For Questions That Don't Merit Their Own Thread

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I guessed octopus and rolled squid. 

 

Just my luck 

[SOXBLOX]

It's a UFO! Unidentified Floppy Object.

Edit: LOL, no way.  I never would have guessed that...

Edited April 8, 2021 by SOXBLOX

[SunlitZelkova]

If an asteroid roughly 75 x 100 meters was redirected to low Earth orbit, an uncrewed ABM laser station was built on it,  war broke out, the mission control center was assaulted by special forces, and the asteroid-space station was commanded to enter the atmosphere of Earth, what would the damage look like?

Assuming the asteroid is solid.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If an asteroid roughly 75 x 100 meters was redirected to low Earth orbit, an uncrewed ABM laser station was built on it,  war broke out, the mission control center was assaulted by special forces, and the asteroid-space station was commanded to enter the atmosphere of Earth, what would the damage look like?

Assuming the asteroid is solid.

Not a whole lot. Capturing it into Earth orbit deprived it of the absolute bulk of kinetic energy, and it would furthermore be lost during the protracted reentry compared to a head-on collision. Maybe a dozen megatons, likely much less.

[ARS]

In a lot of sci-fi movies involving brain-machine interface, there's a concept where the memories of recently dead person can be viewed by doing whatever the tech the movie has (such as the one in 'The 6th Day' and 'GI Joe Rise of The Cobra'). Now, if a person die, does the brain (which works using electrical impulses) still have memories of the deceased person even after the electrical activity has ceased entirely? Like how a harddrive that stores the data of a computer (alive) is being plugged out of the system (dead) still retains it even without power? I'm not talking about the tech to view that memory, I'm talking about whether the (recently) dead person's brain still retains it's memories and knowledge?

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, ARS said:

In a lot of sci-fi movies involving brain-machine interface, there's a concept where the memories of recently dead person can be viewed by doing whatever the tech the movie has (such as the one in 'The 6th Day' and 'GI Joe Rise of The Cobra'). Now, if a person die, does the brain (which works using electrical impulses) still have memories of the deceased person even after the electrical activity has ceased entirely? Like how a harddrive that stores the data of a computer (alive) is being plugged out of the system (dead) still retains it even without power? I'm not talking about the tech to view that memory, I'm talking about whether the (recently) dead person's brain still retains it's memories and knowledge?

While I admit I do not know for a certainty, I believe the answer is in a manner of speaking...yes.

I say that because DNA alone retains a lot of info after people die.

However memories are not like computer memories.

I do not think they could be read scifi style. We are talking flesh and blood and synapses.

 

If you want to read that, you would need to have perfected human engineering and cloning to god-tier levels.

In short...perhaps if you had a healthy cloned body you could do a brain transplant...that's assuming the brain is still fresh and has not begun to rot.

Time would be of the essence, just like organ donors.

Most people are not eidetic memory holders, so the clone's past stored memories would likely be associative and emotionally triggered just like for normies.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Spacescifi

[DDE]

4 hours ago, ARS said:

the brain (which works using electrical impulses)

And that's the first problem. The brain is a complex electrochemical machine that needs to stay alive to remain viable.

So I don't think it would be readable past the first several hours. Definitely not with sufficient quality for a belated upload.

[kerbiloid]

Nobody even knows how exactly the memories are stored.
They can just register electric activity of the brain regions corresponding to something, "rings of memory", etc.
And even partially intercept visual signals from eye nerves to show a completely bad picture of the seen, and intercept muscular impulses, reading the words before the tomgue and the throat speak them.
But how is the abstract infomation is stored is not known, Also it can actually be stored in some quantum form, not directly as the electric impulses which could be an interface between the hardware and the data, then it would be like reading data from HDD with an electric tester.

Afair, conjoined twins with joint parts of brain, having survived till the speakable age, could "hear" thoughts of each other. But it's from a pop article.

Edited April 12, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Starhelperdude]

how deep can a digged hole in the earth be without it collapsing? (like earth and stone falling from the sides into it)

[kerbiloid]

Max delta-height of trenches and mountains ~10 km, but caves are actually at ~1.5 km.

The deepest hole ~12 km, but it's partially enforced with pipes.

Edited April 12, 2021 by kerbiloid

[tater]

40 years ago today:

(how can that be 40 years ago?)

[tater]

Just watched the liftoff, and climb to space over coffee.

I still get goosebumps at  "redundant set sequencer start."

 

[TheSaint]

3 hours ago, tater said:

(how can that be X years ago?)

I find myself asking this question almost every day....

3 hours ago, tater said:

I still get goosebumps at  "redundant set sequencer start."

I got goosebumps seeing all the polyester suits and pants. And not in a good way.

But, seriously. That was pretty much the last time we'll ever see a manned test flight of an orbital spacecraft. If anything goes wrong, well, we'll name a high school after you. John Young and Robert Crippen, those guys are legends.

[Dfthu]

What do you guys think of this? 

DARPA awards nuclear spacecraft contracts to Lockheed Martin, Bezos' Blue Origin and General Atomics (msn.com)

Edited April 12, 2021 by Dfthu

[tater]

1 hour ago, Dfthu said:

What do you guys think of this? 

DARPA awards nuclear spacecraft contracts to Lockheed Martin, Bezos' Blue Origin and General Atomics (msn.com)

Very interesting.

https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-04-12

[kerbiloid]

Quote

under the agency's DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations) program

Spoiler

 

 

[DDE]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

 

 

So...  he's gone up in the world... this calls for drastic measures.

Spoiler

 

[kerbiloid]

Will they name the rocket Nimbus 2000 ?

[SOXBLOX]

I'll bet BO partners with some other company for the nuclear aspect. IDK who...

[K^2]

6 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

I'll bet BO partners with some other company for the nuclear aspect. IDK who...

They explicitly mention General Atomics as part of the venture. GA have long standing nuclear projects under DoE oversight, and you might know them from Project Orion. Yes, that Project Orion.

Edited April 14, 2021 by K^2

[StrandedonEarth]

I have to admit that General Atomics is a great name. It just smacks of pure 50's sci-fi. It would be awesome for that name to be a major player in space, up there with NASA, ULA, SpX, BO, NG, etc...

[magnemoe]

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

 

 

 

[SOXBLOX]

17 hours ago, K^2 said:

They explicitly mention General Atomics as part of the venture.

Oh, I thought it was LockMart, BO, and GA separately, not Lockheed and BO/GA. Nevermind, then. And yeah, I know GA well.

[SOXBLOX]

Also, this. 

I do wonder if this is the longest AAM shot for the US specifically, or worldwide.

[lrd.Helmet]

6 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

 

There is a lot of words in that article and it basically says: "we did something, but we won't give you any data or a way to verify what we said is actually true."

On 4/13/2021 at 12:34 AM, Dfthu said:

What do you guys think of this? 

DARPA awards nuclear spacecraft contracts to Lockheed Martin, Bezos' Blue Origin and General Atomics (msn.com)

Why does BO keep winning contracts while they haven't even shown they can get something to orbit? I mean, all those engine tests, suborbital hops and drawings of rockets are basically useless when you haven't even shown your capability to get to space? 

Edited April 15, 2021 by lrd.Helmet
adding stuff, removing duplicates