#exploring the space

[heylsgowt]

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[lanndscape]

[natureell]

[landsccape]

[dinchenix]

If you had the chance to join the journey through space, would you do it?

This artwork is also availabe as a wallpaper on my ko-fi here!💙

[daily-spooky]

[jeandejard3n]

The Martian: Alone in Mars

[ladygrinninghole]

obsessed with star trek repeatedly writing themselves into a corner by creating alien races that are supposed to be The Bad Guys when that explicitly conflicts with their previously established notion that no group of people is inherently good or evil.

first it was the klingons—they’re originally supposed to be this cruel, bloodthirsty, war-obsessed people—and then tng comes along and it’s like wait no maybe war and violence is a part of their culture and actually ties back to ancient traditions and philosophies so we have to be woke about it.

hey these are the ferengi and they’re supposed to represent everything we hate about capitalist society; they’re greedy, scheming, profit-obsessed, and they look like ugly little trolls to emphasize how much we fucking HATE capitalism. oh wait fuck here comes deep space nine and we have to recognize that they’re PEOPLE. okok what if the pursuit of profit is actually part of their culture and ties back to ancient traditions and philosophies. so we have to be woke about it.

this is the borg, they’re a hivemind race of cyborgs who have no sense of individuality and their only motivation is assimilating people into their society. they want to assimilate humanity and we are completely defenseless against them because their technology is eons ahead of our own and they’re incapable of being reasoned with. oh sweet we have a borg prisoner this is the perfect opportunity to commit genocide against them. fuck actually we can’t commit genocide we’re woke and communists and in space.

hey these are the cardassians, they’re part of a cruel and vicious empire which is supposed to be a representation of fascism and authoritarian regimes, they’re a cold, bloodthirsty people with no sense of empathy or compassion, their society literally references 1984 on multiple occasions, and they’re known for the insanely cruel and inhumane methods of torture they use against their prisoners of war. we hate the cardassians…….. except, here’s a cardassian kid who grew up on bajor, and……. fuck. he’s a person. now we actually have to consider his humanity. and being racist is actually……. bad.

this is the jem’hadar, they’re genetically engineered soldiers who have no sense of individuality and only live to defend the state. they’re all born addicted to a synthetic drug that’s manufactured by the state and administered by their masters—this is how they’re kept subservient. they’re ruthless and powerful and they’re incapable of being reasoned with because their only motivation is violence and killing. so we should kill them all, right? FUCK….. what if they’re actually people. goddamnit. now we have to consider their humanity.

hey these are the romulans. hey these are the founders. the list goes on. i just find it really interesting

[cansu-m]

[kensatou]

if nothing else can save america this zero-year-old fairy baby otter with no gender can. chiitan's platform is love. and chaos.

[aimeekb]

Milky Way arch over the Mojave desert, California

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[deep-space-netwerk]

What do you mean by Venus floating cities?

I'm hoping to write a science fiction story about visiting Venus as part of the space race and I would love your input

Alright so the thing with Venus is that we're all very familiar with her horrible hell-death clouds and 900°F surface temperatures. We all understand the surface of Venus is not a fun place for humans to be.

But, nobody ever talks about the fact that ABOVE the hell-death clouds, Venus is a paradise. The most Earth-like environment we know of in the solar system, beyond Earth itself, is actually in the skies of Venus.

About 30 miles above the surface, the pressure is ~1 atmosphere, and the temperature ranges from 30 - 100°F, which is Happy Human™ standard pressure and temperature.

What's more, a breathable mix of oxygen and nitrogen provides over 60% the lifting power on Venus that helium does on Earth. In other words, a balloon full of human-breathable air would float to the habitable range of Venus's atmosphere. We could float a ship with the very air we breathe.

The other great thing about this is that it avoids one of the big problems with Mars colonization. On Mars, any habitat on the surface full of breathable air is vulnerable to leaks and explosive decompression, a la the Martian.

Floating on Venus, a balloon full of breathable air doesn't have a significant pressure difference between the inside and the outside. Which means, any leaks or tears would be very slow and manageable. You could fix that shit with duct tape!

Similarly, because the environment outside the balloon is so Earth-like, humans living there wouldn't need any big fancy pressurized suits for extravehicular work. We'd need air to breathe, maybe some heat protection, and protection against the acid rain. That's it. 

Venus also provides the tools to keep us fed! It's atmosphere is made primarily of carbon dioxide, even above the dense horrible clouds. What likes carbon dioxide? Plants from Earth!! Lets grow FOOD on FLOATING PLATFORMS in the SKIES of VENUS.

This whole idea actually came out of a NASA effort exploring potential Venus colonization. The program was called HAVOC - the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept.

It hasn't really gone anywhere, and as far as I know there are no real plans to revisit it. Unfortunately, from a practicality standpoint, Mars is a much more viable target for human colonization. Not only is it better poised for outer solar system exploration, being farther away from the sun, but living on Venus would come with too many complicated contingencies. In the event of a major failure on Venus, you'd need to fly to another base, or fuck off all the way to orbit. I understand why people aren't really in a hurry to live somewhere where landing on the surface means certain death.

But that doesn't mean I won't be forever and always enamored by the skies of Venus. Here's one of the artist concepts to come out of HAVOC.

I want to be there.

[prokopetz]

To be fair, a lot of goofy-sounding rocketry/aerospace terminology has a legitimate nomenclatural role beyond just being silly euphemisms.

"Unplanned rapid disassembly", for example, exists as the necessary counterpart to planned rapid disassembly: sometimes a rocket is legitimately supposed to fall apart or blow up, so you need a specific term to emphasise that it wasn't supposed to do that.

Similarly, "lithobraking" was coined by analogy with aerobraking (shedding velocity via atmospheric friction) and hydrobraking (shedding velocity by landing in water), and it does have some intentional applications; the Mars Pathfinder probe, for example, was deliberately crashed into the Martian surface while surrounded by giant airbags, and reportedly bounced at least 15 times before coming to rest.

(That said, aerospace engineers absolutely do use these terms humorously as well, because engineers are just Like That.)