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Space Science

Visibility Of The ISS Grows 124

Posted by Hemos from the ground-control-to-major-tom dept.
ackthpt writes: "NASA has a feature on the growing visibility of the International Space Station, along with naked-eye Visibility Data when and where to look to see it streaking throught the night sky for US and Non-US cities. Will there be a point where corporate sponsorship hangs an ad in space? Already appearing "as the third brightest star in the nighttime sky", it will eventually be second only to Venus. Will we look up and see a Nike swoosh some day?"
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Visibility Of The ISS Grows More

Visibility Of The ISS Grows

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  • I wonder how much detail you can get with a pair of binoculars. How big across is the ISS anyway?
  • IIRC in 1998, The US passed a law making them illegal if they are visable with the naked eye from earth. That at least takes care of some of the major companies...

    --Josh
  • Hopefully, there won't be any Nike. Have they evolved from sweatshops to sweatships?

    However, I think that NASA could definitly make some extra cash by signing up for a pay per surf program. Get a few extra dollars for the program with all the tax cuts. If they all use it, they might be able to buy like a new engine or something.
  • That means even more light pollution. And if it has reflective surfaces (solar panels), we can expect a glint from it as well.

    I just can't get terribly excited about the ISS. I think we would get much more bang for the buck with unmanned missions and research on new lift vehicles and propulsion systems.

  • Anybody recall when Pizza Hut inquired about putting their logo on the moon via earth-bound lasers? Of course they realized they couldn't, but they wanted to.

    Absolutely amazing.
  • hi,

    i am new to this spacewatching thing.
    It says

    Moutain View
    Aug 23 9:23pm NNW/NNE 3 18

    what do the numbers mean ?
  • Well, maybe. We already saw the Pizza Hut advertising on the boosters, but there probably won't be much advertising on the station itself. Why? 'Cause even when it gets really big & bright, it will still be too small to read the ads with the naked eye. The corps can spend their advertising money much more effectively on TV, where everybody's watching anyway, than on ISS, where most people aren't looking.

  • I didn't actually look at the author of this story until i was too late. I only assumed corporate conspiracies = jonkatz. Anyways. Why is it even mentioned that tghe international space staion is brighter than lots of stars. Of course it is. It's only 1000 million light years closer!

    Intel conspiracies are sometimes funny.

    Microsoft conspiracies are definetly amusing.

    But when you start saying that the cosmos has dimmed just so that we may see nike logo's in the sky, I mean, that's just a little far, don't you think? Even for /.????

    What next, are you going to say that god (if he or she exists) hates Linux? Heavan runs Windows 2000 and there are no crashes? What are you getting at here?>??
  • In the future the ISS will be so huge it will BLOCK OUT THE SUN.
  • 3 is the duration, in minutes, that the ISS is visible. 18 is the maximum elevation above the horizon. So that's how far above the horizon that it's fight path would take it, from your viewpoint. So it will be relatively low in the sky. 0 is on the horizon, 90 is straight up.
  • It means you missed it. :P

  • [grin] First, RTFM (or, in this case, the column headers).

    The numbers mean that on August 3, at 9:23pm, the ISS will enter the sky from the North-NorthWest, and exit the sky to the North-NorthEast, that it will be visible for about 3 minutes, and will be about 18 degrees above the horizon at the top of its arc.

    HTH.


  • If the Nike Swoosh floating in space helps fund additional space exploration and research, who cares? Television and internet ads, as painful as they may be, are a small price to pay for the free programming and information available.

    Then again, if it were so bright as to cause light pollution for that same research, f*@k it.
  • I wouldn't say that advertising on the ISS would be a complete waste of money.

    I'm sure that once it's nearer to being completed there will be lots of TV coverage and plenty of chance to get your logo seen and associated with the space program (although why Pizza Hut want's to associate itself with space launches is beyond me).

  • I'm admitted not a space buff, but I can't help but wonder:

    Wouldn't increased visibility indicate a lesser proximity to viewer? Read: The damn thing's crashing into Earth. I'm nearly positive this is the case.

  • Re:more light pollution (hardly) (Score:3)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @07:49PM (#831981) Homepage Journal
    Beyond2000.com [beyond2000.com] is currently running a story about microgravity experients making fuel more efficient [beyond2000.com]. If you can't see the link between what you ask for and the need for the ISS then I can't make it much clearer...

    And if you really care about light pollution, visit the International Dark-Sky Association [darksky.org] and you'll find that light pollution starts at home.

    (Perth, Australia: sorry, not visible -- D'oh!)

  • What one SF author thought 50+ years ago... (Score:3)

    by bubbasatan ( 99237 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @07:51PM (#831982) Homepage
    If you have never read any Heinlein, you should start now. One of his short novels/longer short stories is called "The Man Who Sold the Moon." This amusing tale covers, among other things, what happens when corporate America gets involved with the space program. One example was a plan to have the light side of the moon scorched on a large scale to produce a company's logo that would be visible in earth's night sky. What's really interesting is that the story was written well before there was a space program. Heinlein is often amazing for his uncanny ability to describe our modern US (and sometimes global) society in shockingly accurate terms, especially considering how long it's been since he wrote the bulk of his work.

  • The sad thing about space ads are if history repeats itself the fist space ads will be for p0rn. Sex in it's various forms have always been the first to move into new forms of media.


    Leknor
  • I see what you mean - the one-shot, Superbowl-style advertising. Hmm...actually, these are corporations, with more money than brains...maybe they will try to advertise on the ISS hull in hopes of some stargazers seeing their logo. They just better hope they can supply everyone that sees it.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The US passed a law making them illegal
    You're saying that the USA controls every corp in the world? They may think they do, but in actuality they don't even control their own corps.

  • Art in Space (Score:4)

    by freddie ( 2935 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @07:57PM (#831987)
    Will there be a point where corporate sponsorship hangs an ad in space?


    This reminds me of a 'work of art' that the ESA (European Space Agency) was said to want to put in space some time a go.


    A set of really thin mirrors, and equally thin interconnecting wires was to be created which would unfold as this huge structure in space. It was going to look like the thirteen star ring of the Europeanc community, like the one that can be seen on some bumper stickers. It was going to be large enough so that it could clearly be recognized from anywhere on earth in the nighttime with the naked eye.


    The project ended being cancelled because it was too controversial. Problems ranging from the setting a possible bad precedent (do we want the sky cluttered with 'art' and advertisements?), to what it would mean to the followers of certain religions led to the demise of the project.


    Although it was cancelled, this project proved that putting 'art' or advertisements in space would be not only economically feasible, but as a matter of fact, relatively cheap, as the 'art' would take only a fraction of the payload of a modern rocket.


    IMO with a cost of a few million, some crazy millionaire or corporation is bound to try something similar sooner or later. But, I think they will be quite unpopular; the last thing I personally want to see when I look up at the sky is something man made. Much less something that is close to being omnipresent.

  • If any of you have ever read Red Dwarf, you may remember how coke paid to have approximately 4000 stars sent supernova, just to spell out "Coke gives life". I laughed then, but now i'm wondering just how long it's going to be. Truth really is stranger than fiction, and the two are merging.
  • I went to their website only to find
    "sorry, not visible" under the row for my country :(

  • I don't care if they puts ads in space. but if you think about it they would use lower orbiting ads so they wouldn't have to be as large.

    Besides night swimming I'm usually not far enought away from the city lights to see stars and stuff so I wouldn't care. But I would take the time to see some of my (least) favorite company's space ads burn as they fell back into the atmosphere.

    I can imagine the flaming Windows logo now :~)


    Leknor
  • The idea isn't new. but they don't need to put stuff in the sky, only project an image.

    It may take a LOT of energy, but more than enough can be right at the doors of a nuclear powerplant.

    It was invented on 60's (or 50's?) but the main problem would be ppl suing the gov for it. And also there could be tampering, ie. drawing a joint in the mouth of the president on campaign... Well, maybe that could get him some extra points, who knows ;)

    My $.02

  • Nike is already effective at saturating all earth-bound views with logos. What's the sense in putting an orbital swoosh up when anyone who views the night sky is already wearing a logo somewhere on his clothing?
  • please to let me know sounds better.
  • If they *do* put adverts in space how long will it be before someone comes out with 'Sky junkbuster' which filters them all out again?

  • Re:more light pollution (hardly) (Score:3)

    by jetson123 ( 13128 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @08:12PM (#831995)
    Even if microgravity were essential for some experiment, you don't need a manned space station in order to perform them: the experiments can be automated, or you can carry them out using telepresence.

    You also mischaracterize the particular experiment. It isn't about "fuel efficiency", it's about getting more gasoline from a barrel of oil by improving the efficiency of cracking (the "hydrogen storage" angle in the article is even more of a long shot). That doesn't improve energy efficiency or greenhouse gas emissions. There are much simpler ways of achieving better fuel efficiency, foremost by taxing gas guzzlers like SUVs.

    As for light pollution, you can escape from city lights by putting your telescopes in remote places, but you can't escape from shiny objects orbiting the earth. At best, you can try to avoid having them pass through your field of view.

  • www.Heavens-above.com (Score:5)

    by Phillisoft ( 96642 ) on Wednesday August 23, 2000 @08:15PM (#831996) Homepage
    I have seen the ISS with my naked eye an several occasions. I recommend you visit http://www.heavens-above.com and select your location from their database of over two million. They give daily predictions of where to see any naked eye visible satelites, complete with skymaps, and times to the second, so even a completely ignorant astromomer can tell where to look. The ISS is not currently as bright as Mir, is much brighter since the Zveda module went up. Happy sighting, Alex.
  • Hey, cool... I get to see it for a total of 5 minutes spread over two days. Since it's monsoon season here in Arizona, the chances of me actually seeing it are slim to none. I think I'll stick to Nasa's gallery...

    http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gal lery/images/station/ [nasa.gov]

  • As I am a scientist at NASA, I can tell you the ISS is approximately 42 kilometers wide. I guess NASA still hasn't mastered the metric system.
  • A fist at arms' length is approxmently five degrees in the sky. this makes it easy to figure out elvations in the sky
  • > IIRC in 1998, The US passed a law making them illegal if they are visable with the naked eye from earth.

    Thus unwittingly laying the ground for the First Interstellar War, since the Gug had already placed an order for the construction of an Earth-orbiting billboard advertising their Gug-warez.

    --
  • makes me wonder, what is that?
    I can see it's just an ad,
    for a space-born Laundr-o-mat.

    Ok, so my poem sucks. Give me a break, it's 2 AM and English's not even my first language.
  • At least it is visible for you guys..... For us people in the sourthern hemisphere we can't see it at all.

    I guess that is one of the limitations of that geostationary thing.

    That did piss me off..... for up to about 2 seconds. Then I realized who was footing the bill, You guys are welcome to both the view and the bill !!!
  • You know how big an ad would have to be for it to be visible from space? The station will appear only as a star-like object, like a point. There is no way something on the ISS could be visible.
  • "Will there be a point where corporate sponsorship hangs an ad in space? Already appearing "as the third brightest star in the nighttime sky", it will eventually be second only to Venus. Will we look up and see a Nike swoosh some day?"

    Give me a break. What's with Slashdot's obsession with advertising? I'd understand predictions of commercialization of the sky in a story about the Pizza Hut ad on a rocket, but what does the brightness of the space station have to do with ads in space (besides the obvious, which any dummy could figure out)?

    Next Slashdot story: "Scientists discover anti-gravity. What next, hovering ads that follow you around???"

    LS

  • Molotov cocktails. Now *there's* an effective junkbuster.


    --
    My name is Sue,
    How do you do?
    Now you gonna die!
  • He put the word "some" in bold and you still missed it? I guess the requirement to be at least as smart as this stick -> | is no longer a requirement for using the Internet.

    Deo
  • How the hell is it possible to put something in an orbit where it isn't visible from the southern hemisphere? Or is it like everything else in Australia - we get it 6 months after the rest of the world.

    Oh well, at least we've still got the Magellenic Clouds.

  • Re:first! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This isn't a fucking Troll! Fine mark it down if you must, but don't mislabel it.

    Moderators == Idiots

    And why the fuck can't I browse at 0 AND BELOW??? I don't want to be distracted by all pro-Linux and OpenSource crap that gets posted here when I'm reading the Trolls.

    And why the fuck are all Trolls marked as -1.

    ALL TROLLS ARE NOT EQUAL!!!

    Lameass Slashdot mod system should have -1 all the way up to -5 Troll for the best. Stop the fucking discrimination!!!
  • Many southern hemisphere cities can see it. I just checked, and it said that it will be visible in Christchurch, New Zealand for five minutes on the 27th August.
    Sure, it may not be the best seat in the house, but if the ISS was in a geostationary orbit, like you say, it would be over the equator, and thus as much of the Southern Hemisphere could see as the Northern hemisphere. You would still be wrong :-)

  • There will not be ads in space (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    By the time NASA figures out the technology to put ads in space, sending personal rockets into space will be available to every upper middle income citizen in the US. Mine will just happen to have a very explosive material attached to the newly developed "Swoosh-seeking missile". Not like its really going to hurt anything in space, unless they are stupid enough to put it next to something important.
  • >Of course it is. It's only 1000 million light years closer!

    Sure, but the ISS is not a huge glowing ball that has fusion reaction going inside.
  • but see the nike swoosh, something has gone very very wrong.

    Bob.
  • I want Coke and Pepsi to vie for the rights to blow up bombs of red dye (for coke) or red and blue dye (for pepsi) all over the moon (in the shape of their respective trademarks) so that instead of that boring ol' grey blob we can see the conveniently round logo of whichever soft-drink company paid more for the most eyeballs anyone has ever gotton...

  • What increased visibility can mean (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When something becomes more visible, it can mean one of a few things: (1) it is getting closer, (2) it is getting brighter (or rather, more in contrast with its background, which could also mean darker in some contexts), or (3) it is getting bigger.

    The ISS is (3) getting bigger. The participating nations are co-operating to put more modules into orbit and hook them together into space station parts. It's not going to be crashing anytime soon.

    -- Guges --

  • Kilometres is metric, isnt it?! Confused...
  • Of course you don't really mean 'the light side of the Moon', but rather 'the earth-facing side of the Moon', since all sides of the moon are light at some point during a lunar month.

    [Happosai]
  • Not in my browser...

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity
  • I've been spotting the ISS regularly for a while.

    I heartily recommend pocketsat [palmgear.com] for all the palm people out there...

    That and a compass keyring, and you can find it dead easily. (Roughly once every 1.5 hrs post-sunset...)

    I wonder how long it'll take me to get a GPS for my palm so I can get rid of the keyring...

    And no, I didn't write it, I just think it's cool.

    But then again, I'm sad (Apparently) (Or has that all changed in the era of Geek-Chic?)

  • If somebody starts "tagging" the sky, it's sure we might soon see advertisings, religious or political propaganda, an maybe even tags.
    Whatever one finds in a mail-bin, could appear in the sky.
    But, if the pollution rises, nobody will be able to see it through the smog.
    My bet is that it will be considered as pollution and thus forbidden, like the noise.
    And if it's ever accepted and performed, then I bet that if Nike sells caps, it will be to people willing not to see their ads in the sky.
    Until then, a solution would be to declare the Sky as part of the UNESCO's Patrimony so that it will virtually become impossible to soil it.
    --
  • people are much more capable than dinky little rovers (cute as they may be).

    ravers are people too!
  • It's not geostationary...

    You wouldn't see it move if it was Gestationary...

    It's in a near-earth orbit, so it shifts (A lot). Usually takes about 10 minutes to transit the sky...

    EG: I'm in Amsterdam, when we (+wife) see it disappear, she goes and ICQ's her dad (In Moscow) and he goes outside just in time to see it appear...

    17000 MPH is pretty fast...

  • What are you smoking?

    The night sky is beautiful, who want's to see a frigging Nike logo up there? Not I.
  • And what the hell is wrong with sex?

    I actually _like_ sex.

    Bloody slashdot eunichs.
  • If only. My Karma has been stuck at 58 for ages, regardless of the moderations I've been receiving...

  • Re: Visibility? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can calculate the visibility for every spot on Earth using CalSky [calsky.com] at astro!nfo [astroinfo.org].
    It's very unlikely though that you'll see something more than just a bright spot with binoculars.

    Greetings, Roland
  • Orbit data for the ISS and maps of the station's orbit path can be found at...
    http://www.heavens-above. com/orbitdisplay.asp?satid=25544 [heavens-above.com]

    --
    Jonathan Hunt
  • >Of course it is. It's only 1000 million light years closer!
    Sure, but the ISS is not a huge glowing ball that has fusion reaction going inside.
    Not yet anyway...

    "... That probably would have sounded more commanding if I wasn't wearing my yummy sushi pajamas..."
  • Hey, everyone makes mistakes. NASA completes far more succesful missions than failures.

    Correct, they hardly complete any failures.

  • My bet is that it will be considered as pollution and thus forbidden, like the noise.

    sorry Mirko, but my bet is that if the money is there, they will do it. There will be a lot of righteous noise and heartrending, but then somebody will come along and offer to donate x billion to a worthy cause (that is, a cause considered worthy by those people that could block the space advert, like the US government), and up it will go.

    It's the free market economy for goodness sake, try to block it in the name of keeping space clean / scientific progress / human values and some corporate will claim that you're blocking their right under the first amendment to free speech or something like it. Maybe they 'll even sue and make the environmental groups pay for it...

    I give it 20 years.

  • All NASA failures are successes in some ways. Where did the money go that was spent on the failed mars lander? Is it sitting on mars? No.
    ---
  • It's the free market economy for goodness sake, try to block it in the name of keeping space clean / scientific progress / human values and some corporate will claim that you're blocking their right under the first amendment to free speech or something like it. Maybe they 'll even sue and make the environmental groups pay for it...
    First amendment is American.
    The sky isn't (only).
    Let the American do whatever they want with the stars they put on their banner.
    If they touch the ones that shin in the sky, I am not sure the UNO or whoever else will agree.
    Don't forget that there are much more Americanophobic muslims than American guys over there.
    Would they accept to read some American brand while sleeping outside ?
    There are far cheaper ways to be impopular.
    --
  • When complete it will be around the size of a football pitch.

    troc
  • Will this finally put down the theories that all recorded space travel is a hoax put up by the government to fool people both foreign and domestic?

    Of course, as many of those non-beilvers that this dispels, how many more UFO sightings will be reported after seeing the ISS's streak in the sky?

  • But, OTOH, Heinlein was a raving mad right-wing loony. Read Starship Troopers - it's a real eye opener. Remember the line "Throughout human history, most problems have been solved by violence" (or similar) from the movie? If you read the book, it's clear that Heinlein thought this was a good thing and should be encouraged!
  • It's true, though. Any amount of radiation can potentially create that one cancarous cell that kills you 30 years later. However, some radiation sources like the sun or medical x-ray examinations are benefricial enough to take the risk.
  • I don't know about that...and I have read Starship Troopers. I've also read a good bit of Heinlein's other stuff. A good portion of the ideas expressed in Stranger in a Strange Land, for instance, aren't exactly right-wing in nature. The whole poking fun at Christianity and organized religion in general thing. Heinlein is, unfortunately, one of the more unappreciated SF writers. But a great topic for debate.
  • Ummm... the ISS' orbit is inclined at 51.6 degrees. There's no way you can miss it in Signapore, being just off of the equator. It just so happens, however, that the ISS isn't visible from Signapore right now, simply because the orbital path is constantly "shifting" with respect to the Earth. Wait until September 3, after which it'll pass overhead every 90 minutes for almost two weeks.

    Patience, grasshopper.

  • Re:Visibility? (Score:4)

    by Xentax ( 201517 ) on Thursday August 24, 2000 @02:43AM (#832038)
    To be more precise: An equatorial orbit is an orbit at any height that is over (or nearly) over the equator -- hence anyone near the equator can see it on a daily basis if it's big/close enough.

    A geostationary (or geosynchronous) orbit is one in which the object's logititude doesn't change due to its orbit (about 24,000 miles) -- at this height and speed, it moves around the earth at the same rate the earth spins. Running to stand still, if you will. If that orbit is over the equator, then it will be a stationary spot. If it's anywhere else, it WILL change latitude but not longititude. Not much use for this since spy satellites have to be closer and anything else wants to maintain an area of coverage, but it can and has been done.

    The ISS is in an inclined orbit somewhere between 200 and 300 miles up, IIRC. So it will 'fly over' a variety of areas both above and below the hemisphere, covering a path centered on the equator (Man, a picture WOULD be worth all these words...). When it happens to be over your neck of the woods, if you're close enough to the equator (apparently, it's a relatively high inclination if people in New Zealand will be able to see it), is merely a question of time :)

    Someone said it will eventually be "second [in brightness] only to Venus" when finished -- that should be second to THE MOON -- it'll be brighter than Venus when completed.

    Xentax
  • Saying that the book Starsihp Troopers was endorsing violence is equivalent to saying that that Fight Club was endorsing violence. It's reveals nothing except a misunderstanding of the--er, WHOLE GODDAMN POINT.

    Maybe you're one of those who needs it spelled out for you in a convenient moral ending, or maybe the concept of "dystopian novel" isn't quite solid in your worldview.

  • Actually, the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light years away. Just being annoyingly pedantic...

  • I guess that is one of the limitations of that geostationary thing.

    ISS is NOT in geostationary orbit. There's a very good reason for that. The #*$&% shuttle is incapable of reaching geostationary orbit.

    Our wonderful space shuttle fleet will take you anywhere you want to go, as long as where you want to go is low Earth orbit. *sigh*

  • I'm not sure exactly what page on Heavens-Above.com that people are looking at... someone else claims that the ISS isn't visible in Signapore! Here's a little simple rocket science: every satellite's orbit is "inclined" with respect to the equator a certain number of degrees. If you live at a latitude which is less than a satellite's orbital inclination, you're almost guaranteed to be able to see it at some point (I say "almost" because there are a few weird exceptions; however, the ISS is not one of them).

    Thusly: The ISS is in a 51.6 degree inclined orbit. Signapore is a maximum of 2 degrees latitude off of the equator. You can't miss the ISS from Signapore. As for Australia, Tazmania is about as far south as the Australian region goes on my map, and that's at 42 degrees south latitude. Still within the visible range.

    However... due to the rotation of the earth, the ISS' orbit appears to continuously "shift" across the face of the earth. In Signapore's case, the ISS won't be visible there until September 3, after which it will pass overhead every 90 minutes for about two weeks. Tazmania, on the other hand, can see the ISS beginning just before dawn on August 25 and going for at least two weeks, if not longer.

    Here's a URL [heavens-above.com].

  • It's visible over just as much of the southern hemisphere as the northern one. It crosses the equator at (I believe) 54 degrees. That sends it up as far north as 54 lattitude and as far south as 54 lattitude. This is something like 80% of the Earth's land surface.

    Oh, and there are souther hemisphere countries invovled as well. Brazil signed on several years ago.

  • "second [in brightness] only to Venus" when finished -- that should be second to THE MOON

    Not to mention they say it is the third brightes star. The ISS is not a star, neither are Venus or the moon.

    But it seems that NASA's original page is partly to blame for this:
    It is visible to the naked eye as a (not-so-faint-anymore) star, if the sky is without overcast and haze. As ISS assembly continues over the next four-five years, the light dot will grow to a brilliant star in the morning or evening skies, second only in brightness to the planet Venus, the brightest object (besides the moon) in the morning or evening.

  • I agree - I wouldn't want to see some big crappy billboard or piece of "art" permanently hanging in space.

    But what about a temporary display? I think a man-made meteor shower (in lieu of your typical fireworks show) would absolutely rock!

    Think about it - a space-based launch facility full of BB-sized or marble-sized projectiles (or whatever, I'm not a scientist...), chemically treated to flare up in colors that change over the duration of the burn. Maybe they could even be synchronized so that they would literally paint the night sky with whatever image or message was wanted..

    ...and so what if it would end up being a giant Coke logo or whatever, it would still be pretty freakin cool to look at!


    Sean

  • Solution: Paint it black, or put black solar panels on it.

    This is a problem, as it will be more difficult in the future to block out these objects from telescopes. So why not do it for them? Same problem with the irridium satelites... is there any good reason for their color now? Sure, it will still pass in front of stars from time to time, but it will be better than the way it is now.

    I don't see a good excuse NOT to black it out.

    -Ben
  • Can anyone explain why it would be visible twice tonight (the 24th) in boston, within 2 hrs, once heading eastish, the other time heading westish?

    I could understand if it were in a really low orbit that it came overhead once ever two hours, but then shouldn't it tend in the same direction? and then another 20 hours till we see it again?

    confused.
  • Heaven runs Windows 2000 and there are no crashes? What are you getting at here?

    While I don't believe in heaven, I do believe in magic smoke. Permit me to elaborate:

    Everything runs on magic smoke. There is a simple demonstration of this: take off one of your boots and whack your monitor a few times with it. You should hear a hiss--that's the magic smoke escaping. When the hiss stops no more magic smoke will remain inside, and your monitor will cease to function. Similarly, if you overclock your chip without sufficient cooling the chip will start to release its magic smoke. Same principle. Why do overheated cars stop running? Acute loss of magic smoke. "Houston, we have a problem. We seem to be jetisoning something into space." Again, magic smoke.

    Computer software runs on magic smoke too, as we all know. This is why it is so exhausting to write code--magic smoke goes from our brains to being wrapped around the symbols in our emacsen; we replenish the magic smoke in our bodies by drinking cola (that's what's in those little bubbles). Compilers merely concentrate the magic smoke so that it can do something useful, like propagate an Outlook virus or somesuch. Open Source projects like the Linux operating system let magic smoke escape every time people poke and prod at the code, particularly people who work in unsealed environments like apartment buildings or university computer labs. This is inevitable, rather like how the magic smoke excapes whenever you open the door to your microwave oven. Win2k, on the other hand, is created in a hermetically sealed, corporate environment so the magic smoke has nowhere to go. Its magic smoke stays put, and this is why W2K and the Closed Source design model wins out over Linux and its Open Source development--that is, until we start writing Linux while wrapped in celophane.

    This isn't rocket science, people.

  • There's a joke that goes like this: in the cold war both the US and USSR sent missions to the moon, at the same time. The US astronauts arrived at the moon first, and started picking up rocks, etc. Then came the russians, and they started painting the moon red.

    The american astronauts thought it was better to call NASA: "Hey, Houston, the russians are painting the moon red", they said. "It's OK, just let them", was the answer they got from NASA, "just tell us when they're finished".

    So the russians painted the moon red, went back to their spaceship, and back to Earth. The american astronauts called NASA again: "OK, they've finished -- what now? Do we clean it all?", they asked.

    "No... just paint the Coca-Cola logo on it".

    --

  • Re:Problem: Sky is getting crowded (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    HEAT

    if it was black it would collect large amounts of heat and it would damage it.
  • Assume for a moment that Bill Gates or Larry Ellison use some of their large wealth to finance an unmanned mission to the Moon for this very thing. PR-wise, probably not the best thing for the first to do it, but once the ice is broken people forget their outrage pretty fast. How about if someone did a big smiley face on the moon (ick!)

    Robert Heinlein is one of my favorite authors. Another of his books is Tunnel in the Sky, about a students dropped on a planet and left to survive for a short period, but something goes wrong. I think it'd make a killer flick, if done better than that hunk of Hollywood cheese Starship Troopers.

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • The best way to catch any detail (in profile, at least) is to watch it pass in front of the moon with binoculars or a scope. Heavens-Above [heavens-above.com] does a good job predicting when it passes overhead, but doesn't mention transits of the moon or sun. Does anyone know of another site that provides this type of info?
  • Painting satellites and space stations black would cause them to absorb FAR more heat than reflective surfaces. Heat is a huge problem in space, believe it or not.
  • I think a man-made meteor shower (in lieu of your typical fireworks show) would absolutely rock!

    Wait a while, Iridium's gonna go down soon. :)


    -- Bucket
  • For what Nike (which was only an example) paid Mr. Tiger Woods, I think they could send up a few of their own rockets. What they do with them is left to what they think they could get away with.

    I thought paying an athlete $70 million (or whatever its up to now) for endorsements was pretty blatant. People aren't stomping around outraged so, what's the threshold? Once we get over our ire, what's the next threshold? Etc.

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • He ended up blowing the moon to bits.

    Who's been messing with my laser?
  • It's exactly the same situation as the sun's "rays" when the sun is setting. They appear to radiate in all directions from the sun, but they are, in fact, all parallel. In two hours you've actually covered about 30 degrees, so you're actually under a slightly different part of the orbit but the overall general direction you see is southward, and usually eastward. The second time the ISS is actually appearing to travel pretty much southward, not westward.
  • I can't believe you blew this chance to mention Nathalie Portman naked and petrified!!
  • The only relation the movie Starship Troopers bears to the novel Starship Troopers is the title and the names of a couple of characters. The novel is an exploration of governmental theroy, coming of age, and human nature. The movie is a bunch of photogenic actors shooting cool CGI bugs.
    The movie was OK in it's own right, compared to other mindless Sci-fi action films. (It didn't suck as badly as Judge Dredd, for example) They should have just given it another title; or at least had CGI battlesuits to oppose the CGI bugs.

    "The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
  • But Starship Troopers wasn't particularly dystopian. Most of the particularly off-the-wall foaming-and-dribbling right-wing social ideas are used in his other stuff - for example, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. There's nothing in the book to indicate he disagreed with any of it, and the whole thing is (by the author's own admission) a vehicle to get kids reading and believing the 'philosophy' bits.
  • The movie was OK in it's own right

    Yes, as an action shootem up with a little sex thrown in to titilate. It certainly lived up to my low expections of Hollywood.

    The social interaction and exploration is the real story in Tunnel in the Sky. Sadly, if Hollywood makes a film about it, it'll be lamebrained with CGI animals and T-Rexes and other crap taking center stage. I've considered writing (as an exercise) a screenplay of this book, but wouldn't dream of producing it unless I won the Lotto.

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • the last thing I personally want to see when I look up at the sky is something man made

    Especially if it's the size of Skylab and coming straight toward you . . .
    --

  • It's impossible to orbit a satellite that can't be seen from at least some parts of the southern hemisphere.

    A worst case scenario would be a satellite orbiting just above the atmospheric limit, right over the equator, which would only be visible within a strip along the equator. Even so, since the atmospheric limit is roughly 150km, we are talking about a pretty wide strip.

    As far as the ISS is concerned, I imagine the orbit is inclined with respect to the equator by a considerable ammount, so there should be plenty of viewing opportunities for most of the world. Extreme latitudes (northern Norway, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego) are probably left out in the cold. Ummm... you know what I mean.

  • Is that a soccer field?

  • Why? As a preemptive strike?

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