Mojang Apologists

mojang_apologist_hat · 13 days

which they won't have this year

Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition just came out, and is the fastest selling XBLA game of all time.

Notch said this version was profitable after an hour on sale, and sold something like 400,000+ copies on day one. I'd consider that a major release.

horseraid · 26 days

By "regular photos", do you mean photos taken on Earth? If so, the horizon seems closer in photos taken on the moon because the horizon really is closer. The moon is quite a bit smaller than the Earth.

lolpancakeslol · 2 months

The game was designed with the fog in place. You were never supposed to see beyond the fog, so they didn't put any assets there. Removing the fog breaks the illusion of the world when you see the lake just abruptly end, or see a rope just floating in the air tied to nothing.

spacexcowboy · 2 months

Nice, I will check this out for sure. Looks like there might be some interesting footage, and I'm always glad to see space coverage in the mainstream media.

ColoradanV · 2 months

That was an orbiter though, it didn't land on the surface.

nicoman37 · 2 months

The Centrifuge Accommodations Module was a rotating artificial gravity module in development for the ISS. Unfortunately, it was cancelled in 2005.

ghostwarrior369 · 2 months

I dunno, check out Boston at the time. That looks pretty awesome to me. The buildings look to be about the same size they've been in previous AC games.

ghostwarrior369 · 2 months

I hope they don't make a modern era AC for a while. For me, one of the main draws of the series is exploring and hanging out in different times. Renaissance Italy and colonial America are pretty unique settings as far as videogames go, and there are tons of other interesting eras and places they could use. A modern AC would lose that unique charm, and be more like every other game.

mepper · 3 months

So then, what is the mission and plan for NASA's manned program? I'm talking a real mission plan here, "someday, we ought to be able to go to Mars" isn't a serious plan.

mic9ael · 3 months

At least Constellation had a goal. SLS is a rocket with no mission.

mic9ael · 3 months

People who think that a large amount of their tax money is going to NASA are either misinformed, or stupid.

mic9ael · 3 months

Space X is able to launch for $8 million/mission

What? A Falcon 9 launch is about $60 million just for the rocket. Add in a manned capsule and that price jumps up quite a bit. It's still far cheaper than STS, but $8 million per mission is outrageously inaccurate.

DariusG187 · 3 months

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone over the age of 50 will live to see humans on Mars. NASA's most optimistic estimate puts humans on Mars sometime in the 2040s, which means it probably won't happen until later, if they do it at all.

Further than Mars? I highly doubt anyone alive today will see humans travel further than Mars.

mepper · 3 months

50 years ago NASA's manned program had a mission, and the funding to complete that mission. Today, they have neither.

mepper · 3 months

Which is part of NASA's human space flight problem. They have become so risk averse that they are unable to do anything except studies, power points and simulations of things that they never end up actually doing.

mepper · 3 months

we should of had a back up ready for the Shuttle as it was retiring

We did, it was called Constellation. It was to return to the Moon, and eventually Mars. It was underfunded, which caused the overal cost to rise, and the timeline to slip. President Obama came in and cancelled the program, and proposed to replace it with nothing except funding for commercial flights to ISS.

Congress disagreed and mandated that NASA continue with the Orion spacecraft (Originally part of Constellation) and the SLS rocket (A less powerful, less ambitious version of Constellation's Ares V) Now NASA is left with a half-assed Constellation with no mission.

mutatron · 3 months

You don't invest in space exploration to make short term profit, it's not a business. The point of a Moon or Mars base is to explore those locations, to expand our knowledge of them, and grow our understanding of the solar system. Building such bases would force technological advancement in areas such as life support, energy, food production, radiation mitigation, in-situ resource utilization, etc. Some of those things could generate profits at some point, but as with most technological R+D, you never really know how that tech will applicable in the future.

b4nj0 · 3 months

An L1 station would not be required to have a station at L2. I'm sure someone has a better idea of the exact differences, but as far as I know, the energy costs are almost the same.

yardleyevans · 3 months

What a lazy article.

Instead of sending people to Mars, the Obama plan would focus on a “lower cost program” that would use robots, not humans, to explore our galatic neighbor. That means the planned U.S.-European joint venture to Mars would get the ax.

There is no real plan and no funding for human missions to Mars. The joint NASA-ESA venture is a robotic program. The 2013 budget cuts are for robotic Mars exploration. Funding for human missions to Mars does not exist, and therefore cannot be cut. Also, Mars is our "galatic neighbor"?

Obama’s plan may put those concerns to rest by funding the Space Transport System, a multi-stage rocket that echoes the Apollo design and is the cornerstone of NASA’s future human exploration of space.

No, the Space Transportation System, STS, is the recently ended space shuttle program. The new proposed rocket is called the Space Launch System, or SLS.

mutatron · 3 months

Something like this could lead to a lunar surface base. Have a reusable lander or two docked to this station, and you can have manned scouting missions to several sites on the lunar surface. Keep refueling the landers at the station. This would allow them to confirm the very best location, and the same reusable landers (or a variation on them) could be used to land the cargo required to set up a base. It seems unlikely that they would jump straight to base building without first doing several reconnaissance missions, and doing a series of surface missions from an EML-2 station would be more efficient that doing them straight from Earth.

mutatron · 3 months

There have been versions of this plan which include a reusable manned lunar lander, which would enable landings at any location on the Moon's surface, at any time. That would be awesome.

twolf1 · 3 months

Going to Mars is much more complicated, dangerous, and expensive than going to the Moon. It only takes around 4 days to reach the Moon, compared to months to get to Mars. Plus from EML-2, you can return to Earth at anytime. With Mars you have to wait for the planets to align. You would also need a massive spacecraft with enough supplies to support a crew for over a year.

There is still a lot to learn about the Moon, and and EML-2 station would be good practice for a future Mars mission. Add in a reusable lunar lander as proposed in the Exploration Gateway Platform and you have the ability to land anywhere on the lunar surface, at anytime. Plus, an EML-2 station could help support the commercial launch market, delivering various payloads to the EML-2 station or to the Moon's surface.

eiskalteschatten · 3 months

This has nothing to do with manned missions to Mars.

These cuts are to robotic Mars exploration programs, mostly the ESA-NASA joint missions, the Mars Exploration Joint Initiative

NASA is bailing out of this program, and ESA is not capable of carrying out these missions alone. They are currently in talks with Russia about bringing Roscosmos into the program.

peterabbit456 · 3 months

Also interesting is that Triton has a retrograde orbit around Neptune. (It orbits in the opposite direction of Neptune's rotation) This indicates that it didn't form with Neptune, but rather was captured by Neptune sometime after formation.

Triton is really interesting. It's a shame these distant bodies don't get more attention. Basically the only exploration we've done of Neptune/Triton and Uranus was with Voyager 2. At least Pluto is finally getting some love, can't wait for New Horizons to get there.

thewetbandits

TROPHY CASE

thewetbandits

TROPHY CASE

you'll need to login or register to do that

create a new account

login