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  #1  
Old November 22nd 06, 06:09 PM posted to sci.space.history
dean
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Posts: 7
Default 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  
Old November 22nd 06, 08:24 PM posted to sci.space.history
Jonathan Silverlight[_1_]
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Posts: 298
Default 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  
Old November 22nd 06, 09:27 PM posted to sci.space.history
w9gb
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Posts: 27
Default 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  
Old November 23rd 06, 12:36 AM posted to sci.space.history
Frank Glover[_1_]
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Posts: 353
Default 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
  #5  
Old November 23rd 06, 03:54 AM posted to sci.space.history
robert casey
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Posts: 790
Default Lost in Space


Just wondering.
Dean


End result is a truly badly written TV series, and an awful movie...

:-)
  #6  
Old November 23rd 06, 05:29 AM posted to sci.space.history
jonathan
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Posts: 611
Default 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  
Old November 23rd 06, 03:58 PM posted to sci.space.history
OM[_4_]
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Posts: 806
Default 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  
Old November 24th 06, 04:14 AM posted to sci.space.history
Jorge R. Frank
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,089
Default 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.
  #9  
Old November 24th 06, 05:30 AM posted to sci.space.history
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default 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  
Old November 24th 06, 06:05 AM posted to sci.space.history
Pascal Bourguignon
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Posts: 49
Default 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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