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Lost in Space
I recently learne that NASA is planning to send a probe to Europa in 2015.
But for some reason, I started thinking, what if it was not an unmmaned probe that we were sending, but a manned mission to Europa. Let's just say. Not an easy mission. A dangerous misison even. It would take six years to reach Europa. That's along time. Its a long, long way to go. 780,000,000 km from the Earth. Long, long way. And becuase of the way my brain works, I suddenly wondered what would happen if, for some reason (never mind how) it went dark. All communication was lost with the vessel. I wondered a few questions. (please don't sniker if they sound stupid) One, would we still be able to track it? Or would it be "lost". Could telescopes see something that far that is so small? (a research vessel would be quite small compared to planets or moons) Basically, could we "lose" it? Two, if it was possible to "lose" it once we lost contact, would we, NASA or ESA for example, bother trying to mount a rescue mission? I would imagine building another vehicle capable o just a journey...would be expensive. Would we spend millions to resuce five or six people. Just wondering. Dean |
#2
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Lost in Space
In message 2006112212094675249-robodean@gmailcom, dean
writes I recently learne that NASA is planning to send a probe to Europa in 2015. But for some reason, I started thinking, what if it was not an unmmaned probe that we were sending, but a manned mission to Europa. Let's just say. Not an easy mission. A dangerous misison even. It would take six years to reach Europa. That's along time. Its a long, long way to go. 780,000,000 km from the Earth. Long, long way. And becuase of the way my brain works, I suddenly wondered what would happen if, for some reason (never mind how) it went dark. All communication was lost with the vessel. I wondered a few questions. (please don't sniker if they sound stupid) One, would we still be able to track it? Or would it be "lost". Could telescopes see something that far that is so small? (a research vessel would be quite small compared to planets or moons) Basically, could we "lose" it? Two, if it was possible to "lose" it once we lost contact, would we, NASA or ESA for example, bother trying to mount a rescue mission? I would imagine building another vehicle capable o just a journey...would be expensive. Would we spend millions to resuce five or six people. If we lost contact it would be gone. No way to see it, no possibility of rescue. The only hope would be that they lost the ability to communicate as in "2001", and any real mission would have multiple systems, probably using lasers and including a beacon. But it won't happen. Didn't I read recently that if you landed there without a suit, the radiation would kill you before the vacuum did? |
#3
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Lost in Space
"dean" wrote in message
news:2006112212094675249-robodean@gmailcom... I recently learne that NASA is planning to send a probe to Europa in 2015. But for some reason, I started thinking, what if it was not an unmmaned probe that we were sending, but a manned mission to Europa. Let's just say. Not an easy mission. A dangerous misison even. It would take six years to reach Europa. That's along time. Its a long, long way to go. 780,000,000 km from the Earth. Long, long way. And becuase of the way my brain works, I suddenly wondered what would happen if, for some reason (never mind how) it went dark. All communication was lost with the vessel. I wondered a few questions. (please don't sniker if they sound stupid) One, would we still be able to track it? Or would it be "lost". Could telescopes see something that far that is so small? (a research vessel would be quite small compared to planets or moons) Basically, could we "lose" it? Two, if it was possible to "lose" it once we lost contact, would we, NASA or ESA for example, bother trying to mount a rescue mission? I would imagine building another vehicle capable o just a journey...would be expensive. Would we spend millions to resuce five or six people. Just wondering. Dean Nope. Even Irwin Allen failed to get the space family Robinson home :-) within the series timeframe. He also stranded Scientists Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Phillips of Project Tic-Toc .... in time. gb |
#4
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Lost in Space
dean wrote:
I recently learne that NASA is planning to send a probe to Europa in 2015. But for some reason, I started thinking, what if it was not an unmmaned probe that we were sending, but a manned mission to Europa. Let's just say. Not an easy mission. A dangerous misison even. It would take six years to reach Europa. That, of course, will depend on the form propulsion available at the time. Indeed, such a thing won't be considered *until* it can be done in a much more reasonable time. (And we'll ignore issues with Europa's orbit within Jupiter's VanAllen belts for now...) That's along time. Its a long, long way to go. See above. The answer to 'long, long way' is, as always: 'go faster.' 780,000,000 km from the Earth. Long, long way. And becuase of the way my brain works, I suddenly wondered what would happen if, for some reason (never mind how) it went dark. All communication was lost with the vessel. I wondered a few questions. (please don't sniker if they sound stupid) One, would we still be able to track it? Or would it be "lost". What do you mean by 'track it?' By Earth-based radar? That won't be possible, long before approaching the Jupiter system. Could telescopes see something that far that is so small? (a research vessel would be quite small compared to planets or moons) Basically, could we "lose" it? In that sense, yes. Easily. Two, if it was possible to "lose" it once we lost contact, would we, NASA or ESA for example, bother trying to mount a rescue mission? I would imagine building another vehicle capable o just a journey...would be expensive. Would we spend millions to resuce five or six people. If the rescuers' travel time is longer than the first ship's most optomistic life-support estimates, then there's not much point, right? However, if the event doesn't destroy all interest in manned exploration of Europa (assuming the first ship got all the way there before falling silent), another mission will still go, in order to: 1. Do what the first mission intended to do, and... 2. Try to find out what happened to the first ship. This would be valuable information, even if rescuing survivors is impossible (return of their remains is also desirable, but not mission-justifying by itself). This is done with long lost ships and aircraft, all the time. Even decades later, we want to know what happened. Spaceships will be no different. -- Frank You know what to remove to reply... Check out my web page: http://www.geocities.com/stardolphin1/link2.htm "To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." - Stephen Hawking |
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Lost in Space
Just wondering. Dean End result is a truly badly written TV series, and an awful movie... :-) |
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Lost in Space
"w9gb" wrote in message . .. "dean" wrote in message news:2006112212094675249-robodean@gmailcom... to "lose" it once we lost contact, would we, NASA or ESA for example, bother trying to mount a rescue mission? I would imagine building another vehicle capable o just a journey...would be expensive. Would we spend millions to resuce five or six people. Just wondering. Dean Nope. Even Irwin Allen failed to get the space family Robinson home :-) within the series timeframe. He also stranded Scientists Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Phillips of Project Tic-Toc .... in time. And the Martians never came and rescued Uncle Martin. gb |
#7
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Lost in Space
On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 02:54:48 GMT, robert casey
wrote: End result is a truly badly written TV series, and an awful movie... ....The first 4-6 episodes, the "Keeper" two-parter, the one featuring Michael Ansara and a really young Kurt Russel, and three or four scattered amongst the rest of the series - most notably the one where they went back in time to 1947 and got mistaken for a UFO, and the "Anti-Matter Man" - were actually pretty well-written. The UFO one was quite possibly the only one that comes to mind where Smith's lunacy actually fit the episode perfectly. Those first 4-6 contained elements from the original non-Smith/non-Robot pilot episode, and were written before See-BS started bugging Irwin Allen to make the series a bit lighter in tone than a "Space Family Robinson" concept with an evil stowaway hanging around would normally allow. The rest of the episodes either took the sappiness too far, or went into "Camp" mode in response to "Batmania". ....One other thing to keep in mind about LiS: Smith originally wasn't supposed to be around for the entire series. As Allen related numerous times, when See-BS asked for a protagonist and a robot to be added to flesh out the cast a bit, the part of Smith was originally offered to Carrol O'Connor - yep, Archie Bunker himself. The plan was to have Smith eventually written out of the series, presumably killed off when one of his schemes to take over the J2 and return to Earth fails badly, or by Major West when it's revealed that Smith sabotaged the mission and got trapped on board by accident. According to O'Connor, the reason he turned down the role was not that he didn't want to play a villain as Allen claimed, but that he didn't want a temporary role. Had the plan been to keep Smith around, O'Connor swore that he would have taken the role and played it as shrewd and as evil as he could have gotten away with. How much of this is 20/20 hindsight is questionable, but the concept of seeing Archie telling West to get out of his favorite chair while yelling at the Robot to stifle his wisecracks and bring him a beer is priceless. ....As we all know, Jonathan Harris was cast instead as Dr. Smith. However, there's always been a debate amongst LiS fans as to whether or not the role was planned to be phased out after all. Harris was always billed as a "special guest star", which implied that he wasn't expected to stay around for the entire series. According to Allen and Harris, the original plan was for Smith to have been killed in the episode called "The Derelict", when the aliens Will and Smith woke up from suspended animation wind up killing Smith. However, Allen at that time intended to delve into the "Aeolus 14-Umbra" sabotage plot, and figured that when he resolved the mess it would be best if Smith was present to get his just desserts. ....What permanently changed those plans was an episode that called for Smith to act a bit more foppish than Harris had previously played him. Allen flipped over this new Smith, and told Harris to play the character that way from now on. Harris eventually pushed the character to those limits, and very quickly the whole Smith as a saboteur plot was forgotten and replaced with Smith as a clumsy accidental stowaway. The sole references to the "evil Smith" plot occurred in an episode where the Robinsons are put on trial by a jury of aliens for crimes against space - the judge was one of the aliens from "The Derelict" - and an episode where Smith manages to go back in time to before the launch of the J2, replaces himself and tries to avoid getting stuck on board. In that latter episode, he gets arrested for being a saboteur, but gladly confesses knowing that being in jail will keep him from being lost with the Robinsons. Except that if he's not on board and hasn't had time to reprogram the Robot to destroy the ship, it'll still get destroyed because - as seen in the Pilot - it'll run into a meteor storm that it won't survive! The dialog between Smith and the Robot as they try to board the J2 as it launches is priceless: Smith: Help! I'm stuck, you ninny! [Smith's foot is stuck in the J2's hatch as it closes before launch] Smith: I'll be incinerated!! Robot: No, Dr. Smith. *I* will be incinerated. You will merely hang outside by your foot, looking like an idiot. ....Needless to say, they manage to open the hatch, get on board, and time is set to its normal course. Harlan Ellison couldn't have done better with his stone donut with the baritone voice. ....One interesting side note about Smith's becoming a bit of a poof, Allen had appeared at a convention in the mid-80's, and did a one-off commentary talk while the 1st Pilot was showing on the big screen. This is where he admitted that to save money, 20th Century Fox told him to use the soundtrack and special effects for "The Day The Earth Stood Still", During the launch, he commented that in the 2nd Pilot - the one where Smith and the Robot first appear - that the reason Smith screams in what was then quite uncharacteristic for the "evil" Smith was that he was being physically damaged by the launch - something that the Robinsons were protected from by the freezing tubes. This caused some minor brain damage that would eventually turn Smith from evil to being somewhat childish and cowardly. He then turned to someone in the audience and asked "was that technical enough for you?" which had the crowd laughing themselves silly, but as to whether or not it's canon is questionable as he never made mention of this one again. OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ |
#8
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Lost in Space
Frank Glover wrote in
: dean wrote: Two, if it was possible to "lose" it once we lost contact, would we, NASA or ESA for example, bother trying to mount a rescue mission? I would imagine building another vehicle capable o just a journey...would be expensive. Would we spend millions to resuce five or six people. If the rescuers' travel time is longer than the first ship's most optomistic life-support estimates, then there's not much point, right? However, if the event doesn't destroy all interest in manned exploration of Europa (assuming the first ship got all the way there before falling silent), another mission will still go, in order to: 1. Do what the first mission intended to do, and... 2. Try to find out what happened to the first ship. This would be valuable information, even if rescuing survivors is impossible (return of their remains is also desirable, but not mission-justifying by itself). This is done with long lost ships and aircraft, all the time. Even decades later, we want to know what happened. Spaceships will be no different. 3. Find out why the computer went berserk, cut the comm link, and killed the crew. :-) -- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM. |
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Lost in Space
Jorge R. Frank wrote: 3. Find out why the computer went berserk, cut the comm link, and killed the crew. :-) Next check if they arrived on Europa and got out on the surface with its extremely high radiation flux that would give you a fatal dosage inside of a hour, if not in a matter of minutes. Bring a lead space suit when going to the Galilean moons. Pat |
#10
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Lost in Space
Pat Flannery writes:
Jorge R. Frank wrote: 3. Find out why the computer went berserk, cut the comm link, and killed the crew. :-) Next check if they arrived on Europa and got out on the surface with its extremely high radiation flux that would give you a fatal dosage inside of a hour, if not in a matter of minutes. Bring a lead space suit when going to the Galilean moons. Two factlets: In a human body, there are more bacteria and viruses than human cells. There are bacteria that live on radioactive uranium rods in nuclear power stations. Now, imagine we add to our bacteria mutate the genes needed to handle radiation, in a way that would benefit your little cells too... -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ CAUTION: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85 million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight. |
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