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 ToTheSummit
peregrinus
Registered: 08/22/99
Posts: 6,983
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 ISS...it still amazes me!
#8958519 - 09/20/08 11:21 AM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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I've been watching this thing fly overhead for 10 years. I never get tired of it. Recently I stepped outside to watch a flyby and the wife joined me. Her comment went something like "I don't remember it being so bright when you first showed it to me". 
Brighter huh...ya think?
Heres the ISS when it first went into orbit 10 years ago...
Here is the ISS this year. The part circled in red is the original modules seen in the first photo...
I guess its no mystery why it seems so much brighter! 
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You invented the wheel....You push the motherfucker!!
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8958527 - 09/20/08 11:23 AM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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I'm not a huge fan of the ISS.
It seems to me that everything it does could have been done more cheaply by other means and the enormous sums lavished on it could have been put to better use.
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 Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
 
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 6,954
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8958551 - 09/20/08 11:32 AM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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The ISS is a symmetrical disaster. Where did that fourth set of solar panels go?
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The life of American Vagabonds
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
-Oscar Wilde
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: Ferris]
#8958998 - 09/20/08 01:46 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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> Where did that fourth set of solar panels go?
Currently in storage waiting for flight STS-119 (Assembly flight 15A) scheduled for February 12, 2009.
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Just another spore in the wind.
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Nephlyte
Misfortunate One
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: Seuss]
#8959884 - 09/20/08 05:39 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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I'm a big fan of the ISS. I'm curious, is there an expiration date for the ISS? Or do they plan to keep it up there indefinitely?
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"To do right is to know what you want. Now when you are dissatisfied with yourself it's because you are after something you don't really want. What objects are you proposing to yourself? Are they the objects you really value? If they are not, you are cheating yourself. I don't meant that if you chose to pursue the objects you most value, you will attain them; of course not. Your experience will tell you that. But success in getting after much labor what you really don't care for is the bitterest and most ridiculous failure." -George Santayana
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: Nephlyte]
#8959897 - 09/20/08 05:42 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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The lifespan is ridiculously short! I think I heard 5-6 years after full completion?
If they finish in 2010, that means 2015.
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
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What does it do again?
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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milkman
DeliveringWorldWide
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: DieCommie]
#8960129 - 09/20/08 06:43 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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isnt it just so people can live up there and conduct super important space studies
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RRhoads
Etheno/cologyStudent
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: DieCommie]
#8960135 - 09/20/08 06:44 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Eats money.
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ToTheSummit
peregrinus
Registered: 08/22/99
Posts: 6,983
Loc: Las Vegas
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8960329 - 09/20/08 07:31 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Meh.
Yeah, the ratio of money spent to scientific benefit is pretty poor. But I don't care. All the politics and wasted money aside, its still pretty fucking cool. And if given the chance I would drop whatever I had going on in my life to go for a ride if it was offered to me!
At least its a lot more entertaining then that money pit they call the LHC.
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You invented the wheel....You push the motherfucker!!
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 6,954
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8960366 - 09/20/08 07:40 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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If anything, we're learning how to run day to day operations on a space station, which will hopefully be much cheaper when we have the tech to build cheap space elevators.
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The life of American Vagabonds
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
-Oscar Wilde
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DieCommie
Ally
Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 7,652
Loc: The Union
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8960376 - 09/20/08 07:42 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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I bet the best research that has come out of it is engineering research on how to assemble and maintain a space station! (as well as all the components) That certainly has some benefit. Personally, I think the money and energy spent on the ISS would be better suited towards space exploration.
(With the LHC too, I think thats a great engineering feat but science... probably not so much... well see)
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Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
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johnm214
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 7,021
Loc: Americas
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: DieCommie]
#8960393 - 09/20/08 07:46 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said:
What does it do again?
This is really disgusting.
A physicist like you and you don't know the great benifits of the ISS?
Educate yourself.
Among other things it:
1. Has a really bright light that you can see from earth.
2. Orbits really fast.
3. Costs the US billions every year for the benifits listed previously, which is a good deal in anyone's book. I think total is only around 150billion for the whole project, which is a steal.
I mean, NASA says we get at least 2$ back for every dollar we spend on the ISS, and they wouldn't lie.
We should take the entire federal budget next year and give it to nasa, cuz they are able to double money somehow (I'm guessing its magic).
(I like how they don't give a source or say in what period of time the money doubles or if this accounts for inflation. I would guess just investing in a large cap index fund would do much better than NASA's crap. I also wonder who gets the benifit? I don't care if NASA gets a doubling of money after twenty years or something.)
Quote:
How will the economy benefit from development and completion of the International Space Station?
Money spent on America's space program is a good investment. Every dollar spent by NASA returns at least $2 in direct and indirect benefits.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/faq/index.html#30
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Annom
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Registered: 12/22/02
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8960398 - 09/20/08 07:48 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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The ISS definitely isn't what I would build with the global space budget, if I could control it.
Money and scientific efficiency aside, I think the ISS is an amazing thing. With 278,000 kg (right now) and 75x45 m it is like placing a Boeing 777 in orbit around Earth. It definitely has an engineering artistic and entertainment value for me. The price tag has to be ignored to enjoy it though.
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Annom
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: ToTheSummit]
#8960461 - 09/20/08 08:03 PM (2 months, 13 days ago) |
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Quote:
ToTheSummit said:
At least its a lot more entertaining then that money pit they call the LHC.
I don't agree. The LHC is also very entertaining and an amazing thing. I'm also interested in the results of the experiment. From a curiosity(scientific?) point of view it is the only logical thing to do. We should always build experiments to test the most fundamental and best models of reality. The LHC can give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, although I don't understand much of what they are doing.
It's also a lot cheaper, in the 10$ billion dollar range. Still a lot of money.
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Minstrel
Talkback is Barberpole
Registered: 03/15/05
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Loc: Loc: Loc: Loc: Loc: Loc: ...
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Re: ISS...it still amazes me! [Re: Annom]
#8963474 - 09/21/08 01:00 PM (2 months, 12 days ago) |
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Some private folks with money aught to create their own space program and build an orbital grow-op.
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No individual should dare to call themselves free, so long as a perpetual drug war is waged on their body, their mind, and their property.
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