Recent content by Meteoric Marmot

It seems obvious to me that the long-term future of terrestrial astronomy is bleak, but we are still building telescopes. I think we should stop building instruments that will be compromised by human activity and concentrate the money and design talent on improving our space-based capabilities...

Maybe at 39 he hasn't built up an extensive enough "old crony network" to be as totally corrupt as his predecessor. Or not. Advancement based on merit is not a common feature of Russian politics.

Given the cost per pound of items sent to the moon back then, the value of those balls is truly astronomical.

Satellites old enough to be defunct are unlikely to harbour any tech that is relevant. Satellites typically spend several years in development and then a decade or more on orbit. That's eons in the tech world.

As an engineer, I geek out on the whole no-boom development process. As a human hoping to maintain a livable planet, I'm disgusted that anyone would consider that supersonic passenger flight is an acceptable goal in light of the profligate fuel consumption and accompanying carbon footprint. The...

Program it to hunt for valuable minerals (gold, diamond, etc.) and the budget issues will go away. ;)

Spaceballs have the answer.

X-57 is 75% correct.

Obviously the designers of these farm machines failed to consider the possibility of GPS disruptions. Good programming practice would include "sanity checks" on the incoming data so that the software could either halt the machine or resort to less accurate position data from inertial guidance.

I expect that the emitted signal from GPS navigation systems isn't a result of intentional transmission, but rather is leakage from the local oscillator that is used to down-convert (heterodyne) the GPS signal to a frequency range where it can be processed. This technique is what police radar...

"It is an absolute gold mine for discovering more phenomena in our universe, and the data are a playground for astronomers." Since these astronomers are digging into the "residue" of past observations, maybe they should be called paleoastronomers.

It would be useful to know if these events happened at the peak of the solar cycle, but I'm assuming there's no way to discern that so far into the past. Unless there's a low-amplitude background 11-year cycle imposed on the data from CMEs?

Bring back dirigibles! I believe there is a market for leisurely air travel at low altitudes where you can see the country.

I don't see a way to improve on near perfection. If you want to make a different SF movie based on The Tempest, sure, have at it. Reworking Forbidden Planet sounds like it's doomed to failure. I'll wait to see how it does if it ever gets to fruition, but I'm not hopeful.

I would agree with you if it was yet another race to be the first there and nothing else, but that's not the case this time. Both nations are planning to build a base and just as with Earth real estate, it's all about "location, location, location." There is definitely a best place to build a...