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Post by Shake on Dec 4, 2012 5:45:07 GMT
Still getting closer, Voyager 1 is nearly into interstellar space! Very cool to me, because I remember its launch and the encounters it and Voyager 2 had with the gas giants. Also, amazing to think they're both still working and transmitting back signals and data to earth. Still more amazing that we can pick up their signals amongst all the other noise. Comments at the page of the article above are FAR more intelligent than some I ran across at Yahoo! (not surprisingly)
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 4, 2012 8:24:03 GMT
I seem to remember a report about 5 years ago that they'd stopped listening already as it was too far away and not going to pass anything useful for longer than it would take to run out of power. Also, the cost of monitoring it was too much to be worthwhile any more... they'll probably still be doing it in 20 years.
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bill
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Post by bill on Dec 8, 2012 12:31:13 GMT
Ooh, shades of Star Trek the Motion Picture. I hope it does not come back to haunt us.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 8, 2012 13:14:09 GMT
Voyager? Or Star Trek the Motion Picture?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2012 13:23:52 GMT
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Dec 20, 2012 7:49:18 GMT
I seem to remember a report about 5 years ago that they'd stopped listening already as it was too far away and not going to pass anything useful for longer than it would take to run out of power. Also, the cost of monitoring it was too much to be worthwhile any more... they'll probably still be doing it in 20 years. I think they deactivated only its energy consuming functions.. this is from wikipedia: 2007 Termination of plasma subsystem (PLS) 2008 Power off Planetary Radio Astronomy Experiment (PRA) 2010 Terminate scan platform and Ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) observations 2015 Termination of Data Tape Recorder (DTR) operations (limited by ability to capture 1.4 kbit/s data using a 70 m/34 m antenna array. This is the minimum rate at which the DTS can read-out data.) 2016 approx Termination of gyroscopic operations 2020 Start shutdown of science instruments (as of October 18, 2010 the order is undecided but the Low-Energy Charged Particles, Cosmic Ray Subsystem, Magnetometer, and Plasma Wave Subsystem instruments are expected to still be operating) 2025–2030 Can no longer power any single instrument.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 20, 2012 8:35:24 GMT
All that and yet any computers they make these days will be obsolete in a manner of years!
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Dec 20, 2012 8:45:12 GMT
All that and yet any computers they make these days will be obsolete in a manner of years! They probably do that on purpose so you'd buy a new computer every 4 or 5 years.. but mostly for the device to be suitable for massive production and marketable, it has to be cheap enough.. if they use material and technology to make it usable for 2 or 3 decades, it'd probably become too expensive for most people, and much faster computers would be made before that anyway.. That's what I think.. economy subjects were never my favorite..
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Post by tangent on Dec 20, 2012 9:51:11 GMT
Nice to see you Litso.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Dec 20, 2012 10:06:06 GMT
Nice to see you too! ^^ I kinda forgot that we transferred here, and went straight to the old forum yesterday, but when I saw there was no activity I remembered you gave us the link to this forum..
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 20, 2012 19:58:31 GMT
All that and yet any computers they make these days will be obsolete in a manner of years! They probably do that on purpose so you'd buy a new computer every 4 or 5 years.. but mostly for the device to be suitable for massive production and marketable, it has to be cheap enough.. if they use material and technology to make it usable for 2 or 3 decades, it'd probably become too expensive for most people, and much faster computers would be made before that anyway.. That's what I think.. economy subjects were never my favorite.. Yes, but the point is that if computers had a much longer life-span, you'd not need to go through the hassle and expense of keep upgrading them all the time so you could actually make them cheaper, but with the same amount of ultimate profit. People are always getting excited with me about how "cheap" their PC was, but they buy about three to every one I get. Many of our office machines have Windows 7 and Office 2010 on them, but I could do everything they do in Windows 3.11 and Word 2, on a 15 year old computer, for example. All they are usually getting is new features to not use at all!
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Dec 20, 2012 20:52:22 GMT
On the long run, yes.. but economy is mostly about making short to medium term profits.. if your project does not return the investment within 2 to 3 years at most, it's a failed project.. and with this of course come the adequate marketing techniques to convince costumers that it's in their best interest to get a new computer (or a car, or whatever), periodically and dispose of the old one..
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 20, 2012 22:04:02 GMT
I agree, it is most certainly about making people think they need your product, but that's not the same as actually needing it! I am not entirely complaining, most of my computers come from people giving me their "old, slow and obsolete" ones for free!
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