wow
Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years

No. Frikkin. Way.

That’s amazing. Thanks for posting.

I thought it was Star Trek Voyager … 🙄

I thought Star Trek at first 😀 Still a good read though.

This stuff makes me happy.

That is amazing.

There was a programme on BBC 4 last night about V1 and V2, might have been for this reason, but I was only background watching, wish I’d paid more attention now.

Only bit I recall is they likened their processor / memory capacity to a current day car key fob.

V’ger?

I like that.

It amazes me how much they could do with relatively little technology 40 years ago.
Just imagine if the space race hadn’t petered out. A satellite 40 years old with a computer with 16k of memory and a tape recorder can still send information back to earth from 10 billion miles away. Where could we be now?

located on the back side of the spacecraft…the thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or “puffs,” 

This is something I can relate to

They don’t build space craft like that anymore! 😀

that’s very cool.

i know it doesn’t mean a lot but i did find voyager in elite dangerous (a computer game set in our own galaxy).

it took about 2-3 hours to find it but once i had you can actually hear the proper transmissions that the real one sends out.

i was pretty chuffed i can tell you.

the storyville doc yesterday was very good. it’s currently travelling at 10 miles a second but will take at least 40,000 years to reach the next closest star.

to think that it could be travelling forever out there in the vastness of the universe makes you think (unless it hits something asteroid/spaceship/a clanger e.t.c)

Kuco – Member
I thought Star Trek at first Still a good read though.

I is disappointed with no Seven of Nine. 🙁

Where could we be now?

We have rockets that can launch, reach orbit and deploy a satellite, then reverse thrust at hypersonic speeds and land again on a floating platform. That’s pretty awesome.

Voyager 2 is still going strong as well, expected to reach interstellar space in a few years

Nice read cheers OP

it’s currently travelling at 10 miles a second

The mind-blowing bit of this for me, with apologies to Graham’s flat-Earther, is that because of our orbit around the sun there’s times of the year where we’re actually getting closer and catching it up again.

Link to the BBC programme mentioned earlier:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gvnty

I didn’t know this existed, thanks for that.

Cougar – Moderator
it’s currently travelling at 10 miles a second
The mind-blowing bit of this for me,

speed is only relative to position. the mind blowing bit for me is this kinda thing.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU[/video]

No idea how you illustrate it, but I guess you can even expand that beyond how fast we move through the galaxy, you could factor in how fast we are rotating with Andromeda, then how fast us and Andromeda are orbiting within our local galaxy cluster, then what is that cluster orbiting, and so on… My brain starts melting even trying to contemplate that! 😆

It amazes me how much they could do with relatively little technology 40 years ago.
Just imagine if the space race hadn’t petered out. A satellite 40 years old with a computer with 16k of memory and a tape recorder can still send information back to earth from 10 billion miles away. Where could we be now?

Maybe pootling around a bit further into the solar system but without inventing some new physics along with faster than light drive we’re still pretty much stuck with not getting much further than Mars no matter how much IT and advanced materials tech we can throw at conventional rocket technology.

Here’s another interesting way to envisage how far voyager is away.

1AU (Astronomical unit) is the average distance from the earth to the sun.

Voyager right now is 141.3AU from the earth.

Live data.
https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

Mind boggling! click the speed of light button, bottom right after you scroll a bit.

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

Wonder how many 10ms pulses they tested before waiting 19.6 hours for the results!?

incredible.

I do find this stuff fascinating. Cheers

the mind blowing bit for me is this kinda thing.

Yeah. That cropped up in the Flat Earth thread a day or two back as a clipped .GIF. FEers love that shit, “I can’t get my head round this therefore… something else.”

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcC6FYyL4U[/video]

That BBC4 programme is well worth watching.

Is the Solar System Really a Vortex?

dunno about you but I didn’t view the helix model as absolutely science fact, just as a good illustration to give the layman, ie me, a vague concept of what it’s happening, in that I think it’s probably successful.

bit ranty that link, gave up tbh.

Voyager 2 and 1 are my favourite spacecraft, because they’re the same age as me.

Think it’s issue is more with use of the term vortex. A solar system doesn’t have the same dynamics as a weather system or water flowing down a plughole!

Wonderful.

All the petty shit that we get up to on this planet, you forget how great we can be

The BBC programme was great: no pointless CGI that was repeated numerous times; the personnel interviewed were intelligent and lucid; no false jeopardy.

I liked the guy who said something along the lines of “I’m a record producer but I’ve only made two records and both those got sent into outer space!”

“I’m a record producer.”

“Really? Are you any good?”

“Well, I’ve had a couple of gold discs…”

Watching the Storyville film now, it’s really, really good! 🙂

BBC 4 also run a Dallas Campbell program about Voyager. Repeats every so often

Caught up on it last night. whitestone sums it up. Brilliant programme much like the Cassini programme recently.