NasaSpaceFlight does not seem to be one among hundreds of similar scale sites on the internet so where is everyone? are space geeks less common than murder?
Just imagine if you could channel all the Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica etc fans enthusiasm into the REAL Space program: as soon as they were old enough to vote, just think how their power and resources could be tapped to support real space exploration. It's a thought...
Quote from: KelvinZero on 01/07/2012 03:14 amNasaSpaceFlight does not seem to be one among hundreds of similar scale sites on the internet so where is everyone? are space geeks less common than murder?I suspect that large numbers of the individuals who are the most-interested in space exploration cannot participate in discussions because they are or have been working in the field and are prohibited from doing so. There were more authoritative participants, it seems to me, in various space forums until the mid/late-1990s, when NASA and others laid down harder rules about Internet use. The whole ITAR thing was part of the deal.NSF has the best forum going today, and it rivals the old Usenet forums in their heyday. - Ed Kyle
I would love to see a scifi series set in just this system and with no imaginary physics.
ASTRONAUTICAL OBJECTIVES IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM “If we consider the Sun there are 34 major objectives in the Solar System, including one star (the Sun) and eight planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). Also included are 22 satellites with diameters of more than 150 miles (the Moon, 5 satellites in the Jovian system, 9 in the Saturnian system, 5 in the Uranian system, and 2 belonging to Neptune) and 3 asteroids (Ceres, Pallas, Vesta). Obviously, surface landings are not going to be made on the Sun ; and the four gaseous giant planets are improbable, and perhaps impossible, objectives. Thus, there are 29 remaining major worlds susceptible to surface exploration: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Pluto, Rhea, Japetus, Europa, Io, Moon, Triton, Callisto, Titan, and Ganymede. Vesta, Pallas, Ceres, Amalthea, Mimas, Enceladas, Tethys, Dione, Hyperion, Phoebe, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, and Nereid.
I've asked my aero friends at NASA in the past if there was a rule against posting, and I've been told that it is OK to post if the discussion can be backed up by information in the public domain, papers, etc. After all, a forum like this is no different than going to a public conference and discussing issues with "outside" individuals or presenting a paper. The number of times I've seen someone refuse to answer a question after a presentation due to ITAR is very rare. I've seen more refusals due to proprietary knowledge, but that excuse, when used, is generally used by private firms.
Quote from: martin hegedus on 01/07/2012 06:24 amI've asked my aero friends at NASA in the past if there was a rule against posting, and I've been told that it is OK to post if the discussion can be backed up by information in the public domain, papers, etc. After all, a forum like this is no different than going to a public conference and discussing issues with "outside" individuals or presenting a paper. The number of times I've seen someone refuse to answer a question after a presentation due to ITAR is very rare. I've seen more refusals due to proprietary knowledge, but that excuse, when used, is generally used by private firms.You're going to see a lot more of the latter from NASA in the future. With greater emphasis on commercial services, NASA will need to protect an increasing amount of proprietary information owned by its commercial partners.
It just struck me that despite NasaSpaceFlight being probably one of the most prominent sites when searching on Google for example, I still recognize most of the names of the posters.Without looking up any real numbers, surely there are on the order of a billion english speakers with access to the internet.What fraction of this population would be interested enough in space to converse regularly on the internet? Of course it is probably not huge as a percentage but Nerds Are Among Us!For example, apparently there are about 0.043 murders per 1000 people in US. Are there less space geeks than that? I really doubt it, but even that tiny fraction applied to one billion people would imply 43,000 regular posters and we would never be able to keep up with a fraction of them.NasaSpaceFlight does not seem to be one among hundreds of similar scale sites on the internet so where is everyone? are space geeks less common than murder?