contrarian

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    contrarian replied to the thread Curiosity Mars rover discovers largest organic molecules ever seen on Red Planet.

    Very curious that these hydrocarbons are found only as linear chains, without any branching, and only three different lengths at that...

    Wednesday at 5:55 PM
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    contrarian replied to the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last..

    Thanks for the correction. These were all done with keypunch programming I assume. That must have been very tedious. Tried that myself...

    Mar 13, 2025
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    contrarian reacted to erts12's post in the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last. with Like.

    A slight correction ... The command, attitude control, and flight data computers onboard each Voyager spacecraft were/are programmed in...

    Mar 13, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread Scientists discover smallest galaxy ever seen: 'It's like having a perfectly functional human being that's the size of a grain of rice.

    It is reasonable to believe that these ancient small satellite galaxies have small black holes at their cores. That they are so old...

    Mar 12, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread Scientists discover Earth's oldest impact crater in Australia.

    This should come as no surprise that it was found in western Australia. The oldest rocks at 4.4 billion years and the oldest verifiable...

    Mar 7, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last..

    Failures have certainly piled up, but from what I read some critical instruments to study interstellar space are still providing...

    Mar 6, 2025
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    contrarian reacted to modelrocketman's post in the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last. with Like.

    Agreed but I think the design parameters were to explore our Solar System and that was it. They weren't expected to last!! It was...

    Mar 6, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last..

    Yes, the Voyagers used a version of Fortran (V) that is not used anymore. They were lucky to find the people who made these programs...

    Mar 6, 2025
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    contrarian reacted to Classical Motion's post in the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last. with Like.

    It’s a shame we can’t develop a potential between the craft and a trailing wire for power, for dark space travel.

    Mar 6, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread NASA switches off Voyager instruments to extend life of the two interstellar spacecraft 'Every day could be our last..

    They should have made those RTGs much bigger. Seems likely they did not expect these spacecraft to last so long.

    Mar 6, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread The US will 'plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond,' Trump tells Congress.

    All space flights with humans on board are "near the top for wastefulness", except for the Apollo missions. They had to be done just to...

    Mar 5, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread The US will 'plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond,' Trump tells Congress.

    There are plenty of moons to plant a flag on! We already put up six of them on our own Moon. The biggest issue is the cost. Where...

    Mar 5, 2025
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    contrarian reacted to Grog Eisenbein's post in the thread The US will 'plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond,' Trump tells Congress with Like.

    They are going to «plant the flag far beyond Mars»? I hear some scientists say Jupiter does not have a solid surface, but I’m sure it’s...

    Mar 5, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread NASA supercomputer finds billions of comets mimicking the Milky Way's shape: 'The universe seems to like spirals!.

    The initial point was about a "dark planet", and how it would behave. This dead horse has now been beaten enough I hope.

    Mar 4, 2025
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    contrarian replied to the thread NASA supercomputer finds billions of comets mimicking the Milky Way's shape: 'The universe seems to like spirals!.

    The "habitability of the surface" was not critical to the issue. Habitability anywhere was the point, which would of course be inside...

    Mar 3, 2025

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