Shpaget

Hmmm. While I wholeheartedly agree that it's awesome to have this stuff released, I don't think that, given the current socioeconomic and copyright/patent driven environment, the release of this sort of material is necessarily mandatory. Remember, NASA is a US government body, not an international non profit entity and in a country that is so relying on patents and copyright, this is certainly a surprising move. Anyway, I just skimmed the list of articles and there is truly a wide variety of subjects, from astrophysics to dried plums. Will be fun to go through it in detail.

Assuming you have the bandwidth, it can be done without the 40 minute ping. You just cache the heck out of it. You basically make a copy of the most visited sites and periodically sync it with Earth. With forums it's not too hard, since the amount of data transfer is low and the communication isn't realtime anyway, so it doesn't really matter if the post you read was posted moments ago or a few hours ago. While clicking and browsing the forum you would be browsing the local version that is a few hours old. From the users perspective it would be identical to current access, with the only difference being the lack of some posts that were made since the last sync. When the user writes a new post, it is stored in the Martian version and when the next sync comes up, the Mars and Earth versions are combined. It wouldn't be seamless, since some topics get a lot of comments in a short amount of time, but for general participation it would work fine. While I'm not sure how would such a data link be achievable, I imagine it would require some huge antennas and a sizable power supply, but if we had a large population on Mars, it would certainly be one of the projects on the To Do List. This article talks about the efforts to achieve 600 Mb/s between Mars and Earth using existing and currently deployed equipment. I imagine that a dedicated broadband relay system would be significantly faster.

Why don't you show us your best example? There is no point is talking about something you yourself think is bad. I don't intend to be rude, but this is little more than a scribble in a notebook someone draws when bored during a lecture. If you want to actually design something, you need to put some math behind this. Figure out the mission requirements, then figure out what the supporting equipment is. Once you have the mass of the mission stuff, figure out the enclosure for it. Find a realistic engine and then you can work out how much fuel you need. Just drawing boxes and labeling them is not designing.

If you do delve into astrophotography, sooner or later (sooner rather than later) you'll need some sort of tracking to compensate for Earth's rotation. The cheapest and simplest device is the so called barn door tracker. It's quite powerful device which can provide good tracking for up to about 20 minutes. Of course you won't use 20 min exposures, but multiple shorter. In any case, dark sky is the single most important thing for good seeing.

Gallileo had really dark skies.

If you have access to a patch of dark sky, then you have a decent chance to see it even with the naked eye. Binoculars will make it easier.

Any binocular is better than no binocular, assuming they are properly collimated (not cross-eyed). If you get the feeling that you see two images, don't use it too much. It will give you a headache, literally. You will certainly see more stars and more features on the Moon, but planets will still be just a smidge more than a dot. You can push them as far as you want. No harm in trying to observe objects a few billion light years away (you won't see them, though). 8x30 means it is 8x magnification and 30 means that the objective lens is 30mm in diameter. Practically, for stargazing 8x is actually quite fine. It's a good magnification for stargazing. Unfortunately 30mm is a bit on the small size, so the image may not be as good and bright as you might expect. But like I said, any binocular is better than no binocular.

Filled out. Good luck with your project.

Because people want to do what seems hard and impossible. Sooner or later you will get multiple players band together in an attempt to find each other, and suddenly you have tens or even hundreds of players swarming around one planet/moon trying to do something they are technically supposed to be able to do, but is said to be nearly impossible. If the game does not allow this it's a completely different story than it being extremely hard, and the devs said it's hard, not that the game does not support it.

So, what could cause feed interruptions during landing? They all happen roughly around the same time, when the first stage is about to enter the frame. We don't know what equipment they use for transmission, but we can take some guesses regardless, right? There could be vibration from the intense sound that rattle their antennas. Could hot exhaust gases create a barrier? Hmm, if they used aluminum based solid fuel I'd say yes but kerosene... I don't know, that doesn't sound likely. Another source, which I consider the most likely, could be the low bandwidth of their link. It is all fine until the scene starts to significantly change. Video compression works like a charm when you have a static and barely changing scene, but as soon as there are significant changes (like a huge ball of fire entering the frame), the video compression can no longer keep the file size small and the bandwidth requirements skyrocket. On a completely unrelated note, payload separation about to happen...

Where's the timewarp button?

Quite a bullseye! Fire is fine. It's built to endure much worse.

They are obviously reading this forum live.

Allegedly, one of those two was not logged on the server, or something.

From SpaceX press kit for the upcoming JCSAT-16 launch: Can someone explain why are there launch windows for a geostationary orbit? Is it land/sea/air traffic or space related restriction? Or just red tape stuff?

Technically, it's multiplayer, since everybody is in the same universe and planets/stars discovered and named by one player are automatically named the same for every other player who happens to stumble upon that planet later on. Practically, the universe is so big that it is highly unlikely that two players are going to find themselves in the same spot at the same time, and devs are not making it any easier for two willing friends to find each other. They removed a map that could have been used for that purpose. If, against all odds, it does happen, the devs claim that the players would see each other and be able to interact.

Hmm, I was considering getting this, but after reading that in the technically a multiplayer game is practically impossible to meet another player, even if both actively participate in the attempt, I thing I'll pass. As I pictured it, the size of the universe was a splendid arena for groups to form and cooperate, without aggressive neighbors, yet ther was always a chance to stumble upon another group. It appears that is not going to happen since the developer was quite clear he doesn't want people to interact. Weird.

Engines front reentry doesn't seem plausible. Wouldn't they burn up?

Exactly, that's why I said that I don't agree with the practice of blocking comments. I, personally, can cope with unbased and low level insults and provocation. They don't hurt me at all, and when I get bored of them I can always leave. Some people don't want to tread in that cesspool and as content creators, the owners of the channel can't just leave and not respond without giving another, different, approach to attack. In their defense, they have another website (that is linked to on every video) where you can and are invited to comment, but that is just not as straightforward as direct comments under the video.

Disabling of the comments was previously a telltale sigh of crackpottery and tinfoil-hattedness, but just the other day I realized that one channel that I considered rational and usually open for constructive criticism and dialogue disabled their comment section on all their videos. While I, most certainly, don't agree with the practice of blocking comments, I understand the motive. The comment section of Youtube is filled with toxic bile, regardless of the content of the video, so it's hard to find and conduct intelligent conversation there.

Sauron putting all of his power into the ring sounds like a decent explanation, but as you said, a huge risk, especially if you intend on fighting in the front lines as Sauron did, instead of staying in the back and sending countless armies he had at his disposal. IMO, the eagles being acting as deus ex machina several times is a cheap and uninspired way to get characters out of a pickle. Tolkien really messed up that. Yes, the concept is used in so widely used in every genre of fiction ever written yet it somehow, I think it should be avoided. Eagles were introduced to save Gandalf from Isengard, and they should have never reappeared again, yet they are used over and over again. I accept the explanation of elves trading with dwarves. Sounds ok.

Beware, spoilers. Disclaimer: I would certainly not describe myself as proficient in the lore, and have never read the books in their entirety, so what I'm asking here is based just on the movies (mostly the original trilogy). These questions may be answered in the books, so forgive me if they are. Why did Sauron "die" when Isildur cut off his finger with the Ring? Or more to the point, why did Frodo not die when Gollum bit off his finger with the Ring? Why did Elrond allow Isildur to keep the Ring when he obviously knew it was evil and had to be destroyed.? It was not Isildur's to keep. Why did Elrond not call a meeting of kings/rulers and basically force the destruction of the One Ring (and all other rings). Bilbo had the Ring for about 60 years and during that time he hadn't aged as one would expect, according to Gandalf. As soon as he gave the Ring to Frodo he started aging again, and can be seen as a very old guy some 20 years later (Frodo had the Ring for about 20 years before he set off for Mordor). So, Gollum was separated from the Ring for about 80 years, yet he hasn't changed a bit since the day he lost it. Why didn't Gollum resume to age and likely die in those 80 years? Gandalf seems to have the ability to summon the giant eagles whenever he needs to, yet he's always in some hurry and has to ride the comparatively slow Shadowfax, or even worse, the ponies. He also runs a lot. Why didn't he take one eagle and just airlifted Frodo to the volcano? The whole business would be over in a jiffy, countless lives would be spared. When Aragorn got the undead army to fight for him and after the battle for Minas Tirith, why didn't he ask them to cleanse the Mordor? Such a waste of manpower. Why do Nazgul bother with horses when they have those awesome flying things at their disposal? All the time we hear about elvish metalworks (swords, armor...) yet we never see their infrastructure. Where are their mines and forges? Elves don't really sound like a race that does a lot of coal mining - an absolute necessity for forging, yet they are the ones that make the best stuff, while dwarfs, the natural builders and a lot more aggressive race, are completely neglected in this regard.

JWST is not servicable. http://jwst.nasa.gov/faq_scientists.html#astronauts http://jwst.nasa.gov/faq.html#serviceable It could, hypothetically, be serviced by a robotic mission, since the same launch vehicle that will launch the scope (Ariane 5) can launch the service mission too, but there are other problems as well. Controlling the robot would be tricky due to the 10 second delay for signal round trip. Certainly not impossible, and but they are not counting on being able to repair it.

You're right. Here's a useful chart somebody made dealing with various aspects of various fuels and oxidizers. http://www.thespacerace.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=b8a2b8bf9d202f91a58dc71360581a60&topic=2583.msg17481#msg17481 And all that being said, I still stand by my choice of color, as for the OPs purposes, as he presented it, it's art that has different requirements than realistic depiction.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if the OP is making some sort of graphics, then it should have some visible plume, no matter if it is realistic or not. And since he's making some, is should not be red/yellow, because that's "reserved" for chemical rockets, nuclear green is not going to happen, so blue it is. Blue also goes well with the high temperature of the exhaust (compared to chemical) and high temperature goes along with blue color. Again, yes I realize that ~2700 K corresponds to yellow light, but realism be damned.