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Stack Exchange

06:45

0

Q: When should the tag 'russia' be used as against 'roscosmos'?

The space program under the erstwhile USSR was highly decentralized. The Russian Federal Space Agency aka Roscosmos was constituted by presidential decree after the Russian Federation emerged from the USSR. The thing is, here on SpaceEx.SE, the tag 'russia' was used originally. The tag 'roscosmo...

discussion

Everyone

07:53

@UV-D spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/09/05/…

UV-D

10:06

@Everyone very nice! be good to include in an answer

TildalWave

12:05

@UV-D what happened to your gravatar again?

Everyone

12:44

'o @Tildal

Stack Exchange

astrobites: ISON’s Journey to the Sun: Are There Any Meteor Showers in Store for Us?

posted on October 17, 2013 by Erika Nesvold

Comet ISON will be flying by on its way from the Oort Cloud to the Sun and back for the next couple months. Will the meteoroids it leaves behind produce any meteor showers here on Earth? The authors of this paper use orbital mechanics to find out.

Everyone

@ManishEarth (the holder of many diamonds) says so, therefore I, Everyone, exist!

Stack Exchange

14:10

NASA Image of the Day: Northern Lights Viewed From the International Space Station

posted on October 17, 2013

Astronaut Mike Hopkins, aboard the International Space Station, shared this picture of the northern lights on Oct. 9, 2013, saying "The pic doesn't do the northern lights justice. Covered the whole sky. Truly amazing!" The northern lights are caused by collisions between fast-moving particles (electrons) from space and the oxygen and nitrogen gas in our atmosphere. These electrons originate in …

TildalWave

I would like all of you to reconsider this question after my edit (I've chatted with OP and we've agreed I should do that):

-9

Q: How would one go about proving humans have really been to outer space?

Background: I am 40 years old, and in my entire life the only face to face eyewitness event that I can remember where humans actually observed an attempt to fly into outer space, the craft exploded and showered its fiery remains - including 5 dead astronauts - down over the Earth as soon as it re...

astronauts nasa atmosphere funding travel

called2voyage

0

A: Topic of the Week: [medical]

Developing Space Programs brazil, aeb isro iran japan, jaxa Brazil (AEB and others), India (ISRO), Iran, and Japan (JAXA) have really small space programs, and as such we don't get a lot of questions and answers about them here. However, these programs do have a number of operations, and I wo...

@TildalWave I've voted to reopen and posted a comment.

TildalWave

14:34

@called2voyage yup good one, it gets my upvote

called2voyage

@TildalWave Thanks, my internet is really slow today.

TildalWave

@called2voyage and my router's power brick died too... now on Internet Direct LOL

called2voyage

yuck

TildalWave

it's OK the only problem is with handhelds ... I'm fine with a cable up my rig LOL

it even works slightly faster :)

called2voyage

right, but now you can't wander around your house

Everyone

15:12

@TildalWave got a rig?? That's cool! What make is it?

TildalWave

@Everyone Uf oh several ones and mostly my own musings so no "make". Currently on are 2 servers and 2 workstations, and there's a few that are effectively dust holders. A few in the closet too, mostly older ones but they should still work OK I guess

I won't try them tho as you can prolly imagine I don't have a single spare socket ... OK I have one now that the router died LOL

called2voyage

I had a really old rig in college that I got to run the latest version of Ubuntu.

It was amazing how much juice I could get out of it by using Linux.

That is, until I fried the video card trying to run flash in full screen. :P

TildalWave

I'm not that picky about performance at all so a lot of older rigs would do just fine most of the time. What I do try to build for is redundancy however. One of the servers is for my clients so that one is essential, and I could do with a single workstation too, if needs be. The rest are just gadgets tho, so not absolutely necessary either.

Everyone

15:27

not a transceiver then? )+:

@called2voyage is it possible to fry a vid card trying to run bitcoin?

called2voyage

@Everyone I can't imagine how.

Why would bitcoin be hitting the video card?

Everyone

hitting the gpu specifically

called2voyage

OH

so, you're using the GPU for processing?

Everyone

@TildalWave @called2voyage either of you setup a cluster?
@called2voyage that's the way it's done apparently (+: haven't tried it - yet

called2voyage

@Everyone I don't know. Processors are pretty sensitive, but GPUs are built to handle a lot.

You would need to give specific models and stuff...and still I'm not the person to ask.

I haven't set up a cluster before, to answer your other question.

Hash

15:33

ISRO gonna announce the date of launch of satellite to mars by tomorrow

called2voyage

@Hash Exciting!

Everyone

No worries (+: just curious. It would be a mish-mash though. 2-node cluster with both nodes connected through a switch, and sharing I/O through a KVM

@Hash Wasn't Oct 23 mentioned online somewhere?

Hash

@Every it's not officially declared meeting is gonna take place tomorrow and by tomorrow i hope they will declare that

Everyone

Just spotted http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/604/is-it-possible-to-get-pregnant-through-natural-means-in-space

I'm tempted to comment "Can't say whether it is possible, but I'm sure someone is going to have a lot of fun trying to find out"

Hash

@Every but I am certainly not lucky this year to see that launch directly :-(

Everyone

15:39

@Hash Sorry. I misread that one. It's October 28, not 23
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-s-october-28-mars-mission-on-schedule-isro-428272

TildalWave

@Everyone a mate of mine is into graphic processing and he set it up ... well, I helped him a bit with it too, but I don't have too much of experience with clusters myself, no

there are some renderers that you can directly offload to many networked workstations without much ado tho

Everyone

@TildalWave Still fun, I'm sure. With my limited exposure to unix/clones I'd probably make a hash of it at my first attempt.

TildalWave

and they don't even have to be of same performance

Everyone

They don't, true. Wonder whether a couple of VM might be made into a cluster ... ? Not that I'd know what to do with a cluster to begin with. Used to run BOINC wayyyy back

@Hash Why not? You in the 1st year, or 2nd?

TildalWave

I'm not sure what would be to benefit with such setup but yes, I believe you could

tho prolly CPU only rendering, which is on itself rather slow

NVIDIA has some cluster scalable GPU architecture that could work well with such setups, but I'm not sure to what extent they are virtualized with direct hardware acceleration ... it's a bit the long way around if you ask me

Everyone

15:50

Just wondering (+: I let my mind freewheel most of the time; throw up crazy ideas - I dare say you've noticed I ask absurd questions ... and too many of them

TildalWave

brb in 1/2 h

Everyone

tyt

... and the soho web-site is back! Whee!

PearsonArtPhoto

16:21

Just 10 more questions asked about launch, and I get a shiny Bronze badge.

Everyone

wb

You badger them with questions about questions on [launch], and they give you a bronze badge? I'll have to try that sometime!

How did you make that tag appear as a button ?

called2voyage

[ tag : launch ] without the spaces is this: launch

Everyone

launch

Wheee! tytyty!

Is there a syntax listed somewhere? brb

Everyone

16:47

That question about renewable resources makes me wonder whether wiping would be rationed if any crew-member suffered the runs in orbit

called2voyage

9

Q: Without renewable resources, how do you wipe in space?

I have looked around a bit, Wikipedia has an article on space toilets and one on toilet paper, but the two don't seem to be used together. According to one reference, annual consumption of toilet tissue in North America is 23.0 kg per capita. Recycling air and fluids, even solids in a farm, are...

colonization astronaut-lifestyle hygiene

If you're trying to do that

you just post the whole url in a single line

Everyone

@called2voyage so I am (+:

I tried that earlier ... it just shows me the line

the URL, I mean

called2voyage

It takes a second to load

Everyone

sorry )+: I thought i'd copied the URL )+:

called2voyage

1 messages deleted

→ 1 message moved to Trashcan

Everyone

16:51

(+: ty glad you're around

called2voyage

no problem :)

Everyone

could an ion engine at LEO generate the velocity required to stay LEO before gravity caught up with it?

PearsonArtPhoto

LEO by definition is in orbit...

called2voyage

I think Everyone means at the altitude of LEO

Everyone

LEO altitude I mean (+:

zigzactly (+:

called2voyage

16:57

My bets are on yes: newscientist.com/article/…

But Earth orbit and asteroid orbit are very different and 2.5 times the thrust may not be enough to make up the difference. I'm still guessing yes.

PearsonArtPhoto

The gravity at LEO is pretty much the same as the gravity on Earth, so I'd say no.

called2voyage

→ 2 messages moved to Trashcan

@PearsonArtPhoto I'm not exactly sure what you're saying...are you trying to compare to its ability to launch? Thrust to orbit and thrust to escape are very different, but you should know that so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Everyone

ah. from static start I mean. assuming it is stationary to begin qith

PearsonArtPhoto

Using easycalculation.com/physics/classical-physics/…, G at Earth's surface is about 9.82 m/s. At 1000 km up, it is 7.34 m/s. The gravity isn't reduced all that much at 1000 km.

called2voyage

I get that, but why does that make you say no?

David Freitag

17:07

What's with all the messages being moved to the trashcan?

called2voyage

Some cleanup of some stuff

I had to erase a few things for Everyone.

David Freitag

I mean... i guess.

It's just not something you normally see.

called2voyage

Manish recommended it.

David Freitag

I see.

It would be moderately comical if moving messages to the trashcan could be converted to blotting out text with a black like you see in classified documents.

PearsonArtPhoto

@called2voyage Ion drives aren't close to being able to lift us off of Earth, I doubt a 20% reduction in gravity is enough to make a difference.

called2voyage

17:17

@PearsonArtPhoto That's my point, we're not talking about lifting off.

We're talking about orbiting.

Orbiting requires a lot less thrust than liftoff.

PearsonArtPhoto

Actually no, orbiting requires more thrust than lift off. But that being said, you'd still have to maintain your altitude for long enough to put you in orbit, which wouldn't happen with an ion drive.

called2voyage

Are you adding liftoff and orbit together to get your thrust calculation?

PearsonArtPhoto

Ion drives aren't useful until you can not have any serious issues if you stop thrusting for a while.

called2voyage

I wasn't aware that entering orbit from a high altitude required more thrust than launch.

PearsonArtPhoto

To get to 1000 km requires a delta V of about 4400 m/s (See gravitycalc.com). From there to orbit is another 7000 m/s or so.

And 1000 km is actually pretty high for an orbit.

Everyone

17:23

hmm so that's out then

not going up

called2voyage

sorry misread your comment

Ok, was not aware of the big difference.

Everyone

so how long would it take NEXT to generate that 7km/s? say ISS comes to a dead-stop without losing altitude - could NEXT achieve that 7km/s in the time it takes ISS to reach the deck?

s/how long/could/

PearsonArtPhoto

442 seconds. Nope.

Everyone

442 seconds to generate 7k/s?

442 seconds to hit the deck?

PearsonArtPhoto

To hit the deck, not taking in to account air resistance.

Everyone

17:30

that's it?? that's less than 10 minutes!

PearsonArtPhoto

The thrust is only 236 mN. I suppose you might have a chance if your entire spacecraft, including fuel and engine, weighted less than 200 grams, but short of that...

Everyone

hmmm. that's out then; I was thinking all kind of crazy things about getting a sample of martian soil to earth for study

PearsonArtPhoto

On Mars, you could triple that sample size;-) Still, not realistic at all to use an Ion drive for anything like launching a spacecraft on anything short of an asteroid.

Everyone

on anything that has an atmosphere either ...

if it's big enough to maintain an atmosphere, it's big enough to defeat expelled ions ...

returns to Mars to think

PearsonArtPhoto

You could use a Methane/Oxygen engine to leave Mars, then an Ion engine to coast home.

Same to getting to Mars in the first place.

You just have to get to LEO first, then use the ION, not the other way around.

Everyone

17:37

(+: I was sort-of hoping it would be less expensive with the ion

PearsonArtPhoto

Don't we all;-)

Everyone

aye ...

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2412/do-astronauts-aboard-the-international-space-station-iss-actually-use-their-le/2448?noredirect=1#2448

There's a partial answer - they use the legs as ... footholds

TildalWave

18:23

I'm having some thoughts ... scary I know :P Could we "mine for food"? What I mean is to what levels could we provide required nutrients for humans that could be synthesized out of inorganic materials alone, where with inorganic I mean anything including amino acids that haven't ever been a byproduct or a part of living organisms?

Also... is there a word for it? We have carnivorous, omnivorous, herbivorous,... or vegetarians, vegans,...

called2voyage

Synthesized to what degree? Molecular reordering?

TildalWave

@called2voyage Anything that we're now capable of,... we can synth some pretty simple stuff like uncomplex sugars and alcohols attaching an -OH group to them,... what else?

called2voyage

@TildalWave Perhaps exanimivorous?

TildalWave

I think we'd be fine with carbohydrates at least to most basic levels, but I'd be curious how true that is... we still mostly distill stuff which is a hell of a lot chaper

called2voyage

Synthetarians?

TildalWave

18:28

@called2voyage not a single google result LOL

@called2voyage google wants to correct me if I was asking about people living over 100 years :O

called2voyage

Bad site design, but... hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=7586469

TildalWave

> Synthetarins only eat man made, processed,and tasteless synthetic food that have the necessary vitamins and minerals to keep them alive.

hmmm no not this ... synthetic food or synthesised by only inorganics isn't really the same thing

these are just techno freaks really

called2voyage

Top post says: "You can only eat synthetic foods, nothing that is alive or has ever been alive."

TildalWave

and I imagine 90% of all the required substances come from corn anyway so that's out

@called2voyage well that's a bit ambiguous because you can say "we used ethanol and starch that we steamed ...." and both would at one point be extracted from plants, it's just nobody asks that

called2voyage

@TildalWave I don't know, to me that would disqualify the "has ever been alive" requirement.

TildalWave

18:35

exactly, and I'm curious about space application so where you'd want to synth these more complex molecules and produce food out of them that none would originate from organic materials

maybe that is the term, I'm not sure

called2voyage

nutrients roughly divide into vitamins and minerals

minerals are already inorganic

so maybe we should focus on vitamins

TildalWave

proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins,... all that

called2voyage

I don't know...after a little research, I'm going to say we're probably quite a ways from entirely synthesizing nutrients from sources that were never incorporated into living forms.

TildalWave

that would be my guess too yes, but I'm no expert, far from it

called2voyage

Does Bio.SE have anyone with enough expertise to answer it?

Or maybe Chemistry?

TildalWave

18:46

@called2voyage dunno I don't frequent there ... maybe @ManishEarth knows, he's a mod on at least one of them

called2voyage

yeah, he's a Chem mod.

TildalWave

Your royal modship @ManishEarth would you care to enlighten us with your presence, please?

David Freitag

bows to the @Manish

called2voyage

I think he's ignoring us.

David Freitag

His net might not be working.

Everyone

18:52

Hm I see mt o have nodde off

It's the weekend @ManishEarth is prolly out explaining his MathJax widgie to his GFs

TildalWave

what weekend?

it's only thursday here

Everyone

Huh. Tell your Sun to hurry up. It's already Friday on my planet this week

TildalWave

hey @Hobbes ;)

Hobbes

hi

TildalWave

@Everyone same planet just a few stone throws farther behind the hills :P

Everyone

18:55

'o Ho

@TildalWave ... and that proves what? q+:

TildalWave

@Everyone well... nothing

that we count calendar days a bit later than you do

Everyone

q+: So it's still Friday by my sun

TildalWave

It's Friday for me by your Sun too :P

Everyone

I'm tempted to ask about Hindu calendar /time divisions ... if I can only work it into a decent question

TildalWave

And a Thursday by my Moon

@Everyone all those calendar things are just conventions nothing more

Everyone

18:59

Stop mooning there!
Convention? (+: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_units_of_time

TildalWave

yup

Everyone

Just to spite you, I'll now think more seriously about committing to @ManishEarth's Hinduism proposal q+:

Mad Scientist

@called2voyage Synthesizing sugar or fatty acids should be pretty easy, but I don't think we can do anything that would actually taste acceptable yet

Everyone

@MadScientist If, for a moment, the taste becomes irrelevant - would they be digestible?

TildalWave

there's loads of celestial "timekeepers" and we could arbitrarily pick any we wanted for any timekeeping purpose we'd like ... obviously, most come from our closest celestial phenomena like rotation of the Earth, the Moon,... and this choice is a convention. if we choose to go against it and decide to keep time by other reference measures, it would just as well be a convention

called2voyage

19:02

@MadScientist But is that all we need for nutrition?

Mad Scientist

@called2voyage Some minerals and vitamins would be necessary

Everyone

@TildalWave Point taken but I'm not entirely convinced. Call it prejudice (+:

Mad Scientist

We can't synthetize minerals, but everything else should be possible. Though I don't think it would be efficient enough

TildalWave

@MadScientist neglecting taste, how far are we from being able to synth all our food from inorganics and amino acids and be nutritionally-wise self-sufficient by "mining" for our food source?

Everyone

@Hobbes Useful answer. I think we all forgot about the foot-holds they use legs for

Hobbes

19:05

thanks, I got the idea from one of the recent 'tour of the ISS' videos (I think the one by Andre Kuipers)

TildalWave

@Everyone You're prejudicious? Noooooooooooo!!! How dare you be born in a single culture or even on a single planet?? You're .... impossible LOL :P

Mad Scientist

@TildalWave I can't really say, but I'd guess that if we had oil or something like that available, we should be able to synthetize sugars and fats. But I'd guess that if we had to, we would synthetize growth medium for bacteria or yeast and let them produce stuff we need.

Everyone

A single planet? How do you know Earth is single, and not separated/divorced?

TildalWave

@MadScientist so if we could use byproducts as well, we'd be much better off... yup, I figured that but I thought with space application in mind and being able to "simply" mine for food components we can synth into edibles ... is there any ongoing research in that area at all?

Mad Scientist

@TildalWave I don't think we're far enough in that field for it to be practical. There was a widely-publicized event where the first synthetic burger was consumed recently. But that one cost a few hundred thousand dollars

ManishEarth

19:10

@TildalWave @called2voyage hmm?

Donald.McLean

@MadScientist But wasn't that from cloned cells, rather than synthesis?

TildalWave

@Everyone She is single now, poor thing... wait,... if she divorced, we should get half of what was once shared, no? I think we should ask for what wasn't given back to us :)

@MadScientist I've seen it yes, the first eating of a 1 square cm "burger" was recorded for Science Club

Mad Scientist

@Donald.McLean cell culture, yes.

TildalWave

it was white, tasted like "chicken" (like everything seems to when we don't know what else to say and still be courteous LOL) and didn't look appealing at all... tho never mind that, if it was actually practical... which it totally yet isn't

margarine doesn't count either, does it?

@ManishEarth scroll up a bit... discussion on synthesising nutrients out of inorganics and amino acids, i.e. anything that can be mined, not harvested

Everyone

Mined where? Asteroid?

TildalWave

19:18

Well anywhere ... dunno. As long as it doesn't involve having large plantations or have to care for or grow other organisms

say you're building a colony somewhere where protected environment space is terribly expensive but you have close by enough of raw materials available

say Io for example

or Venus ... whichever

ManishEarth

@TildalWave I'm no chem expert, but iirc mostly not done

except for simple stuff

because enzymes. and folding. and other crazy stuff we can't replicate

Everyone

hm... can deamination be retarded in a cadaver, and some proportion of it harvested?

ghoulish probably, but ...

TildalWave

yeah ... but you get it where my question comes from, right? i.e. we have loads of research in nutrition self-sustainability by relying on other organisms... but say you're somewhere where that wouldn't be a good idea... environmental effects sterilizing your cultures e.t.c. ... so I'm interested if there's even any research on being completely self-dependant?

Everyone

I do

ManishEarth

@TildalWave there is, but not too far

again, enzymes are hard to make

Everyone

19:31

Spit, or spittle?

As a source I mean - but it's a limited source, you'd still need to find some way to process it further

'o @UV-D Up early?

UV-D

as always

Everyone

I really ought to retire ... it's more than an hour into the new day

Stack Exchange

19:52

astrobites: Astrobites & the Daily Princetonian

posted on October 17, 2013 by Astrobites

The Daily Princetonian gives another perspective on a research paper recently covered on Astrobites.

TildalWave

20:51

@UV-D morning ;)

I again had so many papers open my Chrome crashed

There really ought to be some way to prevent hitting the memory limit and crashing, why is that so hard for Google to do?

TildalWave

22:34

@PearsonArtPhoto Would there be and point in rethinking how long our TOTWs last? I've noticed with myself that I start investigating some stuff and it takes me nearly a week to actually post some questions then about it... so far I'm managing to be barely on schedule but the answers then don't really come in during the same week. Maybe it's just me tho, dunno.

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