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01:00
I see a week of does [insert developing space program here] have a chance? questions, but this community never ceases to exceed expectations.
@RoryAlsop Is there anything you haven't done?
@DavidFreitag I bet he's never been the recipient of a slingshotted machete.
I sense a lot of hard thinking.
@DavidFreitag back then everyone developed their own film
@Undo that you know of..
01:01
@Undo I never had a slingshot
I had an excellent crossbow though, when I was little
@RoryAlsop Excuses...
Used to take out the rabbits and birds that tried to eat the vegetables in the garden
@RoryAlsop Like, a real crossbow? Like you use to use to shoot defenders off castle walls?
@Undo yep - steel bow, lovely wooden stock
@Undo No, he used the family ballistas to do that.
01:02
although when I was really little I was only allowed baler twine instead of wire for the cord
@RoryAlsop Because wire hadn't been invented yet, right?
Every now and then he would lob a local cow over the walls with the family trebuchet as well. Just for fun.
@DavidFreitag Awww - you won't believe this, but I took the kids to Dover Castle when the Romans were invading, and they had a ballista that would lob melons over a mile and a half!
@RoryAlsop Which kind of melon?
@Undo The flaming kind
01:04
Was it this:
or this:
could be - they went past awfully fast
Very different things.
@Undo They usually look like this:
Accept, not in some bloke's arms but in a sling
@David Filled with that greek inextinguishable fire stuff, right?
@Undo mmm - naptha
01:07
I bet the first people that got used on weren't too happy about it.
Something just dawned on me. A barrel of flaming thermite launched from a trebuchet.
Oh dear.
Two different time periods there.
My next question: Has a developing space program ever launched a barrel of flaming thermite with a trebuchet?
Gets a model rocket and a barrel
@Undo Gimme like ten minutes.
lol
@DavidFreitag you're developing a space program?
01:12
@TildalWave He's launching thermite into space.
@TildalWave Sure, why not? If it means i get to use my trebuchet for good instead of... not good...
gotta start somewhere
Theeeeeeeerrmiiiiiiiite iiiiiinnnnn spaaaaaaaaace
@DavidFreitag Might want to notify that agency that tracks the stuff you don't want to run into in space after you launch it.
Which, because of its self-oxidizing nature, it will burn even when it reaches space.
01:14
@Undo FAA?
@DavidFreitag like really cool sparkly fireworks!
I can just see it on an ISS computer: initiating collision-avoidance maneuver for impending barrel of thermite
@RoryAlsop Yeah! The kind that can liquify steel!
@Undo well they did spot an atmospheric explosion of a test ICBM not too long ago
@DavidFreitag awesome
01:16
@RoryAlsop If you have a bowl made of tungsten, you can have a bowl full of molten steel.
@DavidFreitag Which you then put Cheerios in.
Tungsten's melting point is lower than thermite's burning temperature.
watching the fireworks this evening, my eldest chatted to me about burning magnesium (at school) and thermite (youtube) - so I had to point out that in our day it was the done thing to fill the cupboards up with propane/butane and ignite. #goodparenting
@DavidFreitag cool
@RoryAlsop lol. Do i hear a faint boom in your near future?
#someonethinkshashtagsworkonse
01:17
@DavidFreitag often
@Undo nope. but I see it so often it was meant ironically
#toooldtogethashtags
Mine was too :P
@RoryAlsop Yeah, i forgot about that external combustion engine you have. Neato.
#ineverreadanythingafterahash
@DavidFreitag old motorbike + children = messy bonding time with lots of small explosions
I have never one used a hashtag. Ever.
01:19
FTFY @David
@RoryAlsop You are probably the best parent. Ever.
That's not nice.
@DavidFreitag depends if you are for or against Health and Safety, and Political Correctness
@DavidFreitag but vaguely amusing?
@RoryAlsop Since I'm the target, not really. But it probably was for anyone paying attention ;]
@TildalWave shh you
this happened during the govt shutdown so not many noticed
01:22
3 mins ago, by David Freitag
I have never one used a hashtag. #Ever.
@RhysW You are terrible.
@RhysW For posterity's sake.
@DavidFreitag I only did it for you
^ said in the voice of Tim Curry, playing Dr Frank N Furter
@RhysW i did seriously think about flagging that.
@DavidFreitag :P ill undo it
01:23
@DavidFreitag as abuse of my modly powers. Sorry
But then i forgot about my rule #1
@DavidFreitag you just used the hashtag there
@DavidFreitag is that "Blow up all the things"?
4 mins ago, by David Freitag
I have never one used a hashtag. Ever.
there fixed it
> I don't care about what happens in some silly internet chat room
01:23
Oy @mKurowsKi!
@RoryAlsop That's rule #4
@DavidFreitag There is Nooooooo Rule 6
besides, flags against mods dont do anything xD you wanna punish a mod you gotta go to CM's or other mods
So, anyway, back to thermite....
tries to steer conversation to something more friendly
thermite - friendly - yeah, sure - let's go with that :-)
01:24
@Undo My love for thermite burns like the firey heat of... thermite....?
But @RhysW, I would say that is overstepping the line a bit. Just IMO, but I wouldn't do it again if I were you :).
@DavidFreitag Is there anything that burns hotter than thermite?
@Undo his hatred of hashtags
@RhysW +1
@RhysW yes, Undo his hatred of hashtags
lol
01:26
@RoryAlsop oh dear, no more cheese for you
Ahh - @DavidF - did you mean to flag my post or Rhys' one? (just trying to work out how much I have annoyed you this eve)
@RhysW what? Not even Wensleydale?
I dont think he flagged anyones in the end? just that he almost did :P
@RhysW yeah - I mean - which did he mean he nearly flagged
@RoryAlsop Neither of you. It really doesn't matter
Nope, it doesn't.
01:28
please try to avoid flags the room is all blue as it is
@RoryAlsop Oh, RhysW's i almost flagged
@RoryAlsop Me, i edited a hashtag onto his anti hashtag speech :P
But being that you are all blue, it would have been a senseless act of inviting others into the room.
in order to lighten the tone then:
@RhysW Rory did it first :p
01:28
1
Q: can pregnant woman parasail

arahantI and my wife are at a location full of beaches. My wife is 4 months pregnant and she wants to do a para-sailing session. They take off from the beach, fly over the sea for 5 minutes and then land you back on the beach. It looks gentle enough to me. There seem to be no jerks except a minor one...

@DavidFreitag flags tend to bring more mods to see what's going on
ahh that explains the annoyance then,
hey - why no onebox for my linky
@RoryAlsop ahahahaha!
@DavidFreitag very true
01:29
@RoryAlsop You clicked [edit]. [edit] takes you to the edit page.
@TildalWave Or, in the case of The DMZ, everyone and their mother.
@Undo yeah - I am a moron
or the cheese is having an effect
@RoryAlsop 404
@TildalWave dagnabbit
I was trying to figure out if you wanted us to edit the question :)
@RoryAlsop /questions/id/
01:30
there
there.
@TildalWave Every time i see a digital clock say 4:04, i think, "Error, how can you possibly... wait a minute."
2
@DavidFreitag our local bus route is 404 :-)
@DavidFreitag Lol - I do the same thing :)
I just keep thinking the driver will get lost
01:30
@Undo Glad i'm not alone in that one ;]
@DavidFreitag and then you actually wait a minute til it changes to 4:05?
@DavidFreitag hehe nice one
@RhysW No, then i get back to making therm.. i mean whatever i was doing.
Who wants to play a party game?
Umm...
01:31
@Undo good safe answer
Its like pin the tail on the donkey
Does it involve thermite?
@Undo pin the thermite on the Soyuz
lol.
@RhysW I'm not nearly drunk enough to do that.
01:32
Pin the bounty on the question, whoever is closest to the centre wins!
@RhysW On Astro, I assume :)
oh there's a launch of Soyuz on 6th no?
@Undo nope
14
Q: Tweaks to the 'Let's get critical' community bot's answers

RhysWEach site has its own quarterly review period where 10 questions are chosen at random from that quarter to be reviewed for quality. Ordering Typically the community bot will post the results of the review afterwards in its own answer. However, the order it puts them in seems to be either rand...

Space?
im all out of rep :(
01:32
yup 6/7th
@RhysW I'll get it. Which reason?
more attention please
Done. Enough?
woah, plenty, thanks
what happens if I try and add a bounty at the same time?
enquiring minds wanna know
01:34
@RhysW I didn't have any to begin with :]
mega bounty?
@RhysW No problem.
Ah - I can't bounty
only 1 at a time
@RoryAlsop One will inevitably get there first.
so I upvoted you instead
01:34
lol - I better go do that too.
there, done.
Maybe I should read the question now.
@Undo tl;dr...
@Undo :P
right - gotta go to bed. Please give my apologies to Pearson for the chatroom tags. My apologies to everyone for the abuse and randomness. Later all x
@RoryAlsop Ah, we still love you :)
@RoryAlsop later TheOlderLord
01:37
@RoryAlsop See ya
on that note i need sleep too
I'm off too, t/c all ;)
so i too shall flee
cya wavey
Ohman, everyone is leaving.
@RhysW Oh, that question with worth at least +350, maybe more. Sorry for shortchanging you :)
@DavidFreitag It's you and me now. Have some thermite?
01:37
@DavidFreitag Theres a mod party on a yacht
@Undo Does a brewery have alcohol?
@DavidFreitag Ah, okay... what do you want to reduce to a puddle of nothing?
Except titanium, I guess.
@DavidFreitag Okay, brainstorming session: what questions can we ask on developing space programs?
I'm gonna try to fall asleep on this one ^
good night all!
01:40
Night @~Wave
We need to get some kind of a ping redirect for that one.
@Undo ~ is a wave ;)
@TildalWave It's a tilde too... so @~~ should be enough.
or just ~
more or less :)
Themite?
Aw damn.
01:42
lol - I know what you mean :D
So what do you need to do to make thermite start thermiting?
Over 1500ºK
Or, a burning piece of magnesium.
How would one go about producing that? Hope lightning strikes?
> Flame temperatures of magnesium and magnesium alloys can reach 3,100 °C (3,370 K; 5,610 °F),
Ah, okay.
So is there any way to extinguish thermite? Or do you have to just let it keep burning holes in things?
Regular magnesium strips can be lit with an open flame, and will burn hot enough to get the thermite to do its thing
@Undo Not really, because it's made with $Fe_2O_3$, it oxidizes itself which pretty much means it can't be put out. It will even burn in space.
You can also make it with $FeO$, but that's much more expensive and makes for a rougher burn.
01:48
If you could throw a bunch of water at absolute zero temperature, could you put it out (remove the heat)?
It wouldn't be water then ;]
Ice, whatever :)
Ice and thermite have a very.. intense reaction.
Oh, forgot about that.
01:50
What I'm saying is if you could somehow cool it down really fast, would it go out?
That's a question for the @Manish gods. I would think at some point it's possible, but not without trying really, really hard.
Apparently, it's actually quite easy to extinguish Thermite..
> Though this is true, remember Le Chattliers principle, if the carbon
gets to the oxygen first the oxygen will be gone in the form of carbon
dioxide before the aluminum has a chance to get to it.
Hmm...
Basically, pouring oil onto thermite turns it into an oil fire, which is easily handled.
Has anyone done it?
But still, good luck pouring oil onto 2780ºK thermite...
01:54
True.
I have no idea.
I'm still not sure whether i like matt smith or david tennant as the doctor better.
 
1 hour later…
03:12
@Rhys Looks like your mSO question got !
11 more users until we are 1000 users strong!
 
3 hours later…
05:52
@RhysW This a textual media, how the heck am I going to sing anything?
My favorite combination of geeky science and fire was the video of lighting a charcoal fire in 30 seconds. Using liquid oxygen poured over the charcoal. Have to be careful to use only high quality grills (as low quality ones have been known to melt).
 
1 hour later…
07:03
@Donald.McLean How's that? Liquid oxygen poured over charcoal?
EEk. No videos please )+: I'm on a bandwidth-capped connxn
07:57
@Everyone Ah. Sorry. Let's just say that combustion gets really, really ... enthusiastic, when LOX is applied.
Spontaneous??
No worries. It must be pretty late in your part of the world
'o @Rory
Morning.
Happy Deepawali (+:
Likewise
Although here is is called Diwali. I wonder why the difference
Much the same, I'm old-fashioned (+:
Could call it the 'annual autumn cleaning', and it would still be a Rose.
08:07
Lol
Really, look at what all it entails - clean the house, air it out, fresh coat of paint/cosmetics, change the wardrobe, then put flames around the house, and stuff
Do it on a community-wide basis, and you have hopefully a sharp drop in the number of critters seeking to nest in the community
So there! q+:
The rest of the stuff is icing on the cake
So there! q+:
08:34
@Undo 1000+ good questions, please
 
4 hours later…
12:54
TildalWave has added an event to this room's schedule.
 
1 hour later…
13:57
@Everyone and @Hash you two should have easier access to news and information on ISRO, and since our TOTW this week is "developing space programs" I thought it wouldn't go amiss to remind you of that, perhaps you can help us ask/answer more questions about it. ;)
Actually, same should go for @CrazyBuddy and @ManishEarth. I imagine a lot of information not being translated and available in English, so you should have a slight advantage :)
Nah, India has English as a major link language, 'specially on the Net
yeah but you hear even the birds talking about it :P
Well I trolled, it's now up to you how successful my attempts are :P
just doing my job ... which is excused a bit easier if you're a mod LOL
posted on November 03, 2013 by Ben Montet

Part two of our recap of the “Modern Statistical and Computational Methods for Analysis of Kepler Data” workshop in North Carolina, featuring both astronomers and statisticians!

14:15
This weeks TOTW (Nov 3 - 9): Developing Space Programs: , , , , , , , ,
2
Chat Event (Nov 5): India's PSLV-C25 to launch Mars Orbiter Mission (aka Mangalyaan)
14:29
@TildalWave Now, why the "hEcK" did you think like that? We've developed a long time ago :P
@CrazyBuddy Oh I know, but your space program is still considered of the developing variety :P Which is of course better than having more or less none, like we do LOL
or don't
OK there's ESA ... but that's got fairly little to do with my own country actually
Duh..!!! -_-
Well I got you here, didn't I? Mission succeeded!
@TildalWave (you're right after all) :P
ISRO is probably on the edge tho from being in development to being developed ... similar would go for JAXA too I guess
14:36
ISRO -- yep :)
JAXA -- we can't predict...
NASA ... it's more and more "under development" LOL
What the?? o_O
Well they don't even have a launcher do they? US has many, but what's NASA got?
And ISRO has what, 5 of them?
types
Truly speaking, I know nothing about ISRO (feeling awful to say that I'm in India :P)
They had some pretty neat missions before ... like Chandrayaan-I for example
14:39
Oh, I know "Chandrayan" -- Probably the only thing I know (after Aryabhatta I think) :D
anyway ...
0
Q: Any known India's plans to explore the red planet after Mangalyaan?

TildalWaveThe Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is launching a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) this Tuesday (5 Nov 2013) from Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India, flying on the PSLV-C25 mission with Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally called Mangalyaan onboard.          The Ma...

go and research an answer for this one
@TildalWave Ooooh... Yummieeee :D
I think we need to first investigate a bit what they're actually doing / planning ... hopefully get more specific questions out of it then
@TildalWave Meh... I'm in hibernation :D
I'm half hibernating also ... crap weather here again
and it's Sunday
14:41
I hope there are many rep. score-lovers -- say @RhysW & @Undo :D
@TildalWave Ohh... Your tweets... I haven't seen them these days :P
@Crazy Ehh? Rep? Where?
@RhysW is a bad mod..!!! Grrr...
He doesn't even care for Astro users :D
Uh oh.
If he did, he'd have conducted a session for the solar eclipse going on... :P
@Crazy Let's have a revolution, and give you his diamond.
14:46
Yep..!!! Diamond? I want that.... Gimme (don't forget the hat...) :D
We need a place to plan where the majority of users aren't blue :P
Hmm... Yep, that would work.
Question (CC @Tildal): Why do we have a tag?
I'm on the fence about this question, feel free to close if need be:
0
Q: Do developing space programs generally use an existing booster design, or make their own from scratch?

UndoThere are already many great booster designs out there - take for example the Saturn V, which has enough power to reasonably put almost anything into orbit. Do new, developing space programs often use old, proven designs, or do they try to create their own booster from scratch?

15:16
@Undo Well I think we could have a few overview questions, why not? It could use more tags tho, we do have "upper-stage" tag so add "lower-stage" or something similar .... and maybe find some others that could apply.
@Undo Dunno, I thought it's to tag questions about individual space programs, not individual missions?
might not be exactly the same as space-agency
@ManishEarth hahaha
in In Praise of Moderators on Meta Stack Overflow Chat, Oct 8 at 23:03, by TCPMAN.EXE
A moderator once used TCPMAN.EXE and didn't pay the $30 licensing fee.
15:46
All the "robots" currently in the skies
 
2 hours later…
17:28
@Til What little I know about it is what appeared on the net; as Manish mentioned - English is the lingua franca on the net in India. Still, let me try to chase the references mentioned up on Wikipedia for MOM, perhaps there's something worthy of discussion
'o @Undo
@Everyone Might be ... I didn't find anything yet, only some BBC services interview on India's "space revolution": bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24772147
doesn't mention any future missions to Mars tho, short of the Mangalyaan
What "space revolution" ?? q+:
No idea... that's how BBC put it LOL
"India's space-based 'revolution'"
Right. Typical English understatement; stiff-upper lip, and what-not
17:35
What's this LAP thingy anyway? Why do so many interplanetary/deep-space missions carry one?
LAP?
laser altimeter ... p?
Lyman-Alpha Photometer (+: Item#1 in the payload according to wikipedia
Mariner missions carried it, Cassini carried it, now MOM carries one
Oh, and some of the Soviet Mars ? missions carried it too.
oh - found a firdge photo:
What's with all the repetition?
'o @Rory
top halloween costume, and I knew fridges seem to get mentioned here a lot
it was fridges wasn't it?
17:39
@RoryAlsop Let me guess (+: You're not the guy standing next to the fridge, right?
@Everyone that's to detect traces of methane?
@Everyone nah - used to work with him
@Rory Ergo, you are the fridge?
@RoryAlsop hehe reminds me of Fargo
@Everyone nahhhh - that's 'is wife
17:40
she'll last :)
@Rory Sigh He looks nothing like Idi Amin
lol
@Tildal Damn. You're riposte is better
@Tildal Methane?
@Everyone Tidal Methane?
@Everyone aye one of the science payloads is to detect methane ... I think
> Q: And what are you hoping to find?
A: See, essentially when we talk about Mars and exploration of Mars, you look at life as one of those goals. So (we look for) the presence of methane in the Martian environment and see whether this methane, if it is there, has a biological origin or a geological origin. We also would like to study the Martian atmosphere and the escape processes there.
@Rory Tildal, and I wondered why so many inter-planetary missions seem to carry a Lyman-Alpha photometer
@Tildal Different instrument that; not LAP
@Everyone I just saw yes
well alpha filters are usually in relation to hydrogen like e.g. h-alpha
17:45
Seems reasonable to expect methane - assuming carbon life-forms
and methane has 4 hydrogen atoms so I thought ... you know
basically hydrogen absorbtion line
yup it's called the Lyman-Alpha line
In physics, the Lyman-alpha line, sometimes written as Ly-\alpha line, is a spectral line of hydrogen, or more generally of one-electron ions, in the Lyman series, emitted when the electron falls from the n = 2 orbital to the n = 1 orbital, where n is the principal quantum number. In hydrogen, its wavelength of 1215.668 angstroms (121.6 nm or 1.216 × 10−7 m), corresponding to a frequency of 2.47 × 1015 hertz, places the Lyman-alpha line in the vacuum ultraviolet part of ultraviolet in the electromagnetic spectrum. Lyman-alpha astronomy must therefore ordinarily be carr...
so it's some spectrometer of sorts
> Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP) for estimation of
D/H ratio based on absorption spectra of Lyman-α
lines of D and H. LAP consists of an UV detector
equipped with gas filled pure molecular hydrogen and
deuterium cells with tungsten filaments that are located
between an objective lens and a detector.
do it's deuterium and hydrogen photometer
bleat so every other inter-planetary mission has to carry it's own? why can't these guys collaborate, and carry some other instrument instead?
@Everyone I think you'd want to correlate different sensor data the best you can, so it makes sense to carry them onboard
Uh ... I'm still not quite sold on it
bbiab. need to change
18:04
You're gonna slip into something more comfortable? Sounds.... ominous :D
Something uncomfortable, actually (+:
Dressing to take ma to the temple
@Everyone Cool, anything more on PLANEX?
@Everyone Oh, what's the occasion? That ... festival of lights (Diwali IIRC?)
@Tildal Diwali/Deepawali is right. It's a cusp so-to-speak ; several events
I'll toss me blog on the subject of Deepawali - random rambling that you may laugh at sometime
@Everyone oh we have some funny customs here too, don't worry
Diwali is invariably a new-moon event, which coincides with offerings to a deity - said to be esp. potent since it happens here - so
@TildalWave Looks like storm-troopers in an alternate universe than the traditional galaxy long long ago, and far far away (+:
Why was it scaled down? What instruments were included in the original payload?
18:10
@Everyone They're called Kurenti and their purpose is to scare the winter away... mostly around the carnival season in February, but of course to entertain tourists, you can see them at other times too
And a few even funnier ones ... like the burying of the Pust
got you
i'll bbl. ma's ready
Take some photos, the only colors I see lately are on the Internet :(
18:41
@TildalWave No, it's because they want to light a match and blow up Mars. Obviously.
@ManishEarth wouldn't you need oxygen first? :P
details, details

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