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Getting a bit peed off with this blanket coverage about some british bloke going into space. Whats the big deal? Every other nation on earth has been up, been doing for nearly 50 years, they have sent dogs, chimps and even women up!
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Even the Muppets had pigs in space
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They did. Even Homer Simpson has been up
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 15 Dec 15 at 20:21
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>> Getting a bit peed off
One of the spaceman rituals that Tim Peake has participated in was apparently to urinate on the right rear wheel of the bus that took him to the launch pad, as a tribute to Yuri Gagarin who started the tradition.
It has been facetiously suggested that the real originator was Laika the dog.
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He's not even the first Brit in space so why this blanket coverage. Helen Sharman went into space twice. First time in 1991 and she visited Mir. Peake's claim seems to be he was funded by us and not the USSR and private British companies.
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>> It has been facetiously suggested that the real originator was Laika the dog.
Mrs B heard that one on radio yesterday but is convinced reporter or expert speaking referred to Rinka the dog......
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"the real originator"
I'd assumed that it went back to an ancient law allowing gentlemen to urinate against the wheel of their horse-drawn carriage.
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>> Laika the dog.
I think there was another dog called Strelka as well. Did the Russians send up a couple of monkeys too? I seem to remember someone did.
The Russians have won the space race. Their vehicles are practical and (very relatively!) cheap.
I was touched of course by all the clips of the Sussex spaceman's family talking to him on the ship-to-shore phone. I can hear the TV people now preparing them for camera. 'Jesus, try to look a bit more cheerful. Dry those tears right now and stop looking so damn worried.'
Must say I would look a bit worried if I were curled up in a ball in a small tin can on the very nose of an ICBM thing, waiting for a 9g (or whatever) couple of minutes, with a strong possibility of death if anything went badly wrong, followed by six months - six months! - of weightlessness. No doubt they give them drugs and things but even so they must feel a bit sick.
Of course they are hand-picked volunteers (raving nutters if you ask me). What did they have against being fighter pilots? That must be quite relaxing once you get used to it.
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And another thing ... he's only 250 miles above the earth, which is about the same distance from here to lunden.
I mean, it's hardly extragalactic is it, and, the rocket runs on a refined version of my heating oil.
Where's the photon drive FFS!
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>> Where's the photon drive FFS!
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Come on, that's "beam me up, Scotty, territory".
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I heard on Friday - 'hasn't he gone yet'?
Overkill.
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I'm excited. Obviously you lot aren't interested in space.
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Many, many years ago I was interested in Barbarella. Does that count?
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Anyone else think the Russian rocket/Soyuz combination was always simpler and more cost effective than a Shuttle? Rocket not huge and it works.
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Have to say I struggled with this one too, more out of puzzlement. There seemed to be a load of news items, and I kept looking for what the news was. I'd discounted "it's because he's British" instantly because that so patently wasn't in the slightest way any sort of news, but then, frustratingly, I couldn't find what the story actually was.
After some while it dawned upon this slow brain that the British bit was actually the story. At which point I lost any interest. It's about as exciting and relevant, these days, as "British man gets in a helicopter to fly to oil rig".
The space station things just don't capture the imagination in any way for me. First man on the moon - entirely useless but wonderful and one of the great moments of my lifetime. Yet another man measuring the effects of gravity on hundreds of tiny screws while telling us it's a great view - not so much.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Wed 16 Dec 15 at 08:10
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It's because he's the first ginger nut in space.
tinyurl.com/jbcclrv - Daily Wail
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"The space station things just don't capture the imagination in any way for me."
Me neither, but at least it put a stop to the Tyson Fury, Donald Trump and Shaker Aamer headlines.
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Jesus, the WHINING.
Space isn't hard to get to because it's far away; it's because you have to be moving really fast to get there. 0 - 17,150 mph, approximately, or 8 kilometres / second. I think that's worth bragging about.
Also, he's up there for science unlike some of the other visitors to the ISS; he's the first Brit to make it into space without buying his way there or having dual citizenship; and it's knocked Donald Trump off the top spot on the news for a day or two.
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>> he's the first Brit to make it into space without buying his way there
Only amateur records count you mean? How quaintly British.
That should disqualify a good few in a range of sports and other pastimes.
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It's all very well this ISS stuff, but what do they hope to achieve? I'm sure that things beneficial to mankind are discovered along the development programme, but what is the aim of the project?
Simpleton answers please.
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It's a stepping stone towards travelling to the planets and beyond. For that to be possible, all sorts of processes and techniques will be necessary - living, working, keeping fit, growing food, purifying water - all in space and in microgravity. These can be developed on the ISS.
Any interplanetary spacecraft will probably also have to be launched from an off-earth base, because it won't be possible to lift the machine and all its fuel and supplies off the surface in one go. The ISS probably isn't that base, but it gives us experience of building and operating a space station that will be useful when the time comes for the real thing.
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I don't think governments could be persuaded to fund it based on prospects of interplanetary travel. At the level that UK funds are allocated to it, it is about the advancement of science, largely driven by scientists curious about the universe (and earning a living of course).
In all probability it will also be a step to further missions to the moon, and maybe to Mars and the asteroids, but the outer limits of the solar system and beyond are denied to us unless NASA and the other agencies change the prevailing view that faster-than-light travel is impossible.
To date, all space travel including by probes such as Voyager 1, the only spacecraft that has so far left the solar system, has been essentially ballistic. It left earth 38 years ago and is now c. 130 AU from us. The next nearest star is about 300,000 AU away.
Over and above the pure science, potential military and national pride must also be factors.
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And on the same site, but not connected to space, this one made me laugh a lot.
www.thepoke.co.uk/2015/12/15/good-work-campbells-soup-employee/
Epic thread drift - space to soup in one step.
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Here, Here Wildebeest.
Without a pioneering spirit or anyone wanting to explore and discover stuff, we'd still be in the middle ages so we need the ISS, NASA and ESA and people like Major Tim to do that work.
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>> Here, Here Wildebeest.
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>> Without a pioneering spirit or anyone wanting to explore and discover stuff,
Absolutley I'll go with all that.
>> Major Tim to do that work.
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Now if major tim was on his way to Mars, or Venus. or somewhere like that, I would applaud. He is currently following in the paws of incontinent dog.
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>> Without a pioneering spirit or anyone wanting to explore and discover stuff, we'd still be
>> in the middle ages
So you would presumably argue that on balance, the discovery and colonisation of America has been beneficial to the world?
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Was there an alternative?
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'Ground control to Major Tim...' We all remember that song don't we?
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>> 'Ground control to Major Tim...' We all remember that song don't we?
Especially this version: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
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>> Especially this version: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo
That's the one Focusless. I love it for some reason.
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>> Was there an alternative?
Yeah, check out "The Man in the High Castle"
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Without a pioneering spirit or anyone wanting to explore and discover stuff, we'd still be
>> in the middle ages
Actually you would be sitting around in the Great Rift Valley or more likely gone extinct
Yours truly
Ug the hominid
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There was a boy at school who was known as the Great Rifter. But that was more to do with his uncanny ability to loudly pass wind on command and in quick succession. He was last heard of to be living in Hong Kong and holding a very senior position in a well known bank who's logo always reminds me of him and his special skill.
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Man in Space. meeeh - legacylad
