon" when talking about space exploration?)

They do say it in abstract.

The man on the street has no idea Voyager program exists. Same goes for practically every interplanetary probe. Go on, get out on the streets and ask 20 people what's the most distant man made object. Ask people how far away is the Sun or the closest star other than the Sun. If the man on the street has no idea the program even exists, it's not because the program lacks a flashy name, and the flashy name won't change it.

Fixed that for ya'.

Do you really think a name is important? Lately, I see so many "news" dealing with this or that organization naming something; UN bickering with itself over the name for ISIS/ISIL/IS..., US politicians moaning about Mount McKinley/Denali, Google with its typeface, this thing... It's ridiculous.

It's not going to Phobos. LEO will do just fine. The design is still not decided upon. There are some things that need to be dealt with before that. Why don't you come to the mossat forums?

When I was a kid, old folks used to scare kids with the Bogeyman. These days it seems the black holes are the worst thing ever. They present the scenario as if it's something that happens at least twice a year, so we should know what to expect and not like the most remotely possible event ever conceived, which it is much closer to. Also, Michio Kaku...

Current aim is to get it to 1U. Sample chambers will be just a few cm^3.

Foundation series is just amazing and when coupled with Robot and Empire stuff... so much fun and brain teasey. Should keep you occupied for a while. Then there are the Stranger in a Strange Land and Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The short story Coventry is also good, although the ending is a bit weak. Can't mention the two without the third, can I? Rendezvous with Rama. Even though I'm not a fan of fantasy, I quite like the ASOIAF series (Go Arya, poke'em with the pointy end!).

1,447401115 x 10^76 My Casio and Wolfram Alpha agree, so I suppose it's correct.

Banning the number itself is asinine. It's like banning kitchen knives because they could potentially be used for a murder (which is, I dare say, a much bigger issue than bypassing a DRM). Anyway, I'm off to sue that Fleming guy out of his grave, since my bank card PIN is 007.

Both return 0.5. 2^254 x 2 and 2^256 / 2 return the correct value, though.

Of course there is a mathematical relationship. It's vector addition. If you know the velocity change in normal direction, then is just a simple right angle triangle hypotenuse calculation. For a more general calculation, this is how you do it.

Any acceleration that can match the gravity and then just a little bit more (>1G) is enough to get you into orbit, provided you can maintain it for long enough.

You're right. So, any guesses why this one particular fails the rest of calculations work fine?

Yeah, that's two's complement. It gives correct answers for 2^254, 2^256 and everything I tested up until 2^332, after which it Gives Math Error (I suppose 9.999 x 10^99 is as high as I can go) so if it was an overflow, that shouldn't happen. It seems that that was intended to be a spot where it switches from working with 8 bits to something else, but the transition was poorly done.

Because area of a circle is a function of a square of radius. area = radius2 * Pi

Nah, just regular math stuff.

We've come to rely on our pocket calculators, however, I've come across this little gem. My Citizen SR-270X is a bit of a special needs case. When asking for the result of 2255, one would expect to be presented with some huge number. This Citizen, on the other hand, is quite firm in stating the result is 0.5. Interestingly, 255 is 11111111 in binary, which happens to be 8-bit two's-complement -1, which would mean that the calculator actually calculates 2-1. However, it correctly calculates 2254, 2256 and all the way up to 2332. Weird.

You must have confused me with somebody else. I don't remember ever calling Musk an "altruist willing to give up his fortune for his dream" or anything remotely similar.