in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Chat about new breakthroughs in technology and science. Or even about cool stuff that happened in the past...
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cowsmanaut
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in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by cowsmanaut »

I quite like to think about scientific possibility, and related tech advances.

It seems that each year someone comes across something fantastic either in theory or practice that shows how things could be done to allow for a star trek, starwars, BSG, sort of world some day.. :)

There are many issues to overcome before manned missions to other planets are possible, the next potential mission would be manned to mars.. This alone would take more than half a year for them to reach and (214 days) they have several road blocks to it's success already. Oxygen, fuel, and food. Even more so, it needs to be enough to return as well.

Fuel could help with the whole thing, but they have a way of getting around it, which is described here:
http://www.universetoday.com/14841/how- ... t-to-mars/

Food and water are next, and urine recycling is top of the list. Survivalists have been doing this sort of thing for years.. and on the space station it's already in practice, but as mentioned in this article, when in space it costs energy to do and for a long flight, fuel, and energy are in short supply, so we need to conserve in every way possible. That's where this little baggy system comes in:
http://www.geekosystem.com/shuttle-urine-recycling/

so how about food? current ideas surround rehydrating things that can be dehydrated and kept for extended time. It appears mostly vegetable items. however if a neat source of filtered light can be put in place (our atmosphere filters our sunlight) and moisture can be maintainted, they may be able to grow some foods to supplement this. However this doesn't appear to be mentioned in this particular article. Instead it talks just about the processing of the food, and waste materials for the prep, as well as post consumption, into fuels, and paper.
http://www.worldfoodscience.org/cms/?pid=1003816

Oxygen is a big issue. After all one can go days without food or water, but can not last even an hour without air. So CO2 scrubbers need to be in place. The most efficient is again, plants.. however plants produce oxygen in low quantity, and yet need water and sunlight for the process. Photosynthesis is really the key, and what it is is carbon dioxide, and water, combine with photons and the chlorophyl to make glucose and air. They have other methods, those used on Subs i think, depend on being surrounded by a plentiful source like water where you can use electrolysis to gain oxygen. Anyway, something needs to be done in order to maintain oxygen, in some way. In one study I saw that it took about 300-400 for an average adult, depending on their state of activity and the temperature of the environment... and that those plants needed roughly 30 medium sized leaves on it, as the calculations were based per leaf, since those are the construction site for the conversion. the big green solar panels :D Since the filight is assumed to be manned (or womanned :P) by at least 6 individuals, you'd need to have one hell of an amazon forest in there :)

How about artificial gravity? and methods for exercise.. also important to keep them in shape for return to earth. Alternate modes of travel to make the trip shorter? what about long term colonization of mars? or the moon? recyling, converting and all that could lead to benefits here at home too. better self sustainability means less waste and pollution. less consumption of power leads to a greener environment.

anyone have interesting ideas or science/space links they would like to post? I'm certain Zyx probably has a few in his big brain :D

a few side ones in the science theme:
energy from gravity and a few drops of water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0wxRDLGUV0
wireless energy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgBYQh4zC2Y

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Bit
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

There's always the devil in the detail.
It looks like travellers to mars have to pay this with some years of their lifetime - because of cosmic radiation.
But well - if the new generations get some extra years because of evolution and better life conditions (erm - yes... hope dies last...), one could think to spend some years (which may be pretty dark in high age anyways...)
I hope there will be really good technics in the next future. 3D-TV and better mobile phones aren't the real thing.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Jan »

Funnily, I've got a meeting with a guy from NASA on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I'll see what he thinks about it. But he's from the Land Cover Department, so don't expect miracles. :wink:
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by oh_brother »

Interesting post!
cowsmanaut wrote:Fuel could help with the whole thing, but they have a way of getting around it, which is described here:
http://www.universetoday.com/14841/how- ... t-to-mars/
To get a little more "star-trek like" there is a band of anti-mater around the earth, which could power space missions. In theory. I don't know how much is there though, and I doubt NASA have developed any anti-matter engines yet! :wink:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14405122
cowsmanaut wrote:Oxygen is a big issue.
Maybe they could bring large supplies of water to generate oxygen. Energy would not be a problem due to cosmic rays.
cowsmanaut wrote:How about artificial gravity?
This could be a big problem. I don't know how long you have to be in zero gravity before your bones get brittle. The only way to simulate gravity would be by having a big rotating spaceship.
cowsmanaut wrote:anyone have interesting ideas or science/space links they would like to post?
A nice demonstration of how big (and small) the universe is:
http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

That link is just great. Found it already together with the ones that i posted in the other thread.

Naive question:
Where do all the light goes that is going in direction 'edge of the universe'?
It's surely faster than the universe expands. So - is that building the space? Nice one - hm?
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Paul Stevens »

"Edge of the Universe"?????

Interesting idea. The folks who live there
would see stars and galaxies in only one direction?

;-)
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by oh_brother »

Yeah, no edge to the Universe unless you mean the edge of the observable universe, which depends on where you are (it is the area in which light has had time to travel since the big bang, so the area where you have some theoretical chance of having knowledge about).

The universe as a whole presumably does not have an edge, either it is infinite in size or it wraps around on itself. Although I don't really understand that: another naive question is how could the universe be expanding if it is infinite?
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Jan »

Great. Now you did it. I've got a headache.

What is it expanding into? What's behind it? Are we talking about the space or the universe?

And that guy from NASA. He wouldn't tell me. He's so secretive. I'd bet he's hiding something. Something important.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Paul Stevens »

I suppose it to be like a fractal. Just as the
Mandelbrot set has infinite detail in a finite
space. All you need to do to 'expand' the
'number of points' in this 2-d 'universe' is to
increase the iteration count of the computer
algorithm that generates the set. It gets
bigger and bigger (Try to walk around the edge
of the set and you will see that you must walk
farther and farther) but still fits on your screen.
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Jan
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Jan »

I feel intellectually so inferior. Image
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

Paul Stevens wrote:"Edge of the Universe"?????

Interesting idea. The folks who live there
would see stars and galaxies in only one direction?

;-)
In fact I battled with my physics teacher more than two hours when it came to the theory of relativity. :D
Not that I couldn't calculate with those inertial systems, but there was always my question, what happens if you fly with almost light speed and light a bulb - does the light crawl out of the bulb because light speed has a maximum or what? How does a third party outside sees this addition, etc.
I know even GPS needs the model to work - so - I accept that there is something... - still - I had no use for all of this later to give a quick answer or a quick smile ;)
But - so far is (as far as I know) no mathematical model found for the universe that really fits. And so far I really would consider this really naive idea of 'see stars and galaxies in only one direction' as not impossible. That surely has also something to do how we have to imagine the big bang. A pure expansion (like the following) - or an explosion, so that all got accelerated and has a basic movement-vector (not saying with how much dimensions...)
Of course - in a simple model, if earth would expand, for us, living and just measuring on the hull (in 2D), just the distances would change - and without any fix parameter we couldn't even recognize that - same on shrinking ofc...
I also read S.Hawkins - but when it comes to the point that the cup of coffee jumps back on the table - I simply disagree.
Some say all will collapse in a big crunch again - some say, that's all critical, may collapse or expand infinite slower and slower - and some tell about an increasing speed of expansion. Next years will bring a lot of surprises I'd say.

As we are talking about - (at least) humans get more and more knowledge about the universe - and this finally means: that thing is somehow able to recognize itself. The big question will be: does this will have any effect on the future?
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

Well, here is a link to the first part in english where you'll find the other parts in the sidelinks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ1rcY8hkyk

Everyone should be forced to watch this - to understand how rare and worthful life is.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by oh_brother »

Jan wrote:And that guy from NASA. He wouldn't tell me. He's so secretive. I'd bet he's hiding something. Something important.
Lol, I laughed when I read that!
Jan wrote: What is it expanding into? What's behind it? Are we talking about the space or the universe?
That's what confuses me too, it is not expanding into anything. It is creating space as it expands. Like the big bang did not happen in empty space - everything in the universe, including all the space, was there too.
Paul Stevens wrote:I suppose it to be like a fractal. Just as the
Mandelbrot set has infinite detail in a finite
space.
You lost me at this point, I had to do some background reading. If I understand it right it would have an infinite number of points but in a finite space. A bit like how you can have big and small infinities in maths: the number of whole numbers is greater than the number of odd numbers, even though they are both infinite.
Bit wrote:what happens if you fly with almost light speed and light a bulb - does the light crawl out of the bulb because light speed has a maximum or what?
A very, very naive answer (from someone who only studied very little physics): if you are travelling at close to the speed of light your own perception of time would slow down, so the light could seem by your standards to be moving very fast.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Zyx »

oh_brother wrote:To get a little more "star-trek like" there is a band of anti-mater around the earth, which could power space missions. In theory. I don't know how much is there though, and I doubt NASA have developed any anti-matter engines yet!
Answer on this excellent blog:
All told, we are talking about maybe a few nanograms of antiprotons in the entire space between the two Van Allen belts! You could collect it all -- draining the region between the Van Allen belts of antiprotons -- and it would contain about as much total energy as your car battery.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

@ Zyx... from what i remember in Star Trek, It killed the sweet sickly smelling gaseous cloud that fed on red blood cells. maybe there is one lurking out there now :lol: i hope the sun does not make it to difficult to see all the meteors for the next couple days. i love looking up in the night sky.

@ Bit, i understand the thing in itself i know what you refer, life is very special from a space point of view.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

A very, very naive answer (from someone who only studied very little physics): if you are travelling at close to the speed of light your own perception of time would slow down, so the light could seem by your standards to be moving very fast.
Lovely expained. I always get confused having a constant lightspeed, but a variable time...
Maybe I'm here because I believe in something being FasterThanLight :D
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by cowsmanaut »

Paul, PHI seems to support your idea.. after all fractal math has created some fairly convincing replicas of natural looking things related to PHI

Image

this next image made in a fractal generator shows how fractal math relates
Image
fairly convincing no?

I've also hear others say that mandalas (essentially hand drawn fractals) were/are believed to hold the secrets of both though and the universe. It's facinating how much we can use even what little we truly understand of math and the properties of the world to recreate natural phenomena . Not only that, but PHI itself having been known about for so long and yet information links back to it every time, but that knowing that number didn't cause the explosion of discovery, but rather it keeps trickling out slowly over time. I wonder if we calculated technology jumps in a per field basis.. would we end up with PHI as a ratio of the time span or by how far forward it brings us in understanding?
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Babe Bridou »

About the speed of light - it's believed (well, part of almost all recent theories) that wherever you are, the relative speed of light is a constant and it's always the same value.

Go underwater, and the light will travel at C speed. Go above water, and the light will travel at C speed. Travel at the speed of light relative to the earth (ie: "try to follow a photon") and the speed of light will still be travelling at C around you, which means you'll be essentially pushing that photon by simply observing it. But it won't go faster from the point of view of an observer on Earth. Give me a sec, I need to scratch my head, too.

Anyway that's the theory of relativity. And it explains plenty of stuff, if C is the speed at which information travels, if it travels at a constant speed relative to you, that means you won't feel any change in the passage of time because you will still receive information at the same speed, but people back on earth will - say it takes you 8 years (earth time, don't remember the actual number) to go from Earth to Alpha Centauri at half the speed of light, how much time will have passed on Earth during the time it takes for you to go there and back? 16 years? Really? It takes you 8 years to reach it, but from earth's point of view you will have reached it only when the light you emit from alpha centauri reaches the earth, which is 4 years later(12 years after your departure from earth)! Then you come back (still at half the speed of light) and arrive back at earth 8 years later, and from there it becomes complicated because you would have reached the frigging speed of light instead of half the speed of light if you arrive after 16 years total: from earth's point of view you reached alpha centauri after 12 years, and are back after 16 years! Let's pick the middle of the trip back: it's 2 light years away from earth, right? And you reach that place after 12 years of relative time from your point of view, but the info arrives only after 12 years (time of your departure From Alpha Centauri from earth's point of view) + 4 years (time it took you to arrive halfway back) + 2 years (time it takes for the info that you are halfway back to reach earth), so that info reaches earth 18 years after your departure (8+4+4+2). Apply some more iterations, in the end you get something like 24 years (earth time, or is it 32? My maths fail me.) vs 16 years (traveller's time).

That's about as much as my poor head can think it understands about time dilatation at the speed of light.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Rasmus »

Go underwater, and the light will travel at C speed. Go above water, and the light will travel at C speed. Travel at the speed of light relative to the earth (ie: "try to follow a photon") and the speed of light will still be travelling at C around you, which means you'll be essentially pushing that photon by simply observing it. But it won't go faster from the point of view of an observer on Earth. Give me a sec, I need to scratch my head, too.
You are right about that the light always have a constant speed 'C'. But C is the contant speed of light traveling in vacum, in water it will be slower but still constant..
An normal explanation is that if a car is traveling towards me at 50 km/h, the light that hits me from its headlights are at speed C. The same would be is the car is standing still or traveling in a at speed C/2, the speed of the light would still be C.

This was the paradox Einstein solved and is a part of the special relativity theory. The consequences can be calculated with help of the lorentz transformation, and one result are the following formula:

t' = 1 / (1 - (v^2 / c^2)) ^ 0.5

v is the traveling speed in comperasment to another observer.
t' is the observers "time speed".

So here we have a little example with Alpha Centauri that are 4,37 lightyears away:

We have a spaceship traveling in C/2. Then it would take 4,37 * 4 = years in earthtime for the spaceship to travel there and back.
But this is only for the observer that watches the spaceship from earth.

Now if the travelers in the spaceship had a telescope and was looking down on earth while he is speeding towards the star he would experience the traveltime diffrently.
According to the equation t' = 1 / (1 - (v^2 / c^2)) ^ 0.5 he would observe the time moving on earth 1,15 times the speed in comperasment to his own watch. This would mean that for every second that passes by on earth only 0,87 seconds passes by in the spaceship.

The result is that if it takes 17,48 years for the spaceship to travel to Alpha Centauri according to the people on earth, it will only take 15,2 years for the people traveling in the spaceship to travel to Alpha Centauri.
If we know speed up the spaceship to 99 % of the lightspeed. We would have the following result:
Earthtime = 8,83 years
Spaceship time = 1,25 years

This also affects the mass of the spaceship making it 7,1 times heavier, making it harder to accelerate any further, this is also the reason why it is imposible to travel faster than light, because the ship would be endlesly heavy..

Very interesting :)
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

heavy... i wonder how fast darkspeed is... :) just kidding... or am i
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

I would bring up exactly the same sample...
Then again...
They start in 2000. Which is same everywhere.
The picture of the launch got send to Earth, reaching it in 2004. (4 lightyears away)
In the middle there's another camera. (2 LY)
Travelling at half of lightspeed, they arrive there in 2004.
The pictures of that event reach the Earth in 2006 now. (2 LY)
A joker who calculates, hey, they made 2 LY in 2 years - so they fly at lightspeed.
That's nothing but the Doppler-effect.
But where the heck is the age-difference now?
If the spaceship don't age as fast as us, they must have the impression that they moved faster than 50% lightspeed. Or - if their speedometer counts 50%, vice versa - we have the impression that they've been slower than expected. So after all - their speed is relative...
I can calculate the formulas - but still not really believe it.
The ugly question is now: Do they get a ticket for being faster than allowed or not? :mrgreen:
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Rasmus »

They start in 2000. Which is same everywhere.
There is a little problem here, there are never 2000 everywhere!
On Alpha Centauri in 2000 the earth is in 1996 and on earth in 2000 there is 1996 on Alpha Centauri.

So 4 lightyears away the camera can't take the picture of the launch until 4 years later. Which will mean that the camera taking the picture at 2 LY away will be 2 years before the picture taken 4 LY away.. Meaning that they arrive before the launch..

The result here is that the Joker that calculates would say that they fly backwards at lightspeed instead..

Sorry for hacking down on your post :) but the doppler effect is quiet different than a time paradox, it is the effect that comes when light/sound waves get compressed/expanded when they speed up/down to the speed that they are suppose to have :)

So the ugly answer is: They get a ticket for beeing to slow! :D
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

There is a little problem here, there are never 2000 everywhere!
On Alpha Centauri in 2000 the earth is in 1996 and on earth in 2000 there is 1996 on Alpha Centauri.
gagagagagagagagagagagag :shock:
I agree, on Alpha Centauri 2000 you *see* Earth of 1996. On Earth 2000 you *see* Alpha Centauri 1996.
But - the moment 2000 is same for all - that means, the camera in the middle would get the photo of Alpha Centauri 2000 and Earth 2000 in 2002. Right? I mean - the camera's 2002 that we see in 2004...
Will study the rest of the post only if that is right! :idea:
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Jan »

Rasmus wrote:t' = 1 / (1 - (v^2 / c^2)) ^ 0.5
= 42 !!!

Alright, it was silly of me. Sorry. I'll go stand in the corner.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Paul Stevens »

But - the moment 2000 is same for all
Sorry.

One of the terrible conclusions of relativity is:

"Two people cannot necessarily agree on which
of two events occurred first."

Both people can be very smart. Both people
can manipulate the equations of relativity.
They learned all about it in first grade and
understand it thoroughly. But both agree that
there is no way to decide which of two events
occurred first.

So, whether the year 2000 is in the future or
in the past is up for grabs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

That seems to be a good link Paul.
Will study it the next weeks, because I'm a bit under pressure atm.
Still - there's something in me that refuses to accept this.
And I had no problem to accept that Earth isn't flat!
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Rasmus »

Jan wrote:
Rasmus wrote:t' = 1 / (1 - (v^2 / c^2)) ^ 0.5
= 42 !!!

Alright, it was silly of me. Sorry. I'll go stand in the corner.
Somebody has been reading the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy ;)

I agree bit, this is really mindbending, and this theory was "created" in 1905 by Einstein.. If you really want to get upside down with the reallity I would recommend looking into some documeteries about quantum physics, there we have really weird stuff going on!

Here is a link to a documentery a saw recently http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/through- ... erse-work/
Really interesting!!
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by Bit »

Had written a lot - but are not able to send. Really problems with my connections since a few days, it won't transfer more than those few words. Will do later.
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Re: in spaaaaaace!! there's science

Post by babebridou »

oh and by the way, there are people who are currently scratching their head even harder than us. They are actually hoping so much that they made a mistake that they published it and pray that someone, somewhere, something can invalidate their result.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484
The team prepares a beam of just one type, muon neutrinos, sending them from Cern to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to see how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.

In the course of doing the experiments, the researchers noticed that the particles showed up a few billionths of a second sooner than light would over the same distance.

The team measured the travel times of neutrino bunches some 15,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery.
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