Space, the Final Frontier: It Gazed Into My Open Refractor

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Space, the Final Frontier: It Gazed Into My Open Refractor

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Strawberry Pyramid posted:

I kinda wish this sort of anthropomorphication wouldn't be encouraged by professionals who should know better. There are strong philosophical and ethical arguments that assigning humanity to machines where there is none can be at least as dangerous as denying agency to sapient AI theoretically would be.

Like yeah, marvel at the technical ingenuity and cool space rock pictures and stuff, but still treat the machines themselves as the RC science trucks they are. I personally react to news about space equipment failing to phone back with roughly the same emotions as when my phone dies: irritation, resignation, then start looking at replacements.

Humans will bond with literally anything.

2 hour press release with NASA ppl going over that super cool landing video

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/watch-online/

# ¿ Feb 23, 2021 07:49

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 06:39

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Desiderata posted:

Having looked very carefully at millitary history and the many well documented primary sources on both sides of major historical battles: I have come to the conclusion that no scout, observer, or military system, has ever catastrophically failed in target identification. They were after all, very well trained experts and using the cutting edge technology of the time.

As such we must take seriously the risks posed by the self-evident legions of the Ghost Planes, Ghost Battleships, and Ghost Hussars that I can clearly prove outnumber the mere material ones present by at least 2:1 according to reports.

Theres quite a difference between some dude in a foxhole or in the middle of a dogfight calling out enemy positions that he's spotted by eyeball and a 21st century radar installation, in peacetime, picking up something weird.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 00:20

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Desiderata posted:

Aha I see now that they are old and in the past, but unlike them we are new and thus enlightened. We cannot possibly make their mistakes.

These modern wars must be devoid of such identification errors. I look forward to reading some modern history sometime, I'm sure it'll be different.

Edit: What the hell guys, I just checked and modern history is still full of crippling military failures due to bad information, broken or misused technology, and panicked troops making identification mistakes with their eyeballs, except they are sometimes looking through screens now.

Yeah, you are snarkily putting words in my mouth, there is a reason why I specified peacetime. It's aircraft on routine patrols, or on missions, over friendly countries or a ground base installation, not in the middle of combat.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 03:20

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Desiderata posted:

Wartime is full of historical mistakes of great importance with tragic consequences, they are well documented in the history books and can't deny that the troops make them. There are after all, many bodies.

But in peacetime, well... I don't hear much about these mistakes. It's sad the troops only become error prone when the red alert light is on, but I guess you can't change human nature.

Ask any soldier worldwide to tell you how competent and professional their comrades and commanders are, or how well maintained and reliable their equipment is and I'm sure they won't tell you absolutely hilarious stories for hours.

Cool, but you are talking about things that are picked up simultaneously on multiple radar sets of different capabilities while also under visual reference - it seems unlikely that everyone, from the ground controllers to the interceptors were using their set incorrectly while at the same time the pilots were seeing things that weren't there.

I'm not saying they are aliens but blindly writing it off as 'oh it's just equipment/user error' just seems pretty silly

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 16:29

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

DrSunshine posted:

Well if it can't be super-advanced black project aircraft, and it can't be a human error, then unless it's some form of new physics that we can't understand, then that line of reasoning only leads us to "Alien visitors".

I'm not saying it can't be black project aircraft or something else like weird weather but writing it all off as 'haha you know what the military is like, all those people were probably using their radar wrong' even though there were multiple simultaneous witnesses on different systems (visual, radar, heat signature) seems to be a pretty bad take

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 17:50

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

droll posted:

Thanks for your thoughts, that makes sense.

I've thought a lot about the notion of putting my consciousness into a machine, and recent innovation in machine / brain interfaces. If there is no God and no heaven/hell, cool I won't suffer an eternity because I didn't love Jesus. But with machine brain interfaces now I'm petrified of all the terrible things that could be done to 'me' for a very, very long time.

Someone just finished reading Surface Detail

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 06:43

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Senor Tron posted:

Like a balloon, when something bad happens!

The best way I've heard ZPE described in an ELI5 manner is to imagine the pressure of the air all around us. There's a lot of energy stored in that pressure, but we can't exploit any of that to generate energy because there are no lower pressure areas on the Earth to release it to.

uhhhhhh

# ¿ Apr 3, 2021 04:45

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Captain Monkey posted:

But you, a computer programmer with a 10th grade math education has spotted the error? Do you not see why maybe that doesn't scan very well and might make people doubt your interpretation?

It's literally high school maths, using the numbers from the article. If you disagree with his analysis, say why.

Like I'm pretty open-minded and some of the stuff I find hard to credit to radar errors etc (having installed and used radar a LOT myself, as well as being a pilot I don't think you can handwave some of this stuff away so easily) but in this case the maths is super simple. Either they screwed up their numbers or their analysis. The two are not compatible.

# ¿ May 25, 2021 19:38

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Even if it's some super hi-tech drone, it still needs to be aerodynamic with lifting surfaces, especially if it's going 38 knots. Even my cessna can't fly that slowly without falling out the sky and that has big ol' honking thick wings with a ton of lift. And it can't be directional thrusters, else it would run out of fuel real quick instead of hanging around for an hour.

If what is reported is correct, it's either some super hi-tech propulsion system that exists outside of our understanding of avionics or it's not a drone

# ¿ May 28, 2021 06:13

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

ashpanash posted:

And we certainly have close-up, detailed photography to determine what lifting surfaces or propulsion methods it has, right? And the 38 knots measurement is verified and a stationary reference to the Earth's surface, not relative to some other moving body in some other direction in 3D space, right? And we have multiple, accurate, precise measurements of these properties, right?

Because if that's so, I totally agree. You can't change the laws of physics.

I mean, if it's going that slowly it needs lifting surfaces relative to it's size that should be pretty apparent, even from the lovely photos. And why would the radar operator be giving velocity references relative to some other body? That's not how it works - I mean theoretically he could be giving velocity relative to the ship he's on (although those radars auto-compensate for those errors so it's unlikely), but you can actually hear the guy ask for the speed and bearing - which isn't relative. And yes, they were picked up on multiple radar sets, and if there is one thing military radar is good at, it's calculating velocity and direction (look at the anti-missile devices), and the ship that RADAR clip was off has surface to air missiles.

Also, even if you disregard the above, who is flying drones for an hour near the US navy, off the US West coast and then ditching them into the sea? It's more likely to be a ball lightning or something rather than drones

# ¿ May 28, 2021 06:48

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Antifa Turkeesian posted:

The US never ignored ufos, exactly. It encouraged the belief that unidentifiable things in the sky were spaceships from other planets and then used that context to ridicule anyone reporting strange things in the sky so that they�d stay quiet about the prototype SR-71 they saw while fishing etc. They�re trying to undo that culture of silence now because they�ve realized there are drones everywhere and they don�t know what countries are sending them.

I keep seeing people say they are drones but I think people are also vastly, VASTLY over estimating the current capabilities of even bleeding edge military drones.

Not to mention range, if someone is hassling US forces near San Diego with advanced drones, where did they come from? No one else is even remotely close enough to do that, unless Mexico secretly has a high tech drone program going on that completely outclasses the US.

I'm not saying it's aliens, but I don't think it's drones either.

# ¿ May 30, 2021 04:23

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Rappaport posted:

I mean, that's sort of humanity turned up to 11. If this ansible ever gets out of the nerds-shoving-GR-equations-into-MATLAB-stage (or whatever they were doing in those papers), it's going to be used for high-speed stock trading

This is 100% what it's going to be used for

# ¿ Jun 1, 2021 06:46

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

This is a giant nothing. This is getting really loving sad and desperate at this point.

I want to make this very very clear.

Alien craft are not visiting the earth, and any discussion of the idea without any proof is akin to solipsism. We work with hard evidence, quantitative data, and known physical principles. Nobody has provided any of those three things. Blurry video is not evidence. eye witness testimony is not evidence. inconclusive pictures are not evidence.

if you believe there are aliens visiting earth despite the lack of evidence, you are making the same argument that creationists make regarding god. It is not science, it is not even debate. it is farce.

Thanks dad

# ¿ Jun 5, 2021 01:56

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Dameius posted:

Jet propulsion I would imagine would have a very long tail in the thermal spectrum. What about something prop based using ICE or electrified prop based?

Could a battery powered prop based drone have a small enough or maybe different enough thermal signature that it'd just not present in a way our detectors would be calibrated to look for.

I mean, then you run into the fact of where are all these drones being launched/controlled from? No drone has the range or control range to reach San Diego unless it's from Mexico or something.

Aside from another division of the US military using the navy as a test ground for advanced drones (which honestly is very possible)

# ¿ Jun 5, 2021 06:26

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Rappaport posted:

Right, but you've still not exactly laid out the slave ship to Venerian fungus gin trade triangle. You know that the point of colonization is to exploit the bit being colonized, yes? If the best you've got to offer is better atmospheric shielding for landing spacecraft, I suppose I have good news, the Venera program was active for several decades!

"Space travel in general" is such a broad stroke as to make it meaningless. You do realize that the gulf, not only technological but also spatial, separating us from the nearest star system is incredibly vast, and magnitudes more difficult to surmount than Musk's plans to herd a slave colony on Mars? Even with a suitable craft you're looking at a century plus of travel time, with all the entailing difficulties of keeping people shielded from radiation included.

Side note but it actually blows my mind we have probe designs we could build with today's technology that could get to the nearest starsystem in just under 100 years. That's pretty loving neat!

Alctel fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jul 10, 2021

# ¿ Jul 10, 2021 20:56

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Bezos rocket couldn't have been more phallic if he'd tried

# ¿ Jul 21, 2021 04:25

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Raenir Salazar posted:

It's like saying the technology exists for civilian nuclear power because of the atomic bombs in 1945. Or that because we have a vacuum tube computer that takes up the space of a school gym that it's just as comparable to today and everyone having a smartphone.

Didn't that only take 20 years and 30 years respectively though between each

# ¿ Jul 25, 2021 04:19

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

How about that space telescope hey

Pretty cool

# ¿ Jan 18, 2022 08:57

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

The JWT looks like its going to own bones

Although the more I learn about it the more I'm surprised that it actually all worked

# ¿ Apr 1, 2022 06:50

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Goddamn I'm so stoked for some SCIENCE

(Actually most just cool pics as I'm too thick to understand most of the actual science I imagine)

# ¿ Apr 23, 2022 21:35

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Reading about the telescope, how it works and all the stuff that needed to happen remotely to a fraction of a cm makes me wonder how it ever got greenlit, it's an amazing engineering marvel

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 23:33

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Radio transmissions probably have a hard time with portals/wormholes.

The creepiest set of outcomes would be them telling the rover to stay the hell away, but it drives into the doorway on its own to never be seen or heard from again.

I'm trying to imagine what we'd do in that situation. Send up another rover? Or just blame it on software error and forget about it

# ¿ May 13, 2022 05:55

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Live streams on now

# ¿ Jul 11, 2022 23:13

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Wow they found water signatures on the first planet they looked at

# ¿ Jul 12, 2022 19:50

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Saying 'there can't be any advanced life out there, we've looked everywhere with everything' seems to be rather full of hubris

# ¿ Aug 3, 2022 18:19

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

mllaneza posted:

And able to change gender at will. The goony protagonist of Player of Games is considered to be a little weird because most people would have tried another gender at least once by his age.

Yeah turns out in a trans-human utopia the main things people do are have lots of weird sex, do incredibly stupid extreme sports like lava surfing and attempt to meddle in other peoples affairs/gossip

I also remember in one book there was a ship with a crew that all had a cold (as a novelty cos they were bored)

aniviron posted:

What about Bradbury? I grew up listening to my mom read and then reading his works myself. He seemed weird in a potentially unpleasant way too.

Some people call Vonnegut sci-fi, some not so much. I lean towards yes? Idk. He seemed like an alright guy.

Counterpoint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM

# ¿ Feb 15, 2023 02:32

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Couldn't an Orion drive ship get to the nearest solar system in like 60 years or so?

I mean I don't really know how the gently caress you get it to stick around long enough to do anything or send anything useful back

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 20:05

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Can you two just gently caress already

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 22:16

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

DrSunshine posted:

From my general vibe-check as a person who marinates in this thread, I think it's about space-related news and speculation. Less hard-nosed than the SAL thread which is about spaceflight, the aerospace industry, and astronomy, less speculative than the one in CSPAM which fully accepts "UFOs are aliens" and talks about psychic abilities and interdimensional travel. Here: JWST news, rover news, cosmology, relativity, exoplanets, spec biology, Fermi Paradox, SETI, space settlements, the Kardashev Scale, UAPs-as-possibly-aliens-but-skeptically etc.

I like browsing the cspam thread but it's definitely full of people being like 'this is it finally, the big one, remember where you were when alien visitors were confirmed ' so this thread is a nice counter-point to that

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 17:26

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 06:39

Alctel: Jan 16, 2004; I love snails

Taking a picture of an alien giraffe a millisecond before I accidentally slam the probe into the planet at a few percentage of lightspeed causing a planetwide extinction

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 18:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Space, the Final Frontier: It Gazed Into My Open Refractor