I've done some reverse-engineering of multi-media data formats (including some very obscure formats), and it can be quite frustrating.
I wouldn't mind a poorly scanned data format document put into a PDF that you could plow thorugh and then have access to some of the raw data files as well. I've seen some spectacular results for some enhanced processing of the Venera missions to Venus, where about 10%-20% of some of the images that were presumed to be corrupted data revealed some usable data. That is the kind of thing I would love to see "open sourced" when clearly NASA doesn't have the manpower to devote to these kind of efforts.
Unfortunately, some of the data files were analog on those older probes, and recorded on either audio or video tape machines with unusual standards even for those kind of recording machines. That kind of data processing could use some real help, but it would take a professional archivist with years of experience to be able to extract the data effectively.
Some of the best tasting pizzas that I've ever eaten were vegatarian. One in particular that comes to mind was a broccoli, carrot, and onion pizza on primavera sauce, but otherwise baked like a regular pizza.
Mainly this is an issue of false advertising. I may have even continued to patronize that restaurant had the management simply been honest with me, just as you've noted.
In defense of NASA, a great many of those photos have been released... at least for current space probes. A great deal of what you are complaining about here has to do with the distribution of those images and not necessarily a secret conspiracy by NASA to withhold these images from the public.
All it takes is a little more digging to find those images you want.
What is frustrating is for photographs that weren't originally digital imagery, where often a rather lousy job of digitizing the media took place that may have been good by computer standards of 20 years ago, but look awful today in comparison.
Another problem, at least for some of the very early NASA probes, is that the file formats were often created explicitly for that mission alone and are completely incompatible with modern graphical file formats. If the data was preserved properly AND somebody bothered to write a good conversion utility that didn't lose too much information in the process, you might have some good photographs. But that is a huge if. I've seen some people with real expertise in media formats be able to clean up some of these early photos with enhanced image processing techniques that turned out better than what the originally publicity photos of the era looked like. That still takes somebody with the patience to pound out those images, however.
My father worked as a photographer for a NASA (& DOD) contractor and had access to a rather large set of high resolution photos that came from space as well. One of them was a high resolution image of the whole Earth taken at the Equator that shows nearly the entire western hemisphere. I think it was likely a weather satellite photo, but the resolution is simply outstanding as it is an actual photograph.
This photo, BTW, is now above my son's bed and has become a family heirloom.
My only regret was that I didn't get any more of those images, but in defense of my father a great many of those images were classified secret or top secret. I'm amazed what he brought out of that place and showed me as it was.
MPEG-4 is hardly the outstanding standard as you claim it to be. Certainly there have been some slightly improved compression standards, but it came at a cost too.... and some pretty tough lossy compression that doesn't always work as well.
To me, the killer problem with MPEG-4 is the licensing issues where trying to implement anything using that standard (including distributing content!) is covered under so many patents and licensing loopholes that you need a full-time legal team just to make sure you haven't screwed up. For this reason alone, I would strongly discourage anybody from using MPEG-4 except for something of an application that either explicitly requires the standard (by customer specification where you've talked them out of it and they refuse to budge) or for some internal application that can take advantage of the standards.
I would urge any open source project even thinking about MPEG-4 to treat the spec document like some sort of radioactive material and to stay completely away from it at all cost! It isn't worth your time to even investigate. MPEG-1 has at least had almost all of the patents expire due to its age, and MPEG-2 is getting up there in age that it won't be the end of the world either.
I did have a local pizza place sell me some "ham & pineapple" pizza using crushed pineapple and TVP. I even confronted the manager about it, and the idiot claimed that they ran the ham through a meat grinder before putting it on the pizza.
So much for trying to support a small-town non-chain business operated by one of my neighbors. I ordered the next pizza from Pizza hut, and at least they delivered with some real Canadian Bacon.
As far as the HD channels are concerned and their bandwidth, I hope this doesn't turn into the digital equivalent of the shrinking toilet paper rolls.... where those manufacturers keep making gradually smaller and smaller rolls with less paper (but selling it at the same price), only to come out with a "double roll" at a higher price that had the same amount of paper as the rolls you bought about two years ago.
Mark my words.... these cable companies are going to start a promo (at of course a higher plan rate) that offers "enhanced resolution" of these channels for an improved picture that was just like you experienced when you first signed up for HD channels.
Since I don't have any mod points right now, I'm going to give you kudos by giving you a reply.
This was a well thought out and articulate response about skeptics of this whole thing.
I tend to take a pragmatic approach to the whole thing of UFO research. There may be something there, but I really can't do anything about it even if it were there. Of course I can't do anything personally about the North Korean nuclear program and supposed threats by that country to smuggle those weapons into terrorist "hot spots" in an attempt to destabilize America.
All I can do is to assume my government knows what it is doing and has a good bead on the issue.... and hopefully we can put some honest men into positions of political, military, and diplomatic leadership to be able to confront these issues in a sane manner without getting either myself or my children killed. Mistakes do happen (Iraq, Vietnam) and sometimes these leaders are simply awful enough that they do indeed need to be replaced. Hopefully there are enough checks on these leaders to keep them from getting out of hand.
Assuming for a moment that sentient beings from another world or planet have visited the Earth and are in communication with at least one or more governments on this planet, as a citizen I would like to know this information. I do believe that we as a people could handle this sort of information, and it wouldn't lead to widespread panic and desperation. Knowledge is power, and an informed public is much more likely to provide answers on how to confront and cope with these beings than by keeping them ignorant. We aren't the "babes" as some try to point out, even though perhaps we might be like some teen-agers in terms of our relationship to other spacefaring races.
Mankind is "moving out there" and will soon occupy much of this Solar System. Private ventures are making it possible for mere mortals like you and I to get into space and see some of these things for ourselves. Yeah, that may take a couple of centuries or more, but that is just a short hic-up in even the history of our species. If there is a reason... a strong reason... for us to remain here on our little planet and pretend we are a "stone age" race, I'd like our government to let us know!
I, for one, am extremely skeptical of UFO activity, and highly doubt that it is happening. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that perhaps it could be happening, but I also demand powerful and convincing proof of it in order for me to believe this stuff. I'll also say that most "UFOlogists" (those that "study" UFO activity) usually have their science knowledge well off the mark... often tainted by psuedosciences that have nothing at all to do with a pragmatic study of "aliens".
**IF**, and this is a huge if, we actually encounter "alien" lifeforms... I think it is going to be mankind as the invading and anal-probing idiots who visit other planets and make crop-circles in primitive culture's grain fields.
As funny as it sounds, the IP-over Avian RFPs actually give some interesting insight into the IPN in terms of significant ping times and packet loss.
While the RFCs about avian packet carriers were largely tongue-in-cheek jokes, some of the concepts really did play a role in developing these new practical standards for very long range communications. At the very least, by thinking in terms of avian packet carriers, it is certainly the kind of "out of the box" thinking that allows you to try and pare down the root issues involved with this sort of communication.
What is more concerning is the actual implementation of avian packets.
I think that an astronaut might really appreciate a good reliable interplanetary data network far more than a good heat shield.
Currently, the "Deep Space Network" that has been the communication system for dealing with space-based communications requires "tasking" parts of the network for each mission that is "out there" working.
One of the problems with the Viking spacecraft and currently the Voyager spacecraft was that it required paying salaries of individuals to orient the ground-based equipment receiving these signals on the Earth, not to mention that while the parabolic communications dishes were used for those missions they couldn't be used for other projects. These space probes are still "working" so far as they are still transmitting data, but the ground receivers are being used for other missions that are deemed to be of much higher priority.
Assuming that this system was to be used into the future when there are thousands of people in space all trying to send communications to the Earth, this astronaut crew "on the meteor" (meaning a rock small enough not to even be considered an asteroid) would have to wait for a communications channel to be open just to be able to send a message to "mission control"... with incidents like "Houston, we've got a problem" of Apollo 13 being missed because they can't even be heard.
Some substantial improvement in communications standards is certainly needed in situations like this, and the IPN is one way to make communications standards that can adapt to new situations in the future.... not to mention the ability to continue longer-term interplanetary missions if they keep returning data, like the Spirit and Opportunity vehicles on Mars right now.
Or put the technology in Earth cars and pass data around between vehicles moving around. Send traffic conditions back to the cars behind you, via both the cars behind you and the cars going the other way.
This already exists on the Earth. A simple 802.11 wireless router can easily transmit this sort of information between cars and send traffic conditions up and down the highway. All that would be needed to finish the idea is a good application data protocol to identify what information you want to share, and how to protect privacy of individual vehicles that don't want to be broadcasting that they are speeding or "breaking the law" in a manner that today normally wouldn't be prosecuted or even monitored by law enforcement agencies without this technology.
What is under discussion here is the underlying communication protocol, which is a couple of layers down in the protocol stack. Another vehicle on the freeway... or for that matter anywhere on any freeway on the Earth... would still have a communications latency of well less than 1 second. Working with space-based communication where "ping" times of minutes or hours happen changes the whole picture and why this really is a whole different kind of communications issue.
From what I've read, Mars is in fact the target for the first implementation of this new communication standard. Basically, there is going to be soon so much hardware from so many different countries on Mars that frequency bandwidth is starting to be a significant issue. Assuming that this is a trend of things to come and not a momentary fluke of current planetary exploration at the moment, it is quite reasonable to presume that interplanetary communication between the Earth and Mars is only going to become more complex and require more bandwidth in the future.
The days when a solitary spacecraft are the only human artifact transmitting from the major planetary bodies in the Solar System are numbered and may be a historical footnote in the near future. That certainly is the case on Mars at the moment, with another batch of spacecraft already on their way to Mars even as we speak.
If people ever get to Mars, expect this to only get much worse in terms of bandwidth needs.
What about fiat money that isn't backed by any government at all?
I'm referring to the Iraqi Dinar that had a picture of Saddam Hussein, and is still currently in use in Iraq even today.
What surprised a bunch of economists with that money was that mild deflation occurred in the Iraqi economy after the 2003 Iraqi-USA war. Of course one of the interesting things was that the "presses" that made the money were no longer operating, so the overall money supply wasn't expanding and gave surprising stability to that currency. Attempts to introduce a new currency in Iraq were in fact not very well received.
Yeah, I know this is an historical exception, but it is an interesting reaction when the government that issues the currency collapses, and what the real value a fiat currency actually has. Money in any form is really whatever those who have it think it may be worth, including those who may want to exchange it for other stuff.
Virtual currencies in on-line games is another example of fiat currency that surprisingly isn't even issued by governments at all, yet can carry real-world exchange rates and be used to purchase real-world items. I could go on with this point, but what I'm trying to suggest is that money is a much deeper abstract concept that a great many people don't really appreciate.
Interstate highways are technically a military invention, where at least in theory armies can be moved across North America rapidly and efficiently... with limited access to the highways allowing civilian traffic to be cut off in cases of national emergencies.
Yeah, I know it is a stretch, and military applications for interstate highways is not what citizens are paying for with federal highway taxes, but that is one of the rationales for its constitutionality.
Aviation and the interstate highways also fall under the jurisdiction of the "Interstate Commerce Clause" of the constitution, where Congress has the authority to "regulate" trade between the various states. This is also why criminal investigations can become a federal matter when you cross a state line, as you are "interfering with interstate commerce". The FAA exists specifically for regulating aircraft that are licensed for use in multiple states. On a practical level, the FAA does regulate anything that goes up because it may cross state boundaries.
Each law as it is proposed in Congress usually does include at least some sort of lip service as to what authority Congress has constitutionally to pass that law. I will admit, however, that some clauses of the constitution have been interpreted so loosely that nearly any sort of governmental power could be assumed from that clause.
This is an interesting thought here. I know that heavy metal spectral lines are a common tool used to determine "age" of stellar populations, particularly when trying to calculate the age of the "parent" material found in open stellar clusters and globular clusters.
Simply put, you tend to find quite a few more O & B class stars in clusters that have more heavy metal elements in its spectrum as opposed to those that don't, although you are correct that the galaxies with large numbers of O & B stars tend to have high red-shift values... hence are considered quite distant.
I'm sure there must be a study somewhere that goes into the theoretical details about metallic production in the universe. The question that is being asked, I guess, is how long did it take to develop stellar nurseries with sufficient quantities of dense materials necessary for wide spread formation of terrestrial-like planets?
The problem that is faced by astronomers trying to develop theories about this issue is that the number of objects that fit the definition of a terrestrial planet that have been studied is appallingly low, and can only realistically be found around a single star: good ol' Sol.
Stellar systems like the one of the main article on this thread give a hint there may be a great many terrestrial planets to study, but at the moment only planets that are several times as massive as the Earth can readily be detected at all... and unfortunately only around smaller stars as well as larger stars wouldn't shift nearly so much in comparison to the mass of the planets involved.
What we don't know about the planet that is the main topic of conversation here is what the density of this planet is. It could be nearly the same as the Earth, where it would have a marginally larger "surface" gravity and everything related to that, or have the density of Saturn and be a rather smallish gas giant. Without this knowledge, the rest is really speculation.
Shy of sending out interstellar robotic space probes or building telescopes that dwarf the Hubble telescope by a couple orders of magnitude, I don't see any realistic studies of this nature happening either, at least any time soon. What I do know is that when reality smacks its face into scientific theories, it is often the theories that get modified and not reality.
As far as tectonics of Venus are concerned, it remains to be seen. There have been some interesting radar maps of the surface of Venus, but very little in terms of direct samples or for that matter really even much direct data compared even compared to Mars. Venus is a tough place to try and monitor in terms of getting there.
There certainly are some volcanoes on Venus, both shield and conic ones, not to mention some really weird formations unique to Venus called "arachnoids" due to their appearance from above looking like some huge kind of spider or "bug-like" formation.
How "dead" Venus may or may not be is certainly something that can be debated, and I wouldn't rule it out with the relatively scanty information we really have about it. People thought Mount St. Helens was "dead" for a great many years... until it suddenly "decided to erupt" and reclassified the whole Cascade region from "dormant" or even "extinct" to "active". That isn't exactly a comforting thought for those living near Mount Ranier.
One huge issue that needs to be considered for terrestrial planets is that they need to have been formed from several generations of supernovas that created the "rocky" minerals which created our planet.
Such metallic elements (especially Nickel and Iron) simply take time to create and be in sufficient quantities that when stellar formation occurs a rocky planet could be formed.
It could be argued that the Earth is a part of the 1st generation of terrestrial-like planets simply due to its age relative to that of the Universe as a whole. Give or take a few billion years, if the Sun had formed a bit earlier the Earth simply wouldn't have existed because there wouldn't have been materials to create a planet like the Earth.
Basically a Red Dwarf star that formed from the original first generation of stars that were metal poor simply wouldn't have a rocky planet.
Still, a billion or two years older may be an option for a planet like this. A whole order of magnitude older? Doubtful.
Yeah, I know that a billion years of civilized sentient society would be huge, but that is a blink of an eye for the age of the Universe.
Who is an idiot or delusional? For such a bold statement to be made about me, I hope that you know me, which you don't.
I'm pointing out that the average person has far more power and energy at their disposal than at any other era in the entire history of humanity, and indeed the last 15 to 20 years have been remarkable for a substantial fraction of the world's population "catching up" to standards long enjoyed in Europe and North America.
I will boldly assert that I have direct access to far more energy than my parents have ever even dreamed about having, and indeed earning relatively speaking compared to what they did indexed for inflation far less effort.
Energy is cheap and plentiful. General access to large amounts of energy to do amazing things like redirect water from Southern California to the Colombia River basin of Washington state (why that is done is another story) is an amazing tale, and but one demonstration of modern civilization and how much cheap energy we really have.
I think it is you who lacks an understanding of history and is doomed to repeat it.
Assuming that the density is a little bit less than the Earth (more like the Moon or Mars) and this "Super Earth" is thus larger by a sizable fraction..... what is the geological environment of a planet such as this like?
Since the interior heat of this planet has less surface area in proportion to its volume, internal heat from its formation and nuclear decay from heavy elements (like Uranium) would therefore cause a much larger interior heat sink... and causing substantially more techtonic activity and a great many more volcanoes.
Using Mars as a comparator here as well, Mars is smaller than the Earth, and geologically dead, with fewer but much larger volcanoes. Is it reasonable to assume this planet... if it had a rocky "surface", would literally be littered with smaller volcanoes over nearly all of its surface with much smaller "continents"?
Assume that the age of this planet is roughly similar to that of the Earth and that heavy metals (heavier than Iron) in its formation are roughly proportional to what we find on the Earth.
I just don't find that this would be all that pleasant of a place to be at, and the nearly constant volcanism would IMHO kill off nearly any attempt to colonize this planet with life.
It certainly would be a weird planet to look at though.
Unfortunately, and I've seen this so many times even in private industry it makes me want to scream, those who order these kind of changes often don't realize the expense that goes into them.
In an ideal world such accounting issues would be brought forward, but often logic seems to fall apart on some of the most stupid of issues.
I don't think that this ought to result in a court martial or other such nonsense for the officers involved, but it is an unfortunate waste. I've seen worse waste of government spending even on a municipal level, so when I see something like this on a federal level I think: "Wow, somebody is paying attention here!" instead of "isn't this a shame!"
For a federal project, this is small potatoes and essentially something to ignore for the most part. If you want to stop wasteful federal spending, there are many much bigger fish to fry than a few Air Force generals trying to make their life more comfortable when commanding their officers.
OK, explain to me how "reality" works if this isn't how "the system" really works?
The President simply doesn't have the authority to order the Pentagon to build a new ship or airplane on his own. He needs approval from Congress, and the funding that comes with it.
Perhaps I'm viewing this issue a little bit differently.
I live in the American West, where large tracts of undeveloped land has been an article of faith for generations, and that you could (once upon a time) purchase land for on the order of $100 per acre or even much less. Yeah, it was unproductive and essentially worthless, not to mention almost impossible to even live upon, but it was available.
Unfortunately I don't see much of that kind of land any more out here. Huge subdivisions are springing up in the desert where only sagebrush and a few free-range cattle hung out before. An argument about how to provide resources and water to all of those thousands and millions of people moving out to the desert is legitimate, but simply put I can't find that sort of cheap land any more. And this has happened within my lifetime where when I was a kid I could buy the cheap land.
As for Antarctica, the only reason why people aren't moving there and drilling for oil, mining coal, or doing other activities there has to do with international politics and nothing at all to do with its habitability. If this is your "proof" that humanity will never inhabit the Moon, Mars, or the Asteroids, you will discover that your "proof" will soon evaporate.
As for the Australian Outback.... count your blessings while you can. Australia is seriously underpopulated compared to a great many countries that surround it, and many of them do look upon the Outback as something worth trying to get ahold of just for expanding into. World War II should have taught that lesson to Australians.
Responses like this are counter-productive to space advocacy. There is no reason why humanity simply must expand off this planet, as it appears as though human population growth is leveling off.
European populations are shrinking in size, and America's only population growth at the moment comes from immigration. The U.S. Census Bureau anticipates that in the next 20 years or so this trend will continue where even immigration won't be able to offset the population decline in America. China's population has also dramatically been slowing down on its population growth, where it won't even be the largest country in the world in the next few years (to be passed by India). There is strong reason to believe that China may even be having a shrinking population in the next century.
Finite resources is an issue, but not a huge one. With a stable population and affluence, it seems reasonable that most resources can be self-sustaining through recycling efforts and intelligent planning. That, IMHO, is the future of the Earth.... regardless of what else happens to humanity off this little rock in space. Landfills will become the mines of the future, where buried materials will suddenly become quite valuable.
I do agree with the general philosophy that mankind should or ought to head into space, tap into nearly limitless resources of our Solar System, and expand our influence. But being forced off this planet due to population pressures isn't one of those reasons why it would happen.
Primate curiosity is one of the things that has and will continue to inspire us to get off of this planet, and I hope that opportunity will be expanded to include a great many others than have been given that rare privilege so far. Knowledge of science, art, and technology will vastly expand if for no other reason than people will be trying to apply knowledge to new environments and will have to adapt in new and wonderful ways. It is easy to "think outside of the box" when the box isn't even there to begin with.
Our life today in modern 21st Century society is already so impacted by efforts in space that it is seemingly impossible to separate out the items and even political issues that have resulted from that impact. We wouldn't even know about global warming if it wasn't for global coverage of weather satellites and telecommunication systems that can link information about the environment together.
The travel time in weeks and months was more an issue of the era of sail ships. That was mostly 19th Century and earlier. It should be noted that travel between America and Europe wasn't considered that big of a deal even with much of the ordinary working poor who were willing to make that sort of crossing in sub-standard conditions, and millions of people made that crossing well before the era of steamships.
Even so, having the Queen Mary make a crossing in three days was a remarkable achievement. You can now make that crossing in a matter of a few hours at a price even cheaper than 3rd Class steerage rates on the Queen Mary (accounting for inflation).
The general notion is something that holds true, even if the progress made in terms of transportation is a bit slower than is suggested by the parent poster.
Don't confuse interstellar and interplanetary travel. They are two completely different issues, and I will admit that interstellar travel is something that is so far out there that the method of travel is something certainly of Science Fiction. It is also something I don't think will happen in the next couple of millenia other than some robotic missions to only the very closest of stars. Manned exploration of nearby stars is akin to suggesting a 17th Century sailor is going to make it to Mars somehow. The very technology to accomplish that task is seemingly impossible, and effectively will need a deeper understand of basic physics if we are to make it there in a reasonable period of time.
Interplanetary travel, on the other hand, doesn't require any new physics or understanding of our universe. All it requires is a refinement of existing technologies and the will (as well as cash) necessary to get there, and how much luxury you will enjoy enroute or once you arrive at your destination.
In theory, you can travel from the Earth to Mars in about 2-4 weeks. Current technology is available to travel for months at a time in relative comfort, and there have been "spacecraft" (if you count MIR and the ISS) which have been operating for decades. I'd even be bold enough to suggest that the technology has even been proven now, so it is mainly a matter of applying current knowledge to the issue, not even necessarily coming up with new propulsion systems or manufacturing facilities in order to accomplish this task.
All that is needed is cash and desire, and a few politicans to get out of the way.
There is cheap energy to be had easily. Why do you think that you can go to a nearby airport and purchase a ticket to fly anywhere in the globe for about 1 months of a working persons wage (in the USA) and end up literally anywhere on the surface of this planet in less than a day. OK, maybe a couple months wage, but it is easily within the budget range of an ordinary person if they have the desire for it.
BTW, Energy prices didn't go up an order of magnitude. Only one particular source of energy that is being controlled and manipulated for political purposes. Other energy sources are in fact becoming much more affordable and in fact is one of the things causing the current plunge in the price of oil, as demand has significantly slacked off as people are changing their energy consumption habits. Or are you paying attention to current events?
So yeah, I also consider your assertion to be tripe. There isn't a need for new energy sources to be discovered in order to make quick and routine access to Mars possible. Indeed, even using current conventional chemical rocketry, travel between the Earth and Mars will take less time and be far less hazardous than a crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean was in the 17th Century.
The real issue that is holding up any major human exploration of space and colonization of Mars is getting cheap and reliable access to low-earth orbit... the altitude of the Space Shuttle and the ISS.
As for actual folding cash behind getting that option going and running.... well, I'm waiting for the IPO of SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Armadillo Aerospace. There are a few other companies out there, several of which are working for this specific goal. And I am buying trinkets from these companies (hats, t-shirts) which is the only way you can invest in this stuff right now unless you are a multi-millionaire.
Given the opportunity, I would love to go up on a Zero-G flight.... and that is something which you can put some cash on the table, head to Las Vegas, and enjoy right now for a relatively inexpensive price.
Yeah, I'll take your money in a Vegas style bet as well if you want to put a 50 year horizon... heck 20 year horizon on when cheap and reliable transportation to several destinations in the Solar System will happen. Name the bookie and I'll get with you!
Slashdot Mirror
I've done some reverse-engineering of multi-media data formats (including some very obscure formats), and it can be quite frustrating.
I wouldn't mind a poorly scanned data format document put into a PDF that you could plow thorugh and then have access to some of the raw data files as well. I've seen some spectacular results for some enhanced processing of the Venera missions to Venus, where about 10%-20% of some of the images that were presumed to be corrupted data revealed some usable data. That is the kind of thing I would love to see "open sourced" when clearly NASA doesn't have the manpower to devote to these kind of efforts.
Unfortunately, some of the data files were analog on those older probes, and recorded on either audio or video tape machines with unusual standards even for those kind of recording machines. That kind of data processing could use some real help, but it would take a professional archivist with years of experience to be able to extract the data effectively.
Some of the best tasting pizzas that I've ever eaten were vegatarian. One in particular that comes to mind was a broccoli, carrot, and onion pizza on primavera sauce, but otherwise baked like a regular pizza.
Mainly this is an issue of false advertising. I may have even continued to patronize that restaurant had the management simply been honest with me, just as you've noted.
In defense of NASA, a great many of those photos have been released... at least for current space probes. A great deal of what you are complaining about here has to do with the distribution of those images and not necessarily a secret conspiracy by NASA to withhold these images from the public.
All it takes is a little more digging to find those images you want.
What is frustrating is for photographs that weren't originally digital imagery, where often a rather lousy job of digitizing the media took place that may have been good by computer standards of 20 years ago, but look awful today in comparison.
Another problem, at least for some of the very early NASA probes, is that the file formats were often created explicitly for that mission alone and are completely incompatible with modern graphical file formats. If the data was preserved properly AND somebody bothered to write a good conversion utility that didn't lose too much information in the process, you might have some good photographs. But that is a huge if. I've seen some people with real expertise in media formats be able to clean up some of these early photos with enhanced image processing techniques that turned out better than what the originally publicity photos of the era looked like. That still takes somebody with the patience to pound out those images, however.
My father worked as a photographer for a NASA (& DOD) contractor and had access to a rather large set of high resolution photos that came from space as well. One of them was a high resolution image of the whole Earth taken at the Equator that shows nearly the entire western hemisphere. I think it was likely a weather satellite photo, but the resolution is simply outstanding as it is an actual photograph.
This photo, BTW, is now above my son's bed and has become a family heirloom.
My only regret was that I didn't get any more of those images, but in defense of my father a great many of those images were classified secret or top secret. I'm amazed what he brought out of that place and showed me as it was.
MPEG-4 is hardly the outstanding standard as you claim it to be. Certainly there have been some slightly improved compression standards, but it came at a cost too.... and some pretty tough lossy compression that doesn't always work as well.
To me, the killer problem with MPEG-4 is the licensing issues where trying to implement anything using that standard (including distributing content!) is covered under so many patents and licensing loopholes that you need a full-time legal team just to make sure you haven't screwed up. For this reason alone, I would strongly discourage anybody from using MPEG-4 except for something of an application that either explicitly requires the standard (by customer specification where you've talked them out of it and they refuse to budge) or for some internal application that can take advantage of the standards.
I would urge any open source project even thinking about MPEG-4 to treat the spec document like some sort of radioactive material and to stay completely away from it at all cost! It isn't worth your time to even investigate. MPEG-1 has at least had almost all of the patents expire due to its age, and MPEG-2 is getting up there in age that it won't be the end of the world either.
I did have a local pizza place sell me some "ham & pineapple" pizza using crushed pineapple and TVP. I even confronted the manager about it, and the idiot claimed that they ran the ham through a meat grinder before putting it on the pizza.
So much for trying to support a small-town non-chain business operated by one of my neighbors. I ordered the next pizza from Pizza hut, and at least they delivered with some real Canadian Bacon.
As far as the HD channels are concerned and their bandwidth, I hope this doesn't turn into the digital equivalent of the shrinking toilet paper rolls.... where those manufacturers keep making gradually smaller and smaller rolls with less paper (but selling it at the same price), only to come out with a "double roll" at a higher price that had the same amount of paper as the rolls you bought about two years ago.
Mark my words.... these cable companies are going to start a promo (at of course a higher plan rate) that offers "enhanced resolution" of these channels for an improved picture that was just like you experienced when you first signed up for HD channels.
Since I don't have any mod points right now, I'm going to give you kudos by giving you a reply.
This was a well thought out and articulate response about skeptics of this whole thing.
I tend to take a pragmatic approach to the whole thing of UFO research. There may be something there, but I really can't do anything about it even if it were there. Of course I can't do anything personally about the North Korean nuclear program and supposed threats by that country to smuggle those weapons into terrorist "hot spots" in an attempt to destabilize America.
All I can do is to assume my government knows what it is doing and has a good bead on the issue.... and hopefully we can put some honest men into positions of political, military, and diplomatic leadership to be able to confront these issues in a sane manner without getting either myself or my children killed. Mistakes do happen (Iraq, Vietnam) and sometimes these leaders are simply awful enough that they do indeed need to be replaced. Hopefully there are enough checks on these leaders to keep them from getting out of hand.
Assuming for a moment that sentient beings from another world or planet have visited the Earth and are in communication with at least one or more governments on this planet, as a citizen I would like to know this information. I do believe that we as a people could handle this sort of information, and it wouldn't lead to widespread panic and desperation. Knowledge is power, and an informed public is much more likely to provide answers on how to confront and cope with these beings than by keeping them ignorant. We aren't the "babes" as some try to point out, even though perhaps we might be like some teen-agers in terms of our relationship to other spacefaring races.
Mankind is "moving out there" and will soon occupy much of this Solar System. Private ventures are making it possible for mere mortals like you and I to get into space and see some of these things for ourselves. Yeah, that may take a couple of centuries or more, but that is just a short hic-up in even the history of our species. If there is a reason... a strong reason... for us to remain here on our little planet and pretend we are a "stone age" race, I'd like our government to let us know!
I, for one, am extremely skeptical of UFO activity, and highly doubt that it is happening. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that perhaps it could be happening, but I also demand powerful and convincing proof of it in order for me to believe this stuff. I'll also say that most "UFOlogists" (those that "study" UFO activity) usually have their science knowledge well off the mark... often tainted by psuedosciences that have nothing at all to do with a pragmatic study of "aliens".
**IF**, and this is a huge if, we actually encounter "alien" lifeforms... I think it is going to be mankind as the invading and anal-probing idiots who visit other planets and make crop-circles in primitive culture's grain fields.
As funny as it sounds, the IP-over Avian RFPs actually give some interesting insight into the IPN in terms of significant ping times and packet loss.
While the RFCs about avian packet carriers were largely tongue-in-cheek jokes, some of the concepts really did play a role in developing these new practical standards for very long range communications. At the very least, by thinking in terms of avian packet carriers, it is certainly the kind of "out of the box" thinking that allows you to try and pare down the root issues involved with this sort of communication.
What is more concerning is the actual implementation of avian packets.
I think that an astronaut might really appreciate a good reliable interplanetary data network far more than a good heat shield.
Currently, the "Deep Space Network" that has been the communication system for dealing with space-based communications requires "tasking" parts of the network for each mission that is "out there" working.
One of the problems with the Viking spacecraft and currently the Voyager spacecraft was that it required paying salaries of individuals to orient the ground-based equipment receiving these signals on the Earth, not to mention that while the parabolic communications dishes were used for those missions they couldn't be used for other projects. These space probes are still "working" so far as they are still transmitting data, but the ground receivers are being used for other missions that are deemed to be of much higher priority.
Assuming that this system was to be used into the future when there are thousands of people in space all trying to send communications to the Earth, this astronaut crew "on the meteor" (meaning a rock small enough not to even be considered an asteroid) would have to wait for a communications channel to be open just to be able to send a message to "mission control"... with incidents like "Houston, we've got a problem" of Apollo 13 being missed because they can't even be heard.
Some substantial improvement in communications standards is certainly needed in situations like this, and the IPN is one way to make communications standards that can adapt to new situations in the future.... not to mention the ability to continue longer-term interplanetary missions if they keep returning data, like the Spirit and Opportunity vehicles on Mars right now.
This already exists on the Earth. A simple 802.11 wireless router can easily transmit this sort of information between cars and send traffic conditions up and down the highway. All that would be needed to finish the idea is a good application data protocol to identify what information you want to share, and how to protect privacy of individual vehicles that don't want to be broadcasting that they are speeding or "breaking the law" in a manner that today normally wouldn't be prosecuted or even monitored by law enforcement agencies without this technology.
What is under discussion here is the underlying communication protocol, which is a couple of layers down in the protocol stack. Another vehicle on the freeway... or for that matter anywhere on any freeway on the Earth... would still have a communications latency of well less than 1 second. Working with space-based communication where "ping" times of minutes or hours happen changes the whole picture and why this really is a whole different kind of communications issue.
From what I've read, Mars is in fact the target for the first implementation of this new communication standard. Basically, there is going to be soon so much hardware from so many different countries on Mars that frequency bandwidth is starting to be a significant issue. Assuming that this is a trend of things to come and not a momentary fluke of current planetary exploration at the moment, it is quite reasonable to presume that interplanetary communication between the Earth and Mars is only going to become more complex and require more bandwidth in the future.
The days when a solitary spacecraft are the only human artifact transmitting from the major planetary bodies in the Solar System are numbered and may be a historical footnote in the near future. That certainly is the case on Mars at the moment, with another batch of spacecraft already on their way to Mars even as we speak.
If people ever get to Mars, expect this to only get much worse in terms of bandwidth needs.
What about fiat money that isn't backed by any government at all?
I'm referring to the Iraqi Dinar that had a picture of Saddam Hussein, and is still currently in use in Iraq even today.
What surprised a bunch of economists with that money was that mild deflation occurred in the Iraqi economy after the 2003 Iraqi-USA war. Of course one of the interesting things was that the "presses" that made the money were no longer operating, so the overall money supply wasn't expanding and gave surprising stability to that currency. Attempts to introduce a new currency in Iraq were in fact not very well received.
Yeah, I know this is an historical exception, but it is an interesting reaction when the government that issues the currency collapses, and what the real value a fiat currency actually has. Money in any form is really whatever those who have it think it may be worth, including those who may want to exchange it for other stuff.
Virtual currencies in on-line games is another example of fiat currency that surprisingly isn't even issued by governments at all, yet can carry real-world exchange rates and be used to purchase real-world items. I could go on with this point, but what I'm trying to suggest is that money is a much deeper abstract concept that a great many people don't really appreciate.
Interstate highways are technically a military invention, where at least in theory armies can be moved across North America rapidly and efficiently... with limited access to the highways allowing civilian traffic to be cut off in cases of national emergencies.
Yeah, I know it is a stretch, and military applications for interstate highways is not what citizens are paying for with federal highway taxes, but that is one of the rationales for its constitutionality.
Aviation and the interstate highways also fall under the jurisdiction of the "Interstate Commerce Clause" of the constitution, where Congress has the authority to "regulate" trade between the various states. This is also why criminal investigations can become a federal matter when you cross a state line, as you are "interfering with interstate commerce". The FAA exists specifically for regulating aircraft that are licensed for use in multiple states. On a practical level, the FAA does regulate anything that goes up because it may cross state boundaries.
Each law as it is proposed in Congress usually does include at least some sort of lip service as to what authority Congress has constitutionally to pass that law. I will admit, however, that some clauses of the constitution have been interpreted so loosely that nearly any sort of governmental power could be assumed from that clause.
This is an interesting thought here. I know that heavy metal spectral lines are a common tool used to determine "age" of stellar populations, particularly when trying to calculate the age of the "parent" material found in open stellar clusters and globular clusters.
Simply put, you tend to find quite a few more O & B class stars in clusters that have more heavy metal elements in its spectrum as opposed to those that don't, although you are correct that the galaxies with large numbers of O & B stars tend to have high red-shift values... hence are considered quite distant.
I'm sure there must be a study somewhere that goes into the theoretical details about metallic production in the universe. The question that is being asked, I guess, is how long did it take to develop stellar nurseries with sufficient quantities of dense materials necessary for wide spread formation of terrestrial-like planets?
The problem that is faced by astronomers trying to develop theories about this issue is that the number of objects that fit the definition of a terrestrial planet that have been studied is appallingly low, and can only realistically be found around a single star: good ol' Sol.
Stellar systems like the one of the main article on this thread give a hint there may be a great many terrestrial planets to study, but at the moment only planets that are several times as massive as the Earth can readily be detected at all... and unfortunately only around smaller stars as well as larger stars wouldn't shift nearly so much in comparison to the mass of the planets involved.
What we don't know about the planet that is the main topic of conversation here is what the density of this planet is. It could be nearly the same as the Earth, where it would have a marginally larger "surface" gravity and everything related to that, or have the density of Saturn and be a rather smallish gas giant. Without this knowledge, the rest is really speculation.
Shy of sending out interstellar robotic space probes or building telescopes that dwarf the Hubble telescope by a couple orders of magnitude, I don't see any realistic studies of this nature happening either, at least any time soon. What I do know is that when reality smacks its face into scientific theories, it is often the theories that get modified and not reality.
As far as tectonics of Venus are concerned, it remains to be seen. There have been some interesting radar maps of the surface of Venus, but very little in terms of direct samples or for that matter really even much direct data compared even compared to Mars. Venus is a tough place to try and monitor in terms of getting there.
There certainly are some volcanoes on Venus, both shield and conic ones, not to mention some really weird formations unique to Venus called "arachnoids" due to their appearance from above looking like some huge kind of spider or "bug-like" formation.
How "dead" Venus may or may not be is certainly something that can be debated, and I wouldn't rule it out with the relatively scanty information we really have about it. People thought Mount St. Helens was "dead" for a great many years... until it suddenly "decided to erupt" and reclassified the whole Cascade region from "dormant" or even "extinct" to "active". That isn't exactly a comforting thought for those living near Mount Ranier.
One huge issue that needs to be considered for terrestrial planets is that they need to have been formed from several generations of supernovas that created the "rocky" minerals which created our planet.
Such metallic elements (especially Nickel and Iron) simply take time to create and be in sufficient quantities that when stellar formation occurs a rocky planet could be formed.
It could be argued that the Earth is a part of the 1st generation of terrestrial-like planets simply due to its age relative to that of the Universe as a whole. Give or take a few billion years, if the Sun had formed a bit earlier the Earth simply wouldn't have existed because there wouldn't have been materials to create a planet like the Earth.
Basically a Red Dwarf star that formed from the original first generation of stars that were metal poor simply wouldn't have a rocky planet.
Still, a billion or two years older may be an option for a planet like this. A whole order of magnitude older? Doubtful.
Yeah, I know that a billion years of civilized sentient society would be huge, but that is a blink of an eye for the age of the Universe.
Who is an idiot or delusional? For such a bold statement to be made about me, I hope that you know me, which you don't.
I'm pointing out that the average person has far more power and energy at their disposal than at any other era in the entire history of humanity, and indeed the last 15 to 20 years have been remarkable for a substantial fraction of the world's population "catching up" to standards long enjoyed in Europe and North America.
I will boldly assert that I have direct access to far more energy than my parents have ever even dreamed about having, and indeed earning relatively speaking compared to what they did indexed for inflation far less effort.
Energy is cheap and plentiful. General access to large amounts of energy to do amazing things like redirect water from Southern California to the Colombia River basin of Washington state (why that is done is another story) is an amazing tale, and but one demonstration of modern civilization and how much cheap energy we really have.
I think it is you who lacks an understanding of history and is doomed to repeat it.
Assuming that the density is a little bit less than the Earth (more like the Moon or Mars) and this "Super Earth" is thus larger by a sizable fraction..... what is the geological environment of a planet such as this like?
Since the interior heat of this planet has less surface area in proportion to its volume, internal heat from its formation and nuclear decay from heavy elements (like Uranium) would therefore cause a much larger interior heat sink... and causing substantially more techtonic activity and a great many more volcanoes.
Using Mars as a comparator here as well, Mars is smaller than the Earth, and geologically dead, with fewer but much larger volcanoes. Is it reasonable to assume this planet... if it had a rocky "surface", would literally be littered with smaller volcanoes over nearly all of its surface with much smaller "continents"?
Assume that the age of this planet is roughly similar to that of the Earth and that heavy metals (heavier than Iron) in its formation are roughly proportional to what we find on the Earth.
I just don't find that this would be all that pleasant of a place to be at, and the nearly constant volcanism would IMHO kill off nearly any attempt to colonize this planet with life.
It certainly would be a weird planet to look at though.
Unfortunately, and I've seen this so many times even in private industry it makes me want to scream, those who order these kind of changes often don't realize the expense that goes into them.
In an ideal world such accounting issues would be brought forward, but often logic seems to fall apart on some of the most stupid of issues.
I don't think that this ought to result in a court martial or other such nonsense for the officers involved, but it is an unfortunate waste. I've seen worse waste of government spending even on a municipal level, so when I see something like this on a federal level I think: "Wow, somebody is paying attention here!" instead of "isn't this a shame!"
For a federal project, this is small potatoes and essentially something to ignore for the most part. If you want to stop wasteful federal spending, there are many much bigger fish to fry than a few Air Force generals trying to make their life more comfortable when commanding their officers.
OK, explain to me how "reality" works if this isn't how "the system" really works?
The President simply doesn't have the authority to order the Pentagon to build a new ship or airplane on his own. He needs approval from Congress, and the funding that comes with it.
So again, how does it "really work"?
Perhaps I'm viewing this issue a little bit differently.
I live in the American West, where large tracts of undeveloped land has been an article of faith for generations, and that you could (once upon a time) purchase land for on the order of $100 per acre or even much less. Yeah, it was unproductive and essentially worthless, not to mention almost impossible to even live upon, but it was available.
Unfortunately I don't see much of that kind of land any more out here. Huge subdivisions are springing up in the desert where only sagebrush and a few free-range cattle hung out before. An argument about how to provide resources and water to all of those thousands and millions of people moving out to the desert is legitimate, but simply put I can't find that sort of cheap land any more. And this has happened within my lifetime where when I was a kid I could buy the cheap land.
As for Antarctica, the only reason why people aren't moving there and drilling for oil, mining coal, or doing other activities there has to do with international politics and nothing at all to do with its habitability. If this is your "proof" that humanity will never inhabit the Moon, Mars, or the Asteroids, you will discover that your "proof" will soon evaporate.
As for the Australian Outback.... count your blessings while you can. Australia is seriously underpopulated compared to a great many countries that surround it, and many of them do look upon the Outback as something worth trying to get ahold of just for expanding into. World War II should have taught that lesson to Australians.
Responses like this are counter-productive to space advocacy. There is no reason why humanity simply must expand off this planet, as it appears as though human population growth is leveling off.
European populations are shrinking in size, and America's only population growth at the moment comes from immigration. The U.S. Census Bureau anticipates that in the next 20 years or so this trend will continue where even immigration won't be able to offset the population decline in America. China's population has also dramatically been slowing down on its population growth, where it won't even be the largest country in the world in the next few years (to be passed by India). There is strong reason to believe that China may even be having a shrinking population in the next century.
Finite resources is an issue, but not a huge one. With a stable population and affluence, it seems reasonable that most resources can be self-sustaining through recycling efforts and intelligent planning. That, IMHO, is the future of the Earth.... regardless of what else happens to humanity off this little rock in space. Landfills will become the mines of the future, where buried materials will suddenly become quite valuable.
I do agree with the general philosophy that mankind should or ought to head into space, tap into nearly limitless resources of our Solar System, and expand our influence. But being forced off this planet due to population pressures isn't one of those reasons why it would happen.
Primate curiosity is one of the things that has and will continue to inspire us to get off of this planet, and I hope that opportunity will be expanded to include a great many others than have been given that rare privilege so far. Knowledge of science, art, and technology will vastly expand if for no other reason than people will be trying to apply knowledge to new environments and will have to adapt in new and wonderful ways. It is easy to "think outside of the box" when the box isn't even there to begin with.
Our life today in modern 21st Century society is already so impacted by efforts in space that it is seemingly impossible to separate out the items and even political issues that have resulted from that impact. We wouldn't even know about global warming if it wasn't for global coverage of weather satellites and telecommunication systems that can link information about the environment together.
The travel time in weeks and months was more an issue of the era of sail ships. That was mostly 19th Century and earlier. It should be noted that travel between America and Europe wasn't considered that big of a deal even with much of the ordinary working poor who were willing to make that sort of crossing in sub-standard conditions, and millions of people made that crossing well before the era of steamships.
Even so, having the Queen Mary make a crossing in three days was a remarkable achievement. You can now make that crossing in a matter of a few hours at a price even cheaper than 3rd Class steerage rates on the Queen Mary (accounting for inflation).
The general notion is something that holds true, even if the progress made in terms of transportation is a bit slower than is suggested by the parent poster.
Don't confuse interstellar and interplanetary travel. They are two completely different issues, and I will admit that interstellar travel is something that is so far out there that the method of travel is something certainly of Science Fiction. It is also something I don't think will happen in the next couple of millenia other than some robotic missions to only the very closest of stars. Manned exploration of nearby stars is akin to suggesting a 17th Century sailor is going to make it to Mars somehow. The very technology to accomplish that task is seemingly impossible, and effectively will need a deeper understand of basic physics if we are to make it there in a reasonable period of time.
Interplanetary travel, on the other hand, doesn't require any new physics or understanding of our universe. All it requires is a refinement of existing technologies and the will (as well as cash) necessary to get there, and how much luxury you will enjoy enroute or once you arrive at your destination.
In theory, you can travel from the Earth to Mars in about 2-4 weeks. Current technology is available to travel for months at a time in relative comfort, and there have been "spacecraft" (if you count MIR and the ISS) which have been operating for decades. I'd even be bold enough to suggest that the technology has even been proven now, so it is mainly a matter of applying current knowledge to the issue, not even necessarily coming up with new propulsion systems or manufacturing facilities in order to accomplish this task.
All that is needed is cash and desire, and a few politicans to get out of the way.
There is cheap energy to be had easily. Why do you think that you can go to a nearby airport and purchase a ticket to fly anywhere in the globe for about 1 months of a working persons wage (in the USA) and end up literally anywhere on the surface of this planet in less than a day. OK, maybe a couple months wage, but it is easily within the budget range of an ordinary person if they have the desire for it.
BTW, Energy prices didn't go up an order of magnitude. Only one particular source of energy that is being controlled and manipulated for political purposes. Other energy sources are in fact becoming much more affordable and in fact is one of the things causing the current plunge in the price of oil, as demand has significantly slacked off as people are changing their energy consumption habits. Or are you paying attention to current events?
So yeah, I also consider your assertion to be tripe. There isn't a need for new energy sources to be discovered in order to make quick and routine access to Mars possible. Indeed, even using current conventional chemical rocketry, travel between the Earth and Mars will take less time and be far less hazardous than a crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean was in the 17th Century.
The real issue that is holding up any major human exploration of space and colonization of Mars is getting cheap and reliable access to low-earth orbit... the altitude of the Space Shuttle and the ISS.
As for actual folding cash behind getting that option going and running.... well, I'm waiting for the IPO of SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Armadillo Aerospace. There are a few other companies out there, several of which are working for this specific goal. And I am buying trinkets from these companies (hats, t-shirts) which is the only way you can invest in this stuff right now unless you are a multi-millionaire.
Given the opportunity, I would love to go up on a Zero-G flight.... and that is something which you can put some cash on the table, head to Las Vegas, and enjoy right now for a relatively inexpensive price.
Yeah, I'll take your money in a Vegas style bet as well if you want to put a 50 year horizon... heck 20 year horizon on when cheap and reliable transportation to several destinations in the Solar System will happen. Name the bookie and I'll get with you!