Space ship travels x amount of million miles goes to sleep then wakes and we believe it…

The technology from whenever it was made (more than 10 yrs ago) still works ! How is it possible to get a signal that far ? wouldn’t it take light years to travel to us ?

I know jack poo about this just sounds like a load of footballs to me !

I tell you one thing: I’ve been to a parallel universe, I’ve seen time running backwards, I’ve played pool with planets, and I’ve given birth to twins, but I never thought in my entire life I’d taste an edible Pot Noodle.

45 minutes. Radio waves travel really, really fast!!

Oh – and light years are a distance measurement not a time one.

radio waves travel at the speed of light, the signal will take some time to get to earth not that long though.

To give some context, you look at the sun, the sun you are seeing is how it looked c8mins ago.

If you want something really odd, how to time travel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele–Keating_experiment%5D

So if it is travelling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, what happens?
.
Also the old Nokia B&W phone vs space shuttle computer…

So if it is travelling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, what happens?

your assuming you can travel at the speed of light, which if Einstein is right requires an infinite amount of energy to achieve.

You really ought to take more interest in what’s going on, Voyager is still working, still sending data back, and it’s gone beyond the edge of the solar system, in fact it’s re-defined where the solar system ends, and interstellar space begins.
Rosetta isn’t that whizzy, really, and a radio signal travels at the speed of light, it takes eight minutes for light and radio to travel from the sun to us, ten minutes from Rosetta to us, four and a half years to the nearest neighbour star, Alpha Centauri.
Voyager 1 is now 19,038,292,158km from Earth, 18,952,241,706km from the sun, and counting, the roundtrip light time from the sun is 35:16:49,
Voyager 2 15,653,474,104km from Earth, 15,534,355,362km from the Sun, 29:00:28 light time. And counting.
Voyager 1’s total elapsed planetary and interstellar mission is currently 36 years, four months and fifteen days,
Voyager 2’s total elapsed planetary and interstellar mission is currently 36 years and 5 months.
And you think Rosetta is pushing the envelope?
And before the question arises about how they manage to get enough power to keep running, when they’re that far from the sun, both Voyagers are nuclear powered, but their power plants are on limited time.

your assuming you can travel at the speed of light, which if Einstein is right requires an infinite amount of energy to achieve.

Only if you have mass, and I’ve been trying to lose most of mine since Christmas

matt_outandabout – Member

So if it is travelling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, what happens?

Depends. If you bought your headlights from ebay, they will apparently emit light at about 3 times the speed of light.

Doesn’t all this stuff rely on even older IT – whatever was leading edge /reliable when they started development?

Made me smile today when I heard it had woke up. “Oi Rossetta ,wakey wakey,you ave that comet to harpoon”.
Can you imagine the pitch for funding over 12 years ago?

“Right ,here is what we want to do”

Brilliant,I love science. 😀

so are voyager 1 and 2 controlled by bbc b computers then ?

its all conspiracy and made up… 😆

Yup,everything is made up,apart from the moon being made out of cheese.
That is fact.

Wonder what type of cheese?

I think it’s cheddar.
There is also a cooker up there if you want a toasty

its all conspiracy and made up…

So if it is travelling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, what happens?

If you can find a way to exceed the speed of light, would that make your headlight beams trail out behind you?? 😀

CountZero – Member
You really ought to take more interest in what’s going on, Voyager is still working, still sending data back, and it’s gone beyond the edge of the solar system, in fact it’s re-defined where the solar system ends, and interstellar space begins.
Rosetta isn’t that whizzy, really, and a radio signal travels at the speed of light, it takes eight minutes for light and radio to travel from the sun to us, ten minutes from Rosetta to us, four and a half years to the nearest neighbour star, Alpha Centauri.
Voyager 1 is now 19,038,292,158km from Earth, 18,952,241,706km from the sun, and counting, the roundtrip light time from the sun is 35:16:49,
Voyager 2 15,653,474,104km from Earth, 15,534,355,362km from the Sun, 29:00:28 light time. And counting.
Voyager 1’s total elapsed planetary and interstellar mission is currently 36 years, four months and fifteen days,
Voyager 2’s total elapsed planetary and interstellar mission is currently 36 years and 5 months.
And you think Rosetta is pushing the envelope?
And before the question arises about how they manage to get enough power to keep running, when they’re that far from the sun, both Voyagers are nuclear powered, but their power plants are on limited time.

Please tell me you knew all of those facts, down to the second without Googling.

Voyager 1 and 2 computers were old tech but very specialised and designed to only do a handful of very specific tasks. A bbc model b was a programmable computer designed to be flexible and programmable so was effectively a jack of all trades. The Apollo landing craft computer was less powerful than a desktop scientific calculator.

Also if the Rosetta craft has been travelling for 10 years, it’s not 10 years on a direct trajectory from earth. It will have spent most of that 10 years catapulting itself around near planets in our solar system to accelerate to the right speed and get itself onto an intercept course with the comet, so in real terms it’s not actually that far from earth and so comms and transmissions are not a problem. Really from a technology point of view it’s really not that advanced even for 10 yrs ago. The biggest tech challenge is that this thing has to wake up after being dormant for 10 yrs.

The biggest tech challenge is that this thing has to wake up after being dormant for 10 yrs.

I bet it hits the snooze button a few times!

I work at ESOC and can assure you that it is all faked.

In fact I saw the clip of the celebrations from the control room on the BBC last night, and thought the actors they employed to play the parts of the mission team were awful, over emotional and far too much gesticulation, completely unrealistic reactions, as hammy as pigs in space.

😉

I developed it’s commanding software and saw it tested at ESTEC so yes it is. Or call me a liar. 😛

buzz-lightyear – Member

I’m pretty sure you’re fictional…

Buzz wins today’s round of internet top trumps!

Voyager is still working, still sending data back, and it’s gone beyond the edge of the solar system

And yet I can’t get a wifi signal in my kitchen.

If you can find a way to exceed the speed of light, would that make your headlight beams trail out behind you??

I heard something similar put forward as to why there was never a military version of Concorde – if they’d fitted machine guns it would have ended up flying into it’s own bullets as it would be flying faster than they did.

I heard something similar put forward as to why there was never a military version of Concorde – if they’d fitted machine guns it would have ended up flying into it’s own bullets as it would be flying faster than they did.

I am struggling to think of a scenario when you’d want machine guns on the leading edge of a large passenger jet…

Careful now officer or someone will accuse me of being your sock puppet again!

BBC ran this pic (that’s Andrea I think?) with the headline: “comet chaser phones home”

A military plane that flies faster than the Concorde?
Well, who would have thought they hadn’t made one of those?
Maybe the Designers should make one that doesnt fly into its own bullets hey?

[clarification]

It was a joke.

[/clarification]

They just need to make a bullet that curves round corners out the way….

I believe its real, but incredible given the reliability of electronic components. My laptop (admittedly a fair bit cheaper than this probe) hardly ever leaves the house, has stayed at room temperature for the most part of 5 years, and has needed two new motherboards and an optical drive in that time. All under warranty. Its a good job Dell didn’t make Rosetta; do their engineers do call-outs to the other side of Jupiter? 😉

do their engineers do call-outs to the other side of Jupiter

Sadly it’s a return to base only warranty.

By my calculations Rosetta should be perfect for playing ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’. Very happy.

The technology in Rosetta isn’t that different in concept to that in the Voyagers to be honest in terms that it is singularly designed for the mission.

Its not like they bunged a Windows powered laptop in there (or even a custom PC that is powered by Windows or any other off the shelf OS). It will all be custom software – possibly with a back up OS written in a completely different way and the hardware will have been designed to lay dormant for the required length of time.

As a slight aside but on a similar vain Airbus aircraft have 3 completely different computer systems written in 3 completely different languages. That way a system fault should only affect one of the systems leaving two intact.

Unsurprisingly custom military (and presumably space) electronics are made to some what higher standards than mass-produced consumer stuff. e.g.

[video]http://youtu.be/55z_0BYb5is[/video]

But yeah, very impressive that it has survived so long, has woken up and is apparently fully functional.

I have to admit the way the OP had completely disassociated himself from the solution I had assumed he was being ionic (science joke)

Or was that too basic?

I work at ESOC and can assure you that it is all faked.

Snap.
Anyone can see with their own eyes that Rosetta is really in the room with the big windows at the end of my corridor 😉

I developed it’s commanding software and saw it tested at ESTEC so yes it is. Or call me a liar.

Pants on fire!
I tested that at ESTEC (well the fake payloads mainly, to make sure the EM was good enough at faking/simulating telemetry) 😉

so are voyager 1 and 2 controlled by bbc b computers then ?

BBC B (and model A) are positively modern technology in comparison!

My laptop (admittedly a fair bit cheaper than this probe) hardly ever leaves the house, has stayed at room temperature for the most part of 5 years, and has needed two new motherboards and an optical drive in that time

I love the assumption that an interstellar probe will be made of the same shit they sell you in argos.

I mean, do you honestly think NASA just popped out to Dixons to pick up a couple of laptops and grabbed a solar panel from B&Q on the way back?

Ha I was only in the room with the MCS for about an hour ( with Phil Brabbin) so I guess you missed me 😉 testing payloads trumps coding MCS software though.