Of course he did...Arthur C. Clarke beat everyone to everything. Thanks for the reminder. Reinventing the wheel is easy to do late at night.
Still, different writers bring different things to the table. In my version, the crew sleeps together in warm, dark dens in the ship with machines that crawl over them and exercises their muscles. Everyone's promiscuous, too, since they're all effectively drunk with the hibernation drugs. Here's the passage introducing hibernation from the current draft.
"And hibernation?" Sally asked.
That was always the big question, and one that Griffin had asked an instructor herself. While the blood chemistry and the dirt eating were dramatic, they didn't have as serious an effect on everyday life as hibernation did. Travel time was twenty years each way. Their maximum velocity of 75% light speed would a help a little, slowing shipboard time by a third, but that wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. Roundtrip travel time on board the Dark Heart would still be over thirty years.
So hibernation. The Specialists' gene therapy activated a number of enzymes, primarily pancreatic triglyceride lipase and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase isozyme 4. Griffin knew the names, had prepped diligently for this part. The enzymes governed how stored fatty acids and glucose were conserved, or not, especially in muscles like the heart, which slowed to just over a beat per minute during hibernation. Hibernation helped preserve muscle tone, but there were mechanical/electrical aids that helped with that part, too.
Griffin decided not to throw the technical points at them. They'd probably looked those up, much as she had, and were really grasping for reassurance. If you were going to spend the next few decades pulling a Rip Van Wrinkle, wouldn't you be looking for reassurance, too?
She briefly wondered who was there to reassure her. She was in the same situation they were. Sure, she'd spent six months in hibernation associated with a training exercise, but decades, that was a whole different deal. There were a thousand questions. Did you dream? By what factor was aging really reduced? Were there side effects? Did the condition really lower your inhibitions?
She knew the academic answers, and could speak from her limited experience, but decided to play it straight. "It's scary. It's like going under for an operation. Being drugged, or drunk. A year feels like a night. You wake a few times, eat and drink some water, worry about a problem or two, and go back to sleep."
Kim Kelly, a recruit of Asian descent, asked, "Um, exactly how is that different than a normal night?"
Everyone laughed.
That was a good sign, Griffin decided. "Okay, put that way maybe it isn't all that scary."
Klingston caught her eye. Despite a small smile, he didn't look amused or relaxed with his ruddy complexion and squinted eyes. Their gaze locked and she felt a sense of communication as an idea spring full-blown into her mind: what we are now isn't the scary thing, and neither is what we have to do -- what is scary was the consequences of failure.
If Klingston could convey that seriousness of purpose in but a glance, maybe he had much deeper leadership qualities than she appreciated. A dark leader to be sure, despite his pale complexion, but a leader nonetheless.
Griffin clapped her hands, "Follow me now onboard the ship. I'll show you the hibernation dens, and more."
I'm using some elements of this technology in my next novel (although a lot will get cut in current revisions).
Hibernation is going to come before any kind of cold sleep or freezing. Kind of silly for science fiction to skip it, even if it is easier on the writer.
Stuff like this, for an observer like me, is hard to keep on top of. That wouldn't be a big deal, but I have to teach cosmology at the grad level. There go my class notes again. Dang it!
Personally, I think the best reason for withdrawing from the ABM treaty is to allow nuclear-powered spacecraft. The ABM treaty killed Orion, for instance.
Well, I started using xxx.lanl.gov about 10 years ago and didn't even realize there were less...offensive...mirrors (or that it is now a mirror). After ten years of use, it's habit, not an invention!
One website that gets filtered a lot is xxx.lanl.gov, which is a physics preprint server that a lot of scientists use to post/read papers prior to publication (which can take months). The "xxx" is the problem, of course, but when the site was established very early in the history of the internet, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. And now that's where people expect to find it.
The filtering thing just seems like a bad, unAmerican idea to me. Protect people from dangerous things, not from things they seek out.
P.S. You do realize that all Hubble data, the "real" raw observed data, is publically available, right? You can go download it yourself, and do anything you want with it. There is no conspiracy of the elite to stop you, and, in fact, there are mountains of documentation and software to help you make sense of the data. Look at some ultraviolet spectroscopy, some infrared images, anything Hubble has ever looked at, available, for anyone forever. That's a scientific legacy.
While I think you have some valid points, you kind of crap out on it with statements like "Hubble observation time is only available to those in the inner circles of the elitist clique in the upper levels of the 'hierarchy' of the scientific group" and "Most of the hubble data that gets published for public consumption is borderline fraud, cuz those pretty pictures bear little/no resemblance to the actual observed data". Both of these are really ignorant and unfair.
I've served on the panel that hands out Hubble time. It's pretty damn fair, with no elitist cliques (some big names in astronomy get savaged and some unknowns get time, based on the quality of proposals). And the "pretty pictures" ARE the observed data -- to claim otherwise if unfair. Those are real Hubble pictures, which contain valuable information.
Other statements like "real data" vs. "color-corrected public consumption images" suggest you really don't have a good idea about this stuff.
I'm fine with a public debate about the value of basic research like astronomy, and how much should be spent on it. I think current dollar values are in the ballpark, and don't really think the field needs/deserves lots more in the big picture. Nevertheless, the Hubble Space Telescope is one of the very best investments ever in astronomy, in terms of the overall science return and the science return by dollar (there have been papers published investigating this quantitatively based on publications and citations). Spending more money on it now is maintaining the mission, and is a lot less than starting from scratch. NASA says money is not the issue here, and I believe that.
"Hubble was designed to be serviced and upgraded on station, on the premise that shuttle flights would be cheap. That premise has failed, and turned hubble into a huge cash sink." That premise failed long before 2004, when this decision not to service was made. The repair mission was on the books and approved before 2004 and the shuttle explosion -- that's the real issue, not the cost. That issue isn't really in play here.
Very good points. Hubble was designed to be serviced. The next mission was scheduled to happen, and only the shuttle explosion derailed it. Regarding the issue of risk to astronaut lives, in my opinion and those of many others -- including the astronauts, we should still do the mission. It isn't such a huge risk increase compared to a mission that can abort to the ISS, about a factor of two.
Who wants or needs a five year break?! I'd like five weeks, for sure, or maybe even five months. My grad students wouldn't.
Observational astronomy is kind of harsh. It's very difficult to get a Hubble project through. It's easier with most ground-based telescopes, but weather and instrument problems can nail you. I just went 0/4 at Kitt Peak, and 0/4 at NASA's IRTF, due to weather this year. You need to overdo it, because some projects won't work out, at least not on short timescales.
As much as I'm a Hubble fan, this isn't true. There are a number of other successful and productive NASA missions like Chandra, and a couple of dozen others, that NASA performs. And NASA also supports astronomers like myself and our space-based research programs (they've given my group over $200k this year). Hubble is the crown jewel, but far from the only one, coming out of NASA.
Re:As a rule...
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The "informed people" are the astronomers who use Hubble. The consensus plan for the astronomers, who spent a lot of time fighting and worrying about it, is that Hubble should be maintained at least until JWST flies (circa 2012). That's the informed opinion. The majority of naysayers are uninformed (and I can back this statement up pretty easily I expect).
There is an argument about the cost and risk to lives, vs. the science goals. Only a tiny minority of astronomers are against the goal of servicing Hubble, and, from what I hear, most astronauts don't see the risk as too high. Even given the budget woes, servicing is a small fraction of some elective costs the US has taken on.
I welcome Griffin reopening the issue. Maybe we shouldn't do it, but I would trust him reaching that decision more than O'Keefe.
Re:Space telescopes are obsolete
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 1
Your professor is either not as smart as I am, or not as well informed, and while I'm good I'm not the smartest or best informed. You should ask for some of your tuition back.
One thing that Hubble and a few other space-based telescopes can do that no ground-based telescope will EVER be able to do is take spectra and images in the ultraviolet. Ask him in class how to get a UV spectrum of a low-redshift quasar, for instance, without a space-based telescope. Make him look like the ass he is.
I'm being kind of unforgiving here because any astronomy professor should know better, and this guy is not up to snuff.
It is not "obsolete"
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Only an poorly informed idiot, or a non-astronomer, would say this. I got a proposal through this year to do some imaging work on a class of objects known as "post-starburst quasars." I can't really do the same project with any other telescope ANYWHERE. Is that obsolete?! The Hubble Space Telescope, especially one refurbished and updated with new insturments like COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph), can do things no other telescope in existence can do. Things that are useful. Again, only a poorly informed idiot would say it is obsolete.
There is an argument, and discussion, that should be had in an honest manner, about the cost and risk to astronauts' lives. One of my old professors became an astronaut who serviced Hubble last time, and I've thought about applying for Mission Specialist myself, so I don't take this lightly.
Mike Griffin, from what I can tell, is probably Bush's best nomination ever. I'll respect his decisions in a way I have not from the previous head. Hubble is perhaps the crowning jewel of NASA, and not to be discarded lightly. I'm not being sentimental here. I apply for Hubble time every year because the things Hubble can do can be done no other way.
The greatest strength of SWIFT is to be able to localize gamma ray bursts to within arcseconds within a reasonable amount of time, permitting follow-up with other telescopes. That's a first. Poor angular resolution on previous gamma ray telescopes has made it difficult to identify these sources and figure out where they are, and how luminous they are.
Gamma ray bursts are likely a heterogeneous class. Some, surely, appear to be beamed radiation associated with supernovas. Some portion of them may well constitute isotropic sources, and would only be dangerous within some distance within our own galaxy. As an active area of research, and with SWIFT now flying, we should be getting better answers about the population demographics in the next couple of years.
I was going to use it my second novel (currently under revision) but the numbers didn't work out the way I needed them, too. I'm saving the research I did for my third book.
While there are some good quantitative numbers that might suggest that space will never be available to large numbers of people, there are counter examples, too.
The airline industry is one such counter example. The number of people in the air at one time just in the U.S. is in the ten thousands. Many millions fly every year. Airplanes didn't even exist a century ago.
The space elevator concept (discussed on slashdot a few days ago) would be another way to move large numbers of people off world.
Of course, there's got to be a place to go to. It is possible to build space-based colonies that can house millions of people. They might even be nicer than the bunkers in Dr. Strangelove. I doubt the ability to escape into space will cause political problems of the type of that movie. I imagine there will be rules to prevent both the president and vice-president from being in space at the same time, for instace.
You're just poo-pooing space colonies because you WANT to be able to go up to the hot chick after a disaster and say, "we have no choice but to procreate our way out of this."
I was once at an event at the Johnson Space Center where there was a panel on the space program. The event had a mix of scientists, astronauts, and science fiction writers.
The topic of why the dinosaurs became extinct came up, with the leading contender being a killer asteroid. Larry Niven turned the issue upside down and said, "The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program."
Given the audience, there was lots of laughter and cheering.
Slashdot Mirror
If their laws are so "excellent" then why is this tax being proposed?! They must not have any song stealing going on.
It's just bullshit. Don't even try to defend it.
Of course he did...Arthur C. Clarke beat everyone to everything. Thanks for the reminder. Reinventing the wheel is easy to do late at night.
Still, different writers bring different things to the table. In my version, the crew sleeps together in warm, dark dens in the ship with machines that crawl over them and exercises their muscles. Everyone's promiscuous, too, since they're all effectively drunk with the hibernation drugs. Here's the passage introducing hibernation from the current draft.
"And hibernation?" Sally asked.
That was always the big question, and one that Griffin had asked an instructor herself. While the blood chemistry and the dirt eating were dramatic, they didn't have as serious an effect on everyday life as hibernation did. Travel time was twenty years each way. Their maximum velocity of 75% light speed would a help a little, slowing shipboard time by a third, but that wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. Roundtrip travel time on board the Dark Heart would still be over thirty years.
So hibernation. The Specialists' gene therapy activated a number of enzymes, primarily pancreatic triglyceride lipase and pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase isozyme 4. Griffin knew the names, had prepped diligently for this part. The enzymes governed how stored fatty acids and glucose were conserved, or not, especially in muscles like the heart, which slowed to just over a beat per minute during hibernation. Hibernation helped preserve muscle tone, but there were mechanical/electrical aids that helped with that part, too.
Griffin decided not to throw the technical points at them. They'd probably looked those up, much as she had, and were really grasping for reassurance. If you were going to spend the next few decades pulling a Rip Van Wrinkle, wouldn't you be looking for reassurance, too?
She briefly wondered who was there to reassure her. She was in the same situation they were. Sure, she'd spent six months in hibernation associated with a training exercise, but decades, that was a whole different deal. There were a thousand questions. Did you dream? By what factor was aging really reduced? Were there side effects? Did the condition really lower your inhibitions?
She knew the academic answers, and could speak from her limited experience, but decided to play it straight. "It's scary. It's like going under for an operation. Being drugged, or drunk. A year feels like a night. You wake a few times, eat and drink some water, worry about a problem or two, and go back to sleep."
Kim Kelly, a recruit of Asian descent, asked, "Um, exactly how is that different than a normal night?"
Everyone laughed.
That was a good sign, Griffin decided. "Okay, put that way maybe it isn't all that scary."
Klingston caught her eye. Despite a small smile, he didn't look amused or relaxed with his ruddy complexion and squinted eyes. Their gaze locked and she felt a sense of communication as an idea spring full-blown into her mind: what we are now isn't the scary thing, and neither is what we have to do -- what is scary was the consequences of failure.
If Klingston could convey that seriousness of purpose in but a glance, maybe he had much deeper leadership qualities than she appreciated. A dark leader to be sure, despite his pale complexion, but a leader nonetheless.
Griffin clapped her hands, "Follow me now onboard the ship. I'll show you the hibernation dens, and more."
I'm using some elements of this technology in my next novel (although a lot will get cut in current revisions).
Hibernation is going to come before any kind of cold sleep or freezing. Kind of silly for science fiction to skip it, even if it is easier on the writer.
Stuff like this, for an observer like me, is hard to keep on top of. That wouldn't be a big deal, but I have to teach cosmology at the grad level. There go my class notes again. Dang it!
Personally, I think the best reason for withdrawing from the ABM treaty is to allow nuclear-powered spacecraft. The ABM treaty killed Orion, for instance.
Hey, we'll need to invent a giant space goat to pull that off. I suggest we call it "the giant space goat."
Well, I started using xxx.lanl.gov about 10 years ago and didn't even realize there were less...offensive...mirrors (or that it is now a mirror). After ten years of use, it's habit, not an invention!
One website that gets filtered a lot is xxx.lanl.gov, which is a physics preprint server that a lot of scientists use to post/read papers prior to publication (which can take months). The "xxx" is the problem, of course, but when the site was established very early in the history of the internet, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. And now that's where people expect to find it.
The filtering thing just seems like a bad, unAmerican idea to me. Protect people from dangerous things, not from things they seek out.
What's the problem? Schools trained them for their jobs, too!
Make that quality teachers. A bad teacher can do years of damage.
P.S. You do realize that all Hubble data, the "real" raw observed data, is publically available, right? You can go download it yourself, and do anything you want with it. There is no conspiracy of the elite to stop you, and, in fact, there are mountains of documentation and software to help you make sense of the data. Look at some ultraviolet spectroscopy, some infrared images, anything Hubble has ever looked at, available, for anyone forever. That's a scientific legacy.
While I think you have some valid points, you kind of crap out on it with statements like "Hubble observation time is only available to those in the inner circles of the elitist clique in the upper levels of the 'hierarchy' of the scientific group" and "Most of the hubble data that gets published for public consumption is borderline fraud, cuz those pretty pictures bear little/no resemblance to the actual observed data". Both of these are really ignorant and unfair.
I've served on the panel that hands out Hubble time. It's pretty damn fair, with no elitist cliques (some big names in astronomy get savaged and some unknowns get time, based on the quality of proposals). And the "pretty pictures" ARE the observed data -- to claim otherwise if unfair. Those are real Hubble pictures, which contain valuable information.
Other statements like "real data" vs. "color-corrected public consumption images" suggest you really don't have a good idea about this stuff.
I'm fine with a public debate about the value of basic research like astronomy, and how much should be spent on it. I think current dollar values are in the ballpark, and don't really think the field needs/deserves lots more in the big picture. Nevertheless, the Hubble Space Telescope is one of the very best investments ever in astronomy, in terms of the overall science return and the science return by dollar (there have been papers published investigating this quantitatively based on publications and citations). Spending more money on it now is maintaining the mission, and is a lot less than starting from scratch. NASA says money is not the issue here, and I believe that.
"Hubble was designed to be serviced and upgraded on station, on the premise that shuttle flights would be cheap. That premise has failed, and turned hubble into a huge cash sink." That premise failed long before 2004, when this decision not to service was made. The repair mission was on the books and approved before 2004 and the shuttle explosion -- that's the real issue, not the cost. That issue isn't really in play here.
Very good points. Hubble was designed to be serviced. The next mission was scheduled to happen, and only the shuttle explosion derailed it. Regarding the issue of risk to astronaut lives, in my opinion and those of many others -- including the astronauts, we should still do the mission. It isn't such a huge risk increase compared to a mission that can abort to the ISS, about a factor of two.
Who wants or needs a five year break?! I'd like five weeks, for sure, or maybe even five months. My grad students wouldn't.
Observational astronomy is kind of harsh. It's very difficult to get a Hubble project through. It's easier with most ground-based telescopes, but weather and instrument problems can nail you. I just went 0/4 at Kitt Peak, and 0/4 at NASA's IRTF, due to weather this year. You need to overdo it, because some projects won't work out, at least not on short timescales.
As much as I'm a Hubble fan, this isn't true. There are a number of other successful and productive NASA missions like Chandra, and a couple of dozen others, that NASA performs. And NASA also supports astronomers like myself and our space-based research programs (they've given my group over $200k this year). Hubble is the crown jewel, but far from the only one, coming out of NASA.
The "informed people" are the astronomers who use Hubble. The consensus plan for the astronomers, who spent a lot of time fighting and worrying about it, is that Hubble should be maintained at least until JWST flies (circa 2012). That's the informed opinion. The majority of naysayers are uninformed (and I can back this statement up pretty easily I expect).
There is an argument about the cost and risk to lives, vs. the science goals. Only a tiny minority of astronomers are against the goal of servicing Hubble, and, from what I hear, most astronauts don't see the risk as too high. Even given the budget woes, servicing is a small fraction of some elective costs the US has taken on.
I welcome Griffin reopening the issue. Maybe we shouldn't do it, but I would trust him reaching that decision more than O'Keefe.
Your professor is either not as smart as I am, or not as well informed, and while I'm good I'm not the smartest or best informed. You should ask for some of your tuition back.
One thing that Hubble and a few other space-based telescopes can do that no ground-based telescope will EVER be able to do is take spectra and images in the ultraviolet. Ask him in class how to get a UV spectrum of a low-redshift quasar, for instance, without a space-based telescope. Make him look like the ass he is.
I'm being kind of unforgiving here because any astronomy professor should know better, and this guy is not up to snuff.
Only an poorly informed idiot, or a non-astronomer, would say this. I got a proposal through this year to do some imaging work on a class of objects known as "post-starburst quasars." I can't really do the same project with any other telescope ANYWHERE. Is that obsolete?! The Hubble Space Telescope, especially one refurbished and updated with new insturments like COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph), can do things no other telescope in existence can do. Things that are useful. Again, only a poorly informed idiot would say it is obsolete.
There is an argument, and discussion, that should be had in an honest manner, about the cost and risk to astronauts' lives. One of my old professors became an astronaut who serviced Hubble last time, and I've thought about applying for Mission Specialist myself, so I don't take this lightly.
Mike Griffin, from what I can tell, is probably Bush's best nomination ever. I'll respect his decisions in a way I have not from the previous head. Hubble is perhaps the crowning jewel of NASA, and not to be discarded lightly. I'm not being sentimental here. I apply for Hubble time every year because the things Hubble can do can be done no other way.
Thanks for checking it out. If you like it, spread the word. Now if I can only find the time to finish revisions on the second book...
The greatest strength of SWIFT is to be able to localize gamma ray bursts to within arcseconds within a reasonable amount of time, permitting follow-up with other telescopes. That's a first. Poor angular resolution on previous gamma ray telescopes has made it difficult to identify these sources and figure out where they are, and how luminous they are.
Gamma ray bursts are likely a heterogeneous class. Some, surely, appear to be beamed radiation associated with supernovas. Some portion of them may well constitute isotropic sources, and would only be dangerous within some distance within our own galaxy. As an active area of research, and with SWIFT now flying, we should be getting better answers about the population demographics in the next couple of years.
I was going to use it my second novel (currently under revision) but the numbers didn't work out the way I needed them, too. I'm saving the research I did for my third book.
While there are some good quantitative numbers that might suggest that space will never be available to large numbers of people, there are counter examples, too.
The airline industry is one such counter example. The number of people in the air at one time just in the U.S. is in the ten thousands. Many millions fly every year. Airplanes didn't even exist a century ago.
The space elevator concept (discussed on slashdot a few days ago) would be another way to move large numbers of people off world.
Of course, there's got to be a place to go to. It is possible to build space-based colonies that can house millions of people. They might even be nicer than the bunkers in Dr. Strangelove. I doubt the ability to escape into space will cause political problems of the type of that movie. I imagine there will be rules to prevent both the president and vice-president from being in space at the same time, for instace.
You're just poo-pooing space colonies because you WANT to be able to go up to the hot chick after a disaster and say, "we have no choice but to procreate our way out of this."
I was once at an event at the Johnson Space Center where there was a panel on the space program. The event had a mix of scientists, astronauts, and science fiction writers.
The topic of why the dinosaurs became extinct came up, with the leading contender being a killer asteroid. Larry Niven turned the issue upside down and said, "The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program."
Given the audience, there was lots of laughter and cheering.