NASA general discussion thread

[RCgothic]

XKCD1235

[SunlitZelkova]

31 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

XKCD1235

As “aliens in physical spaceships”, “actual sea creatures”, “actual somehow physically existing entities”, and “actual primate species”, I would agree.

But these reports do continue to occur. This comic ignores that sightings are still happening.

But as I said over in the UAP thread (where this piece of news belonged, it has little to do with “general” discussion of NASA) I think all these things should be classified as religious/psychological phenomena rather than something physical.

If NASA is so certain it isn’t alien spacecraft, and no other convincing theories have been put forwards to naturally explain the remaining unexplained cases, it’s about time they hand this over to psychologists and folklorists.

[RCgothic]

Pics or it didn't happen, basically.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, RCgothic said:

XKCD1235

Just wait a little, till all cameras have no internal storage and transmit the raw data directly to the data center, where AI is automatically optimizing the color balance, stabilizing, blurring faces, removing trademarks, inserting watermarks, updating your attention preferences, and sending an original copy to you social inspection overseer curator assistant.

You will be sure, that everyone but you lives in the world where pink dinosaurs in green flying saucers are looking at you from every mirror in the bathroom.

Edited September 15, 2023 by kerbiloid

[SunlitZelkova]

14 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Pics or it didn't happen, basically.

That’s why I am saying it should become a subject of study for psychologists and folklorists.

There are no pics of hallucinations happening and yet they exist, and there are no pics of various supernatural phenomena and yet the stories exist.

It is a folklore, or even religious events. Not something you can capture with a camera.

Edited September 16, 2023 by SunlitZelkova

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 9/15/2023 at 9:17 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

That’s why I am saying it should become a subject of study for psychologists and folklorists.

There are no pics of hallucinations happening and yet they exist, and there are no pics of various supernatural phenomena and yet the stories exist.

It is a folklore, or even religious events. Not something you can capture with a camera.

What you are getting at is a feature of the human brain.  Pattern finding.  We constantly seek to find meaning in seemingly disparate things as a survival method.  Seeing faces in a collection of inanimate objects is the usual example - because it's better to see a face and be wary of it than not see the face and get eaten. 

Combined with low intelligence and high credulity? See something you can't explain? 

God/magic/aliens depends on what you are predisposed to believe. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@Gargamel - This is a test post.  I managed to get here by clicking on the notification that RCGothic liked my post.  But if I click 'Science and Spaceflight' below or 'Go to topic listing' - I get the same, original error.

Again, this is only a test to see if the subs to Science and Spaceflight will allow me to post anything.

(Here goes nothing)

[SunlitZelkova]

18 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

What you are getting at is a feature of the human brain.  Pattern finding.  We constantly seek to find meaning in seemingly disparate things as a survival method.  Seeing faces in a collection of inanimate objects is the usual example - because it's better to see a face and be wary of it than not see the face and get eaten. 

Combined with low intelligence and high credulity? See something you can't explain? 

God/magic/aliens depends on what you are predisposed to believe. 

I don’t think every single case can be reduced to a simpleton misidentifying Venus. There is some phenomena out there causing (some of, that is, the most bizarre and unexplained of) these reports.

But the claims are so fantastical that even when there is some shred of evidence- like depressions in the ground where a UFO purportedly landed- it’s impossible to take seriously from a scientific POV.

I disagree with Jacques Vallee’s 1975 call for open minds and better data gathering methods. This phenomena will always evade scientific understanding.

If we want answers to the UFO mystery- why these things keep happening- we need to study the history of the phenomena, the details of the cases past and present, and the emotions they generate. We must turn to the humanities.

The curiosities and desires generated by the UFO phenomena should not be brushed aside as silliness or reduced to a biological mechanism. It must be understood and treated from a philosophical (and maybe psychological) POV.

If we never do this, the conspiracies and pseudoscience are never going to end.

The NASA investigation is just on track to produce more conspiracy theorists once it fails to produce any new findings as previous physical research attempts have.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

the conspiracies and pseudoscience are never going to end.

This is true. 

... 

If we expected scientific inquiry into prophetic dreams - we'd similarly get nowhere.  It's not just the lack of data, but the uniqueness of each event and the ephemeral quality of each. 

The only thing trying to get legit science to spend money and time on 'the issue' will result in is more confirmation bias. 

That Harvard 'researcher' is a genius - cynical genius. Rubes eager to part with their money, funding for field work that cannot be debunked by peer review and an almost limitless supply of media attention? 

Brilliant! 

[tater]

KT is awesome. She came and gave a talk at the U years ago and I got to spend some time with her. She went back to JSC from the talk to be capcom, so a buddy and I sent her thank you flowers, delivered to MCC. The florist near JSC actually made a thing with flowers sorta like a liftoff with a plastic shuttle coming out of it. We saw it delivered on NASA Select (old NASA TV), which back in the day you had to have sat tv to see—the old ~2m dishes from the 80s.

[SunlitZelkova]

https://x.com/nasa/status/1736900843813605759?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A
 

First laser transmitted ultra HD video from space (that is, sent through the space based laser comms test bed) is of a cat.

[Shpaget]

Waiting for the golden record-like analysis of all the markings.