3169
3170

Here we go again.

First they ruin videogames and now they come for our space walks. What’s next? Female doctors?!?!

3171

If you want to explore space, just a reminder that SpaceEngine is finally up on Steam.

3172

It looks like this didn’t get posted here (I searched ‘tardigrades’ and this particular item didn’t come up), so…

3173

Their previous mission archive …

“is inscribed in a quartz disc using an experimental 5D optical technology developed by physicists at the University of Southampton. But that storage medium has limitations. Digital technologies and encoding standards are great for compressing lots of information into a small amount of space, but they are also short-lived—how many people do you know who could play a VHS tape today? If you want to create a library for humans thousands or millions of years in the future, your best bet is to keep it analog.”

VHS is an analog recording system, not digital. This is why you need a technical person to help edit your reporting.

3174

The Japanese obviously decided that tardigrades were in fact aliens anyway, so they were just trying to send them home.

3175

Europa mission one step closer

3176

I wonder what the pressure of the water is at the bottom of that ocean. (Also, what is the pressure near the surface of the ocean?

3177

Nice, but we need a lander. I have these fantasies of a probe worming its way down through the ice, finally breaking through, and we find the ocean below absolutely teaming with life.

3178

The majority of NASA’s budget should be going to missions on Europa and Enceladus not to the moon or SLS. They’re our best chance to find life somewhere outside of Earth and if we do find it there, the ramifications are huge.

3179

2010_europa

3180

Eh. I certainly agree the budget for those mission should be a lot higher (I mean, I own an Enceladus t-shirt), but I also think the probability of finding life is very small indeed, so making it the majority would be a huge misallocation of resources. There’s still a shit-ton we don’t know about asteroids or comets or even the Sun and Earth. I’d be fine with it taking some of the manned Mars budget though.

3181

I mean if we were calculating ROI, then asteroids are the sure bet. Both for potential financial reasons (available minerals), but also existential ones.

Chicxulub anyone?

3182

One thing to remember: if we can move asteroids to forestall an impact, we can also move them to cause an impact. All the fun of nuclear weapons without the pesky fallout!

3183

This is actually a major plot point in The Expanse.

3184

Same here. Hopefully we sterilize it thoroughly. Wouldn’t want to contaminate a whole world.

3185

I mean you guys did watch the documentary, right?

3186

Fixed.

3187

The radiation environment of Jupiter should have no problem with that.

3188

Tardigrades will have a word or two to say about that, most of them boiling down to “challenge accepted, human”.