Nearly a decade after it landed on Mars, NASA’s Opportunity rover is about to get a fresh start. Opportunity’s engineers plan to reformat its flash memory, which is good news, as the rover’s mission has been renewed for another two years, Nature News reports. (1)
The more we move on, the more we forget where we came from.
But what is better than truly knowing who you are?
Stand still, if you wish to move forward…
Stay ignorant if you wish to truly know the truth.
Were physicists all wrong about the speed of light? You might think so, given the stories posted recently about a new paper suggesting that light travels a bit more slowly than the 186,000-miles-a-second figure that’s familiar to generations of science geeks.
“The speed of light has almost mythical significance in physics”, Tyson told The Huffington Post in an email. “But to be honest, the headline in this case needs to say something like ‘New Calculations Suggest that the Speed of Light May Be 0.0000003% Slower Than We Thought,’ which then might not have garnered any headlines at all”.
In the paper, Franson argues that a “corrected” value for the speed of light might help explain a puzzle stemming from observations of a supernova that exploded in 1987.
Following its explosion, astronomers observed photons (particles of light) and nearly massless particles known as neutrinos streaming from Supernova 1987a, Franson told The Huffington Post in an email, adding that photons and neutrinos have been thought to travel at roughly the same speed. But the first photons from the supernova, which was located in a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, were observed much later than the first neutrinos — a discrepancy that astronomers were hard pressed to explain.
Franson’s paper offers calculations suggesting a possible explanation for the anomaly, as he explained in the email:
What is new about my calculations is that they suggest that a gravitational field may slow light down slightly more than it does other particles, such as neutrinos. Neutrinos have extremely small masses and they travel very nearly at the speed of light as a result. My calculations suggest that the velocity of light may be slowed down by a few parts per billion more than the neutrinos. (1)
We observe.
We “discover” (create?) limits.
We observe again.
We “discover” those limits do not exist as we thought they were.
We observe.
We discover that…
Well, you get the meaning…
When we think about primates in space, we usually think of Ham, the monkey that preceded NASA’s Mercury astronauts on a suborbital Redstone mission. But more than a decade before this notable primate flight there were a series of monkeys named Albert who were also launched to gather data about the effects of spaceflight on men. They flew as part of Project Hermes, a program that saw recovered V-2s launched in the United States, and they are among the often overlooked heroes of the early space age.
The first V-2 Blossom to carry a monkey (missile 37) launched on June 11, 1948 with Albert I on board. The rocket reached a peak altitude of 39 miles before its ascent was cut off by a failed valve. Though the rocket didn’t explode, Albert I likely didn’t make it to apogee. He’s thought to have succumbed to breathing problems in his cramped cabin. But he would have died anyways; the parachute system also failed.
A second V-2 Blossom (missile 47) with another rhesus monkey launched on June 14, 1949. Albert II fared slightly better than his predecessor. He survived launch to reach an apogee of 83 miles, but he didn’t survive the landing. This time, the capsule’s parachutes failed to open; the monkey died on impact. A silver lining, at least for the humans running the test, was that biomedical data from Albert II was transmitted successfully to the ground throughout the flight.
Two more rhesus monkeys named Albert III and Albert IV also died on their V-2 Blossom flights. (1)
How important is the thing you search for?
How ready are you for it?
Are you strong enough to test your own theory?
Or are you a coward who just wants to test it on others?
Sure science needs experiments.
Does it mean that it needs death?
Sure we need tests of new spacecrafts.
Sure we need tests of new medicine.
But there was a time when pioneers of aircrafts tested their own new creations and risked their own lives.
There was a time when scientists tested radioactive material on their own self.
Let’s re-examine the fundamental axioms of our science.
Most “primitive” civilizations had almost the same medicine as we do (we literally use the same herbs in many occasions) and yet they did not kill millions of other beings in the process of discovering them.
Samans and wizards in most “primitive” civilizations used to travel to more vast distances only with the mind. (yes, Princeton has validated that – see “Non local consciousness” article at Blogger)
How progressed are we really?
How men are we really?
Trust your ideas.
Test them your self.
Or else you will always be lesser then a monkey…
As NASA focuses considerable effort on a mission to send humans to Mars in the coming decades, psychology researchers are looking at what types of personalities would work the best together on such a long trip.
Now, a new study finds that on long-term space missions — such as missions to Mars, which could take as long as three years to complete a round trip — having an extrovert on board could have several disadvantages. For example, extroverts tend to be talkative, but their gregarious nature may make them seem intrusive or demanding of attention in confined and isolated environments over the long term, the researchers say. (1)
Most people talk too much.
Most people are afraid to stay alone with themselves.
But staying alone is the only true test of one’s philosophy and composure.
Staying alone is the only true way of talking to the only person that is indeed real.
Stay closed to your self.
And you might get to the stars.
Literally.
A recent study of swabs taken from the rover before it launched found its surfaces contained 65 bacteria species. Engineers are supposed to put spacecraft like Curiosity through a stringent cleaning regimen before launch. Yet certain species of bacteria are known to survive even NASA’s cleanrooms. Wondering about what remained on Curiosity even after cleaning, scientists from the University of Idaho and California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory swabbed different parts of the rover before sending it off. After gathering and characterizing their bacteria, the scientists exposed them to harsh conditions, including desiccation, ultraviolet light exposure, extreme cold and extreme pH levels. About 11 percent of the bacterial strains they found survived at least two conditions. (1)
The premise that we can observe something without affecting it is one of the major dogmas of science today.
Destroying that illusion it is the first step towards the truth.
Realizing that observing something is what makes that something exist is the next step.
Towards understanding what is in front of our eyes.
Which is actually behind them.
Inside our minds I mean.
Well, you know what I mean.
Observe me well.
I am here.
Close your eyes.
I am gone.
Mars here we come!