Log in to post
|
Print Thread |
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,250
Veteran
|
OP
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,250 |
Is any else following Curiosity? Here’s a great short video from NASA: http://www.wimp.com/rovercuriosity/To give you a sense of the scale of Curiosity, check it out next to a couple of its little brothers: Go here if you want to see a full page photo: http://i.imgur.com/FdzQB.jpgCool stuff!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 98
Enthusiast
|
Enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 98 |
I'm anxiously waiting on the Hi-Def pics to start flowing in...
Any idea when we'll be seeing those?
Living in The Music City
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,250
Veteran
|
OP
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,250 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 98
Enthusiast
|
Enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 98 |
Cool - thanks for the link. It is an amazing accomplishment, for sure.
I remember the first lunar landing. I was a kid, but my folks let me stay up to watch them bouncing around on the lunar surface. As a matter of fact, my Dad had a hand in a few of the space missions, so I had some exposure to the early missions. Always had a fascination for this kind of stuff. This mission is special due to the technology that will be deployed. Using lasers on rocks, scooping up samples of the terrain, roaming around the surface, hi-def images - pretty cool stuff!
Living in The Music City
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Apr 2012
Posts: 234
Apprentice
|
Apprentice
Joined: Apr 2012
Posts: 234 |
I agree wholly with you Mike. Stuff like this drew me to engineering. Just hope the current and future administrations don't continue to see NASA as an easy way to cut spending.
Todd
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,250
Veteran
|
OP
Veteran
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 4,250 |
I also watched the first lunar landing live as a kid. I’ve been a NASA fan ever since. Only 12 people have walked on the moon. Quote:
Neil Armstrong - Apollo 11 - July, 1969 Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin - Apollo 11 - July, 1969 Charles "Pete" Conrad - Apollo 12 - November, 1969 Alan Bean - Apollo 12 - November, 1969 Alan Shepard - Apollo 14 - February, 1971 Edgar Mitchell - Apollo 14 - February, 1971 David Scott - Apollo 15 - July, 1971 James Irwin - Apollo 15 - July, 1971 John Young - Apollo 16 - April, 1972 (also on Apollo 10, without landing) Charles Duke - Apollo 16 - April, 1972 Eugene Cernan - Apollo 17 - December, 1972 (also on Apollo 10, without landing) Harrison Schmitt - Apollo 17 - December, 1972
It’s hard to believe we haven’t been back in 40 years and we’re now reduced to hitching a ride with the Russians on 30+ year old technology just to get to the space station.
The space station is only 220 miles away. The average distance between the Moon and the Earth is 384,403 kilometers (238,857 miles).
As for Mars:
Quote:
The nearest that Mars has ever been to the Earth is 56 million km or about 34.8 million miles. On the opposite end of the scale, Mars and Earth can be a whopping 401 million km (249 million miles) apart when they are in opposition and both are at aphelion. The average distance between the two is 225 million km (140 million miles).
The makes the complicated landing of an SUV sized rover pretty impressive. I’m looking forward to seeing what it finds. With the equipment on this rover, it could be pretty exciting.
Funding NASA is important to the future of our advancement as a species. And it’s also pretty cool to watch.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,687
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,687 |
I was logged into NASA TV Sunday night and watched the people in mission control start jumping and screaming when they received that little text message. Very cool. I read somewhere that Curiosity won't be all checked out and ready to go for about 10 days.
I was playing a gig in a bar in North Hollywood when we landed on the moon. Actually I don't think we had started yet, we were there setting up. We were all glued to the little 21" TV listening to Uncle Walter. Everybody there including us, the staff and the drunks all cheered.
One reason NASA's budget gets cut is the incredible cost overruns for everything. And the very expensive and embarrasing incompetence. Remember the Hubble when it was first launched and it beamed back the first pics and they were blurry? How about that other Mars mission where somebody forgot to do a metric to miles conversion and it entered the Martian atmosphere way too steep and crashed? Several billion dollars for both of those incidents.
I remember very clearly all the things the Shuttle was going to do for space exploration especially the much lower cost because it's reusable. Right. It's a marvel of engineering but it was so far over budget even I can't exaggerate it. I hate to say it because NASA is well, NASA we all love it and what they stand for but in reality it's just another wildly overblown wasteful government program. The stories about costs are legendary, I've read about them for years. The line from the movie Contact that goes something like "the thing about government programs is why have only one when you can build two at four times the cost" pretty much says it all. That Russion system is simple, reliable, safe, powerful and cheap. Relatively speaking of course. Sure, when you're in a Communist dictatorship that has morphed into a Russian Mafia/KGB faux democracy where if you screw up your dog can't find you, it's somewhat easier to get things done.
Like Heinlein said, we'll just keep muddlin through and it usually works out.
At four times the cost.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
Anonymous
Unregistered
|
[e: spam removed]
Last edited by Will - PG Music; 08/08/12 08:50 AM.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502 |
Well, this old robotics engineer from days now past, who once worked at a university under a JPL contract, is all up innit.
Did you know that the wheel treads of Curiousity leave a MESSAGE in the Martian Sands everywhere she goes?
There are slots milled into the wheels that extrude sand into Morse Code letters as the wheels roll.
Di-Dah-Dah-Dah
Di-Dah-Dah-Dit
Di-Dah-Di-Dit
or
J
P
L
Over and over again.
How cool is that?
Morse is the *only* digital code that does not require a machine to read it. Can be done with the human senses and mind only.
One of the whizkids might be an Amateur Radio Operator and ain't a nocode nuthin'...
--Mac
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 349
Journeyman
|
Journeyman
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 349 |
Growing up in the 60's and as an avid reader of every sci-fi book I could get my hands on I eagerly awaited each and every next chapter of "The Space Race".
My mother went to school with Rod Serling (she even got me his autograph at a high school reunion)so The Twilight Zone was a weekly staple at our house. My school notebooks were full of drawings of space ships and alien monsters often to the chagrin of my teachers.
My goal was to eventually get a job with NASA until, in college, the reality hit me that my brain cells were better equipped for doing art than math. So I ended up painting rockets instead of flying them. A lot safer choice as I look back on it now.
Throughout my life I have never ceased to be amazed at the things science can accomplish to be used for both good and bad.
However, while I realize most of what we have today can be traced back to the efforts to put men on the moon and possibly on Mars, I wonder if it's time we put the same effort and expense into Terraforming our own planet.
I believe there is still a universe of undiscovered wonders right here on Earth and exploring them would yield many more real benefits which could help save our planet from the pollution and economic pressures it now faces.
Focusing on near space projects,such as experiments in the space station and possibly mining the moon, for example.
These could give us more bang for our buck and result in expanded living areas to now uninhabitable areas, more and cleaner water, cheaper and less polluting energy sources, etc.
I'd hate to be one of the astronauts who travel on a round trip to Mars and then realize there is no place to go home to.
Just stirring the pot. Have a great one, Carkins
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 7,304
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 7,304 |
Curiously, I have no curiosity at all.
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.
1. How much did you make in 2023? 2. Send it to us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 416
Journeyman
|
Journeyman
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 416 |
I always envied you guys. In 69 i was a kid and we had to listen it on the radio...(not the same) here in South Africa we only got TV in 1976! 1 channel I'll have you know.
Spent the begiinning of my career in the miltary aircraft industry (avionics and gyroscopes) ...
A couple of years ago I was a speaker at a project management sofware conference in Florida and Alan Bean was the keynote speaker.
He based his talk on risk and made us reflect on them sitting on the top of Apollo built by the cheapest tenderers ...
I managed to have a chat to him afterwards and shake his hand (haven't washed it yet)
I'm doing allright for Country Trash ....
I used to care, but things have changed (Bob Dylan)
BIAB 2022W + RB M-Audio FastTrack C600, Rode NT2-A Digitech VoiceLive 4
Epiphone Sheraton, Ibanez 12str, Washburn 6str, Cort 6Str Nylon Yanagisawa Tenor Sax
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 8,987
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 8,987 |
This quip fits in perfectly here:
(Top joke in Canada)
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C.
The Russians used a pencil.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Off-Topic
|
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 98
Enthusiast
|
Enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 98 |
I'm sure all this will pay off in the end. I mean, just look what the pictures are showing us now that we didn't know existed before:
Living in The Music City
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
User Video: Next-Level AI Music Editing with ACE Studio and Band-in-a-Box®
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 German for Windows is Here!
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 für Windows Deutsch ist verfügbar!
Wir waren fleißig und haben über 50 neue Funktionen und eine erstaunliche Sammlung neuer Inhalte hinzugefügt, darunter 222 RealTracks, neue RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, "Songs with Vocals" Artist Performance Sets, abspielbare RealTracks Set 3, abspielbare RealDrums Set 2, zwei neue Sets von "RealDrums Stems", XPro Styles PAK 6, Xtra Styles PAK 17 und mehr!
Paket | Was ist Neu
Update Your PowerTracks Pro Audio 2024 Today!
The Newest RealBand 2024 Update is Here!
The newest RealBand 2024 Build 5 update is now available!
Download and install this to your RealBand 2024 for updated print options, streamlined loading and saving of .SGU & MGU (BB) files, and to add a number of program adjustments that address user-reported bugs and concerns.
This free update is available to all RealBand 2024 users. To learn more about this update and download it, head to www.pgmusic.com/support.realband.htm#20245
The Band-in-a-Box® Flash Drive Backup Option
Today (April 5) is National Flash Drive Day!
Did you know... not only can you download your Band-in-a-Box® Pro, MegaPAK, or PlusPAK purchase - you can also choose to add a flash drive backup copy with the installation files for only $15? It even comes with a Band-in-a-Box® keychain!
For the larger Band-in-a-Box® packages (UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition), the hard drive backup copy is available for only $25. This will include a preinstalled and ready to use program, along with your installation files.
Backup copies are offered during the checkout process on our website.
Already purchased your e-delivery version, and now you wish you had a backup copy? It's not too late! If your purchase was for the current version of Band-in-a-Box®, you can still reach out to our team directly to place your backup copy order!
Note: the Band-in-a-Box® keychain is only included with flash drive backup copies, and cannot be purchased separately.
Handy flash drive tip: Always try plugging in a USB device the wrong way first? If your flash drive (or other USB plug) doesn't have a symbol to indicate which way is up, look for the side with a seam on the metal connector (it only has a line across one side) - that's the side that either faces down or to the left, depending on your port placement.
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows® Today!
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows for free with build 1111!
With this update, there's more control when saving images from the Print Preview window, we've added defaults to the MultiPicker for sorting and font size, updated printing options, updated RealTracks and other content, and addressed user-reported issues with the StylePicker, MIDI Soloists, key signature changes, and more!
Learn more about this free update for Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows at www.pgmusic.com/support_windowsupdates.htm#1111
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 Review: 4.75 out of 5 Stars!
If you're looking for a in-depth review of the newest Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows version, you'll definitely find it with Sound-Guy's latest review, Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows Review: Incredible new capabilities to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs.
A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."
"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."
"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forums66
Topics81,716
Posts736,384
Members38,553
|
Most Online2,537 Jan 19th, 2020
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There are no members with birthdays on this day. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|