[QUOTE=kladner;439050].....James Blish, Robert A Heinlein (even!).....[/QUOTE]

Yeah... And Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, etc, etc, etc... Lots of great (and "Hard Sci-Fi") to expand young minds! :smile:

[QUOTE=kladner;439050]It was a serious sign of impending maturity when I realized what a sexist, militaristic, insecure guy he was.[/QUOTE]

I resonate... I am a huge fan of Dan Simmons, but when I read "Flashback" I realized what a racist red neck he is. Still love most of his work ("Drood" was a huge waste of time though!).

[QUOTE=chalsall;439069]Yeah... And Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, etc, etc, etc... Lots of great (and "Hard Sci-Fi") to expand young minds! :smile:



I resonate... I am a huge fan of Dan Simmons, but when I read "Flashback" I realized what a racist red neck he is. Still love most of his work ("Drood" was a huge waste of time though!).[/QUOTE]
That's one by Simmons I have not read. I am really taken aback, hearing about "feet of clay." I had no inkling.

[QUOTE=kladner;439070]I am really taken aback, hearing about "feet of clay." I had no inkling.[/QUOTE]

I'm not following your reference. "Feet of Clay" by Terry Pratchett was wonderful, but that's probably not what you are referring to. In fact I own all of Pratchett's work (often multiple copies, which I "lend" to others, almost never to see them back again!).

A few more more authors worth mentioning since we're tangenting... William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson.

[QUOTE=xilman;439004]Possible, but all those were well inside the magnetosphere, unlike the Apollo crews, and so their radiation exposure isn't much greater than the human norm. Their exposure is also over a long term, again unlike the astronauts in question.

That's why I suggested the populations I did. Short-term exposure to radiation levels much higher than normal.[/QUOTE]

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_threat_from_cosmic_rays#The_deep-space_radiation_environment[/url]

Wikipedia suggests that ISS exposure is roughly 300x that of the surface, with the Apollo and Skylab missions at roughly ~3x that (or around 800-1000x surface exposure). I wouldn't go so far as to call that "isn't much greater than the human norm", though Apollo missions certainly were very short, limiting the total dosage. ISS and Skylab missions on the order of months, though, would definitely hit at least the 100x your typical annual radiation dose over the course of one mission (and there have been repeat ISS visitors).

Edit: Allow me to add a link to this handy chart (note the logarithmic scale) which among other things indicates that the surface exposure to cosmic radiation is only a very small part of the total surface exposure, thus rendering most of the above post largely meaningless. (Total ISS dosage over a 6 month period is a bit more than 10x the annual US average.)

[url]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/PIA17601-Comparisons-RadiationExposure-MarsTrip-20131209.png[/url]

[QUOTE=chalsall;439071]I'm not following your reference. "Feet of Clay" by Terry Pratchett was wonderful, but that's probably not what you are referring to. In fact I own all of Pratchett's work (often multiple copies, which I "lend" to others, almost never to see them back again!).

A few more more authors worth mentioning since we're tangenting... William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson.[/QUOTE]
Agreed on the last three. Pratchett is less familiar to me. My reference was not to a book, but to Simmons [I]having [/I]feet of clay with regard to attitudes you mentioned. :smile:

[URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/spacex-has-shipped-its-mars-engine-to-texas-for-tests/"]SpaceX has shipped its Mars engine to Texas for tests[/URL]
[QUOTE]SpaceX appears to have taken a significant step forward with the development of a key component of its Mars mission architecture. According to multiple reports, during the Small Satellite Conference Tuesday in Logan, Utah, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company has shipped a Raptor engine to its test site in MacGregor, Texas. A spokesman confirmed to Ars that the engine has indeed been moved to Texas for developmental tests.

The Raptor is SpaceX's next generation of rocket engine. It may be as much as three times more powerful than the Merlin engines that power its Falcon 9 rocket and will also be used in the Falcon Heavy rocket that may fly in late 2016 or early 2017. The Raptor will power SpaceX's next generation of rocket after the Falcon Heavy, the so-called Mars Colonial Transporter.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;439700][URL="http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/spacex-has-shipped-its-mars-engine-to-texas-for-tests/"]SpaceX has shipped its Mars engine to Texas for tests[/URL][/QUOTE]
This pleases me.:retina:

[URL="http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/13/12457228/spacex-falcon-9-launch-landing-how-to-watch-livestream-jcsat-16"]Tonight's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch: start time, live stream, and what to expect[/URL]
[QUOTE]If you find yourself without Saturday night plans this evening, why not enjoy a nice SpaceX launch? The company’s eighth Falcon 9 launch of this year is scheduled to take off tonight from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 1:26AM ET, sending a Japanese communications satellite — called JCSAT-16 — into orbit around Earth. And no SpaceX launch is complete these days without a rocket landing attempt afterward. Just a few minutes after the Falcon 9 takes off tonight, a majority of the vehicle will try to land upright on one of SpaceX’s floating drone ships, "Of Course I Still Love You."[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;439931][URL="http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/13/12457228/spacex-falcon-9-launch-landing-how-to-watch-livestream-jcsat-16"]Tonight's SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch: start time, live stream, and what to expect[/URL][/QUOTE]

I plan to say up tonight to watch this in bed (via a LTE connection).

This is after running a bloody good Hash here in Bimshire, and cooking my lovely a hearty "Cheesy Bread" meal after we argued about how many slices of bread were involved with a sandwich.

"I'll have 1 and 1/2 sides, please. Oh, and can I have some vegetables with that?....

Live streaming begins in 55 minutes.
[QUOTE]SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver JCSAT-16, a commercial communications satellite for SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). SKY Perfect JSAT is a leading satellite operator in the Asia-Pacific region and provides high-quality satellite communications to its customers using its fleet of 16 satellites. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 successfully launched JCSAT-14 in May.[/QUOTE]
These days I mainly watch the hosted broadcast. I like seeing the enthusiasm and I don't really miss that many details from the pure technical broadcast.
Hosted:
[url]http://youtu.be/QZTCEO0gvLo[/url]
[YOUTUBE]QZTCEO0gvLo[/YOUTUBE]
It's a little like watching people push up their arms on roller coasters but I kid myself if I think I'm going to really learn much anyway. Everyone is so young and enthusiastic. Priceless.

For the technical webcast:
[url]http://youtu.be/OERDIFnFvHs[/url]
[YOUTUBE]OERDIFnFvHs[/YOUTUBE]

I've had bad luck viewing the Nasa TV HD stream on recent launches on my tablet and it looks like they are not streaming this launch anyway.

It will be less than 55 minutes before they start streaming, because 55 minutes is the launch time.