As far as biology (and exo-biology) are concerned, all you need for life is liquid water(water + heat).
A 'desert planet' would not be able to sustain life at all, having no water.
A desert planet with oceans would be fine, since you would have water present for life to thrive in, or off of. What type of life would arise there remaines speculative, but therein lies the fun.
We have a desert planet in our own solar system- Mars. The main problem there is that its water is frozen at the poles or else locked underground. No heat. No life.
I should probably note that with Mars, the potential remains that underground there are warm spots where water is liquid and life could be sustained, but it is highly speculative.
No astronuat on the ISS has stayed up as long as the cosmonauts did on Mir. The effects of zero gravity are well known. The data are there and have been available for years.
Spending 2 or 3 months "looking at stars, pissing in jars" does not add to this existing body of knowledge.
Now, if we were at the stage of having a design for a manned mars mission, with an idea of what the journey would take, then you would have a case for using the ISS.
You would use it like this:
send prospective astronaughts there for the time the trip would take
have them come back down to earth and perform the kinds of tasks they would have to perform on Mars, suited up
observe. report. consider.
THAT kind of thing would be scientifically useful. You know, goal-oriented activites? But it ain't being done. ISS is doing nothing to aid human exploration of space. I can do nothing by itself. Without these other activites going on, it's a waste.
Point taken on Hubble. That was good shuttle time.
Jeff Minter's Revenge of the Mutant Camels was one of the first computer games that really grabbed me, and it was a big part of me deciding to get a Commodore 64 back in the day.
Exploration? What exploration? The shuttle has so far contributed precisely ZERO to human exploration of space.
One aspect of the recent tragedy was that those astronauts died on nothing more than a glorified taxi run. Their mission contributed nothing to science, it had no scientific reason to take place
The sooner we re-focus on real exploration in space the better, and we can do it without the shuttle or the money pit that is the ISS.
NASA needs to stop wasting money and get on with unmanned exploration of Mars, Europa and elsewhere, replace Hubble, and launch the terrestrial planet finder. All these projects are being pushed back to make way for this current fad of unscientific garbage that explores NOTHING.
Excellent advice for anyone, in fact advice I'm following myself right now!
The other thing I would add it that you should check for astronomy clubs in your local area. Many of them have public viewing nights, where the club members set up their telescopes for the general public to come and view.
I've been to a few now, they are always worthwhile, plus all telescopes are set up to view object like Saturn or Jupiter, or star fields, nebulae. All you have to do is queue up and look.
Great way to start when you are in the 'pre-binocular' stage.
If it's becoming widespread it's a good sign that eBay's prices have risen too high for the average small seller.
Either eBay will have to backflip on the prices, or else buyers will have to learn that the real price is in the postage.
Sellers routinely advertise what the different shipping rates are. As a registered user my location is known to the site- why can't it just indicate the shipping costs for items I'm looking at, or say if they are not mentioned?
eBay already allows you to view by availability to your locaiton, they just need to take it one step further.
No, he is is still anti-science. If you've been paying attention to NASA you would notice that all scientific programs that would actually advance our knowledge are being cancelled or delayed.
Projects like the Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter, James Webb Telescope (Hubble's replacement), and the Terrestrial Planet Finder are gone.
In their place are empty flag-waving execises (let's go to the moon!!) that will not increase our knowlegde of the universe or solar system at all.
Fundamentalist religous types are discomfited by the idea of finding life elsewhere (Europa's oceans) or finding Earth Analogues, or of seeing back in time more than 5,000 years. Programs that would do this are being shut down.
Remember to wave as those brave astronauts lift on on their taxi journey.
It's not so much that you have to wait, it's more like you decide what you want to spend on a card, and that money always buys the same thing. Like so:
You want ot spend $400? Fine, you may have a top of the line brand new card.
You want to spend 200? Then you may have a mid range card, which was last year's top range card.
For $100 You get the card that was top of the line 18 months ago.
What the actual specs of each card are really don't matter. The money does not change, and over time the specs of each level of card increase. Once you've decided what your budget is, you know what you are going to get in terms of what's on the market.
In surprising news, people whose business model demands selling overpriced software predict a rise in the price of software...
Reminds me of back when the Nintendo 64 came out. The highest priced games I have ever seen were titles like Shadows of the Empire at AUD$129.99.
Yeah, no one was that dumb.
Microsoft tried something similar a couple of years back, started their games at AUD$109.95. No one bought until that price came down the important $10.
Back in the day I paid AUD$89.95 for Ultima VI on the Amiga. I paid the same price for Rome: Total War. I expect I'll be paying the same in three years' time too.
Why don't they sell directly online? Actually many of them do, and the fact that you don't seem to know of them is the problem - while the internet is easy to distribute on, it is very difficult to market on.
The best you can hope for is people who like your product giving out your URL in a forum like this one. Check out some of the other posts here.
No point sending your product to major websites to review. Like magazines, the majority of these exist in a suck-me, suck-you relationship with publishers, and approach any game from outside the 'norm' with extreme reluctance. I mean, Counterstrike spent years as the most popular game online, and websites and mags mentioned it only when Valve started to develop a retail release version. Pathetic, but there you have it.
If you're an indie trying to sell over the net, expect sales in the dozens. At best. Hundreds of sales mean you are doing great. This of course may well be more sales than you'll get the traditional way, since publishers won't touch your product anyway. But to suggest that somehow people have equal access to product delivered this way, and that any kind of product selection is at work is just fiction.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry, your parents do.
And yeah, it's possibly a captured body. More data on the orbital path, period, inclination and so on, will support that idea (or not).
A 'desert planet' would not be able to sustain life at all, having no water.
A desert planet with oceans would be fine, since you would have water present for life to thrive in, or off of. What type of life would arise there remaines speculative, but therein lies the fun.
We have a desert planet in our own solar system- Mars. The main problem there is that its water is frozen at the poles or else locked underground. No heat. No life.
I should probably note that with Mars, the potential remains that underground there are warm spots where water is liquid and life could be sustained, but it is highly speculative.
Stay safe guys. Our best wishes go with you.
No astronuat on the ISS has stayed up as long as the cosmonauts did on Mir. The effects of zero gravity are well known. The data are there and have been available for years.
Spending 2 or 3 months "looking at stars, pissing in jars" does not add to this existing body of knowledge.
Now, if we were at the stage of having a design for a manned mars mission, with an idea of what the journey would take, then you would have a case for using the ISS.
You would use it like this:
send prospective astronaughts there for the time the trip would take
have them come back down to earth and perform the kinds of tasks they would have to perform on Mars, suited up
observe. report. consider. THAT kind of thing would be scientifically useful. You know, goal-oriented activites? But it ain't being done. ISS is doing nothing to aid human exploration of space. I can do nothing by itself. Without these other activites going on, it's a waste.
Point taken on Hubble. That was good shuttle time.
Hi, welcome to Slashdot, I hope you enjoy your time here with us.
You may wish to return to the front page for a fun game of 'spot the dupe story'.
Otherwise, please read some of our many fact-free posts, being placed right now on on our active threads.
Jeff Minter's Revenge of the Mutant Camels was one of the first computer games that really grabbed me, and it was a big part of me deciding to get a Commodore 64 back in the day.
The new first post virus infects your machine and posts within seconds to all new threads on /.
One aspect of the recent tragedy was that those astronauts died on nothing more than a glorified taxi run. Their mission contributed nothing to science, it had no scientific reason to take place
The sooner we re-focus on real exploration in space the better, and we can do it without the shuttle or the money pit that is the ISS.
NASA needs to stop wasting money and get on with unmanned exploration of Mars, Europa and elsewhere, replace Hubble, and launch the terrestrial planet finder. All these projects are being pushed back to make way for this current fad of unscientific garbage that explores NOTHING.
The other thing I would add it that you should check for astronomy clubs in your local area. Many of them have public viewing nights, where the club members set up their telescopes for the general public to come and view.
I've been to a few now, they are always worthwhile, plus all telescopes are set up to view object like Saturn or Jupiter, or star fields, nebulae. All you have to do is queue up and look.
Great way to start when you are in the 'pre-binocular' stage.
If it's becoming widespread it's a good sign that eBay's prices have risen too high for the average small seller. Either eBay will have to backflip on the prices, or else buyers will have to learn that the real price is in the postage.
Cue the sound of people familiar with unions falling over with not suprise.
Sellers routinely advertise what the different shipping rates are. As a registered user my location is known to the site- why can't it just indicate the shipping costs for items I'm looking at, or say if they are not mentioned?
eBay already allows you to view by availability to your locaiton, they just need to take it one step further.
Those projects are all gone.
Excessive delays are what bureaucracies do when they want to kill projects without actually plunging the knife in.
You need to pay attention. Everything I said stands. Anti science administration = scietific projects gone.
Projects like the Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter, James Webb Telescope (Hubble's replacement), and the Terrestrial Planet Finder are gone.
In their place are empty flag-waving execises (let's go to the moon!!) that will not increase our knowlegde of the universe or solar system at all.
Fundamentalist religous types are discomfited by the idea of finding life elsewhere (Europa's oceans) or finding Earth Analogues, or of seeing back in time more than 5,000 years. Programs that would do this are being shut down.
Remember to wave as those brave astronauts lift on on their taxi journey.
It's not so much that you have to wait, it's more like you decide what you want to spend on a card, and that money always buys the same thing. Like so: You want ot spend $400? Fine, you may have a top of the line brand new card. You want to spend 200? Then you may have a mid range card, which was last year's top range card. For $100 You get the card that was top of the line 18 months ago. What the actual specs of each card are really don't matter. The money does not change, and over time the specs of each level of card increase. Once you've decided what your budget is, you know what you are going to get in terms of what's on the market.
I think you mean "not yet proven guilty"
Reminds me of back when the Nintendo 64 came out. The highest priced games I have ever seen were titles like Shadows of the Empire at AUD$129.99.
Yeah, no one was that dumb.
Microsoft tried something similar a couple of years back, started their games at AUD$109.95. No one bought until that price came down the important $10.
Back in the day I paid AUD$89.95 for Ultima VI on the Amiga. I paid the same price for Rome: Total War. I expect I'll be paying the same in three years' time too.
Why don't they sell directly online? Actually many of them do, and the fact that you don't seem to know of them is the problem - while the internet is easy to distribute on, it is very difficult to market on. The best you can hope for is people who like your product giving out your URL in a forum like this one. Check out some of the other posts here. No point sending your product to major websites to review. Like magazines, the majority of these exist in a suck-me, suck-you relationship with publishers, and approach any game from outside the 'norm' with extreme reluctance. I mean, Counterstrike spent years as the most popular game online, and websites and mags mentioned it only when Valve started to develop a retail release version. Pathetic, but there you have it. If you're an indie trying to sell over the net, expect sales in the dozens. At best. Hundreds of sales mean you are doing great. This of course may well be more sales than you'll get the traditional way, since publishers won't touch your product anyway. But to suggest that somehow people have equal access to product delivered this way, and that any kind of product selection is at work is just fiction.