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NASA STEREO Spacecraft Set to Launch
An anonymous reader writes "As first reported on last year, NASA's
STEREO mission is set to launch tonight at 8:38pm EST. The two near-identical spacecraft will give us unprecedented stereoscopic views of the Sun-Earth system, hopefully leading to the creation of the first
3-D movies of the Sun! Launch can be watched live on
NASA TV with coverage starting at 6:30pm EST."
I thought that when I look at the sun, since I see it with two eyes, I see it in 3D.
Oh! My eyes! Well, so much for that...
Who says there is no sound in space?
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
They do realize there isn't sound in space, right?
NASA could upgrade from stereo to the googlephonic system with the moonrock needle - it'll still sound like shit but this is basically a car stereo right?
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
...how great inventions discovered while making pornography are now carried on space missions?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
. . . for those who haven't figured out the trick of fusing images by crossing their eyes.
* * *
Funky fictional anecdote.
Olaf Stapledon's science fiction "novel" (more like a future history) Last and First Men covers the evolution of humanity from us poor demi-apes to a hyper-evolved species living on a terraformed Neptune two billion years from now.
These "last men" are not only telepathic (and have 96 genders and look like anthropomorphic animals), but they can communicate with themselves across time.
Stapledon describes the "last men" astronomers staring at the sky, sending a telepathic impression of the sight one-half of a Neptune year in the future, where their future selves integrate it with their own observation of the sky to create a wide-baseline 3D parallax image of the heavens.
No. I don't know what Stapledon smoked.
Stefan
. . . for those who haven't figured out the trick of fusing images by crossing their eyes.
My eyes got stuck that way. Sigh. Mom warned me...
Which one uses metric?
No it would not be better. We simply must have more IMAX movies.
I'll bask in its spherical glory.
I can literally feel the vitamin D oozing from my pores, all I need now is a virtual sun burn.
Task Mangler
Now, now, let's not be too hasty. I'm sure the USSR and the Chinese have gone into space. It's only the US that lies about everything.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Hate to be pedantic, but the launch time is 8:38 p.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time), not EST (Eastern Standard Time).
CLICK!
"Man in the Moon and other weird things" - wfmh.org.pl/thorgal/Moon/
I'm definitely not a scientist either, but let me help you logically think this through.
You ask how the 3d view of the sun could be used in further research, implicitly in the pursuit of space colonization. Well, seeing as the sun is a pretty big deal in our solar system (I mean, it's the solar system), I think all of humanity would really benefit from understanding how and why it does the things it does.
In relation to space colonization, the radiation given off by the sun (and other celestial bodies) is only one of a ridiculous multitude of environmental factors to deal with (nevermind the logistics) in any spaceflight, manned or unmanned.
Besides, it's just frickin' cool to get a better look at the sun.
Landing a person on the moon was not a "breakthrough", but more of a "cold war PR victory". Sending people into space is (for the foreseable future at least) more of an exercise in tourism than science. You have obviously been spendig too much time drinking the scifi cool-aid and not enough time logically thinking things through. And yes, I am a scientist (physicist).
Is a 3-D movie of the sun really a good idea? Could someone name a single "3-D movie" that wasn't a catastrophic failure at the box office?
Let's stick with other fancy acronyms for this thing. HDR's a good choice... it'll be blindingly good. *rimshot*
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Here I am, minutes before I have to head out to work listening to the webcast and being happy that the T minus time for launch is less than my T minus time for work. Then their talking head mentions being a couple minutes away from a planned twenty minute hold. If they are planning on pausing for twenty minutes, why not just add twenty minutes to the clock and keep it counting?
Is there a better quality web-based video available than 320x240?
"Man in the Moon and other weird things" - wfmh.org.pl/thorgal/Moon/
The planned holds allow launch personnel an opportunity to ensure that the vehicle's status is nominal. NASA does not expect staff to evaluate information as complex as rocket science with a time contstraint; that is, scientists cannot work with a ticking clock in front of them as would be required if it were kept running.
At the end of holds often comes the "Go, no-go" sequence immortalized by Apollo 13. Or at least an implicit "Go, no-go" indication.
not yet, thats in the next model...
In space, no one can hear you rocking out...
"Life in every breath... that is bushido"
Your tax dollars also pay for the publication of volumes of information available at NASA's website.
Here is some very relevant information on the science instraments attached to the STEREO probe.
You'll notice that each of the vehicle's instruments has it's own page, and some pretty good information on what it is supposed to do and why. It sounds pretty relevent to me. NASA's website is pretty great actually. You paid for it, go check it out.
You'd hope they'd at least be using surround sound by now.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
0_0
96 genders, eh? He was definitely on crack. Just because they get 512-bit address spaces doesn't mean you get to have more genders. I mean, dude
Stapeldon: Taking Fetish to New Heights!
Why not read up a bit:
i ndex.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/mission/
http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/
For example, this mission could be important for understanding how to protect humans out in the solar system.
...how great inventions discovered while making pornography are now carried on space missions?
Wait...it's not for making pornography?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Went up without a hitch, the satellites are separating from the spacecraft and all is well.
Very clear skies tonight over Florida so looked great, could see the boosters dropping off as well. Thanks for the fireworks show, NASA!
Its good to see that NASA is still one organisation that believes in fighting the man. Rock on boys, rock on.
Jesus Saves
Some manager talked about 7-4-2 during the launch.
Let me try and remember what the numbers meant;
7 - was the tons of helium converted (burned) into hydrogen every second.
4 was the 4 reasons why we care; 1) solar winds and how it effects things/us 2) communications and how it was affected 3) was the impact on astronauts (and thus your point about colonization) 4) was the affect on airplanes in our atmosphere (apparently an issue large enough to currently cause restriction of flights near the poles)
2 was for stereo views
He said there is a need to better understand how the sun affects us currently and for future space travel and these experiments will help in that understanding.
For the paranoid types, the air force is also involved in the project - one can only guess how 'stereo' eyes in orbit can be tested and developed as new surveillance technologies.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
For reference, the fusion works the other way: hydrogen is fused to produce helium. I'm also pretty certain that the sun fuses a LOT more than 7 tons of hydrogen every second. Wikipedia claims it's 3.6e38 protons a second, which my back of the envelope calculation (3.6e38 / 6.02e23) says is basically 6e14 grams, or six hundred million metric tonnes per second, most of which becomes helium... there's some other fusion reactions that make traces of heavier elements, and some of that mass is converted into energy.
My favorite stat is that 99% of the mass of the solar system is the Sun, with the other 1% being Jupiter. Our wonderful planet, with all it's enormity and majesty, and all most of us will ever know personally, is lost in the underflow of the total mass. :-)
I think you mean immensity, not enormity.
I am artificially intelligent.
Because it will allow us to know a bit more about CMEs, specifically where they are headed. Now CME direction prediction is rather poor at the moment, we're mostly confined to "it's coming towards us / it's going away from us" (us being "planet Earth"). These 3D views will enable us to determine the direction of CME events far more accurately than before. Now CMEs are rather energetic things. They destroy satellites. They can know out power grids here on earth, even through our magnetosphere. Consider also that one of NASA's current goals is to land people on the surface of Mars. Do you want the astronauts to be hit by a CME? I bet they don't. They would be exposed to incredible levels of dangerous radiation. So, the STEREO project directly affects future NASA projects, which includes the colonisation you're talking about.
-Drew
no arguments - i am sure i didn't quite remember what he said exactly.
:)
It's been 37 years since i took an astronomy class, but I seem to remember the sun converted helium to hydrogen on the inside, then turned hydrogen back into helium on the outside. But, like I said, it's been a long time and it's definitely not my field of science
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
True. It was late, and I was lucky to even be able to do the math. :-)
When you don't know the size of something, it's hard to tell if it's coming at you. And even if you could tell if it's approaching, and not just standing still, as it's changing in size, you can't tell how quickly it's moving 'till it actually hits you. (which is where we're at now)
With a single point of observation that's not in the path, you can tell it's moving to the left or right -- but you still don't know how close it is, so although you can tell how quickly it's moving across your field of view, you can't tell if or when it's going to hit something (eg, the earth) -- so you need the second frame of reference.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Dolby 5.1 surround is the way to go these days.
Infinity is overrated, Infinity+1, now that's cool!
If you don't know all of the details, it's impossible to draw an accurate conclusion.
... why's it important? Well, read the FAQ. I mean, hell, wasn't just waiting for the hurricane to hit good enough? Why do we need to spend money on radar and doppler radar to actually give us advanced warning?
First, NASA has different classes of missions, such as the Discovery Programs, which are intended to be lower cost, and more science focused. (I think STEREO falls under this, but I'm not sure). The cost is claimed to be $500mil, not the 'billions' that you claimed. Yes, it's still a lot, but not all of it comes from the US.
As for the 'movie' aspect -- the satellites will be able to generate 3D movies, but it's not what you think -- only for a limited time will the satellites be at an angular seperation that's similar to the human eyes trying to look at something. For the other times, it's still useful to the scientists, but not the general public looking for pretty movies.
So
As for what NASA's been doing -- just read their website. (and there's lots of other breakthroughs that aren't even hard science -- technology to perform better science, etc.)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It sounds a lot like Triana to me, except for a somewhat different view.