A
adrenalynn
Guest
Thanks, I think, but it's a commercial application aimed at a particular problem.
There are a few things to look at here:
1) You can't please a hoaxer. Can't be done. It's a defect in their brain. You can counsel it, you can medicate it, but you can't fix it with logic. Does anyone really believe that a camera showing someone looking out a porthole is going to make the hoaxers go away when the sheer volume of undeniable evidence (such as the reflectors) doesn't?
2) Weight and power budgets are an ugly fact of life. In my own forays into near-space, I've had to face those facts at every turn. I can fly any camera(s) I want from an availability standpoint. They're light, cheap, and easy on the power now. When it comes down to it, I spend my weight and power budgets on more pixels, more sensitivity, and more spectrum - just like NASA. The hoaxers represent a tiny, if noisy, fraction of the population, and are utterly and completely unimportant and insignificant. Just addressing them would lend them credibility they don't deserve. So ignore them and fly experiments that have scientific merit.
3) We don't have a national space program anymore anyway.
Yup - you're correct - CCD's weren't even invented until the last of the Apollo missions were flying. They didn't become available outside of Bell Labs until after the last lunar missions. During Apollo they were still flying tubes.
The cameras they'd fly today would be able to see multiple spectra at massive resolutions, and with infinitely more sensitivity.
There are a few things to look at here:
1) You can't please a hoaxer. Can't be done. It's a defect in their brain. You can counsel it, you can medicate it, but you can't fix it with logic. Does anyone really believe that a camera showing someone looking out a porthole is going to make the hoaxers go away when the sheer volume of undeniable evidence (such as the reflectors) doesn't?
2) Weight and power budgets are an ugly fact of life. In my own forays into near-space, I've had to face those facts at every turn. I can fly any camera(s) I want from an availability standpoint. They're light, cheap, and easy on the power now. When it comes down to it, I spend my weight and power budgets on more pixels, more sensitivity, and more spectrum - just like NASA. The hoaxers represent a tiny, if noisy, fraction of the population, and are utterly and completely unimportant and insignificant. Just addressing them would lend them credibility they don't deserve. So ignore them and fly experiments that have scientific merit.
3) We don't have a national space program anymore anyway.
Yup - you're correct - CCD's weren't even invented until the last of the Apollo missions were flying. They didn't become available outside of Bell Labs until after the last lunar missions. During Apollo they were still flying tubes.
The cameras they'd fly today would be able to see multiple spectra at massive resolutions, and with infinitely more sensitivity.