It's Rocket Science, Baby!

[happinesson]

a great history of space quest, experimentation and discovery! Nice video presentation. Very entertaining.

[TishaLane306]

huhutag und nacht träume ich davon dass sich jemnd findet der mich vor meiner langweile erlöst^^

[omegavalerius]

See the things we can do together Europe? Lets follow the example of scientists at ESA and CERN. You know it might just take us to the stars.

[sorry8140]

luvit

[Azubigaertner]

WOW great pics.

[puncheex]

Let's make an observation here. "An object cannot exceed the speed of light" should have appended to it "from the viewpoint of a viewer at rest". From the viewpoint of someone on the rocket, and ignoring acceleration, he can make the trip to the center of the galaxy and back within his lifetime, because near SoL speed (from the rest viewpoint) causes time on the rocket to slow down. In the traveler's view, the galaxy shrunk to make it possible.

[balanceseeker]

In order to do what you are suggesting, you would have to have someone traveling at 99.99981508858644% of the speed of light.

That is because it is 26k light-years from Sol the center of the galaxy, and even if you were to assume the human's lifespan was 100 years, that would mean you would need to slow time down (and increase mass and shrink length as well) by a factor of 520 (two way trip). Using Einstien's formula, you get the aforementioned necessary speed.

[dobberdoss]

Try this observation. Get 2 identical stop watches( or watches) and set both off at the exact same time. Leave one at home and take the other withyou on a plane flight say from London to San Fran distance ( at least one third around the globe). Then fly back. Now when you get home compare the two times on both stop watches. Ive done it. It's quite amazing.

[puncheex]

Hmmmmmm. I doubt you would be able to see a difference in that short (and slow) of a trip; I would thenink the time difference would be in the microseconds, at best. Also, you'd want to swap watches at the end and do the trip again, in order to average out the differences between the watches. You'd want to control for environment (temperature, humidity, etc) as well.

[dobberdoss]

try it and see. Your doubts are understandable but so were mine i thought. Difference was 2 minutes. Speed as you know has the effect of slowing/worping linear time. The effect can be experienced without necessarily approaching SofL. One for Mythbusters you reckon?

[fastLupus]

Uh yes... are you serious here? A time diff. of 2 minutes(!!!) with the speed that you are traveling in an plane is physically impossible. I see two possibilities here, one you made some mistake with the two clocks (extremely expensive scientific caesium-clocks you claim to own) or you just flat out made it up. Can you guess what i believe happens ?

Two minutes gravitational redshift...ridiculous.

[dobberdoss]

Ok, here's a suggestion, take it to 'MYTHBUSTERS'. I did not make it up.

Speed (even at 800kmph over 26 hours (13 hour return trip) does distort time. Time is only relative. How long is a second to a 'fly' or a 'bee' for instance?. Even the nervous system plays a role. Thanks for replying

[shintsu01]

Happy Birthday!

[PhillipThunderGrunge]

hell yeah

I rather spend Millions on NASA then Billions on some senseless fucking war that leaves the soldiers fighting bruised,bloody, and broken

and the guys running the operation leaving them unscaved and completely fucking rich...

it's sick..we could explore the cosmos instead we might create mass human extinction

[Dazis4Real]

Does Ariane really help with all that research?

Wow, no wonder it has been going so long...

Nasa just has to give the public the unaltered information Ariane produces and allow us the truth, then the past 30 years will have been worth the effort.

Great video anyway...

I guess all the fudging has taught someone to be really cool at mixing and creating videos?

[arachnophile01]

awesome: d

[oggleman]

happy birthday ariane indeed

[RodHullIOnceWasHim]

Well aren't we just the clever little monkeys :D

[entwood]

@Joshua17404930 Troll detected.

[MilitantPeaceist]

Great Vid 8)) TY

[bangNL94]

this IS our future!

[KaelHunter]

As a species, we build some cool shit. I just wish we could build less tanks and concentrate on space.

[JustinBringit]

Oh Yeah ......... =)

[jmthetank]

I'd kind of like to see what a rocket taking off looks like from space. That'd probably be pretty interesting.

[216trixie]

Awesome...I had no idea....I thought Nasa was it, like many americans, i think.

[philthy122]

Even new zealand joined the space race a few weeks ago, with a budget a fraction of what nasa wastes and low tech components. For example during launch a thermocouple froze, so the went to the nearest hardware shop for a replacement. I'd love to see nasa do that, hehe

[Nerusai]

@philthy122

Countries should get over themselves and merge their budgets already so we can start doing stuff that matters. Like the space elevator.

[rajganesh87]

Awesome.........no words to say.....

[lostintimeBC]

nice

wish nasa took a page from your book

stayed with a reliable platform

and just impoved on it

[puncheex]

Nasa did. Right now the main workhorse doing the kinds of thigs that Ariane does are the Atlas and the Delta rockets. Atlas has been around a long time; it was the Air Force's first ICBM. These two rockets do all the current launches that don't require the shuttle's capabilities.

[saxmanchiro]

Ahhh, Science, The quest for truth. At the age of ten, 3 yrs after watching John Glenn orbit the earth, I knew that science was my destiny. Also, that yr, I figured out that the only adults that did not lie to children were scientists. All the other adults around me did. Like Santa and the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, god too was just fairytale. Thanks to science and it's proven method, I have had 44 yrs of blissful godlessness. Thank you Science!!!

[ThinkingBetter]

saxmanchiro, yes so true indeed. So many lies...and religion today is mostly about sustaining a business of pastors, radio stations, televangelists etc.

Science is not perfect but the scientific method is what has brought us our modern quality of life with longer life expectancy and things like...Youtube :-)

Science is the true miracle maker. Youtube and the internet would have been a miracle 2000 years ago and could easily have debunked some David Copperfield style Jesus scam artist.

[dangerouslytalented]

... apart from the ones paid for by the tobacco companies and the big polluters who have a vested interest in not having uncomfortable facts revealed.

[saxmanchiro]

dangerous

Those are not true scientists. Also in the list of untrustworthy conclusions, any rewritten or 'augmented' papers by Republican gov employees(lawyers) with no science background( a la rewrites of NASA's AGW conclusions before public release) making changes to papers.

[dangerouslytalented]

1996? That is 13 years... What has taken it so long to replace the current Ariane?

[DooMDrat]

I suppose it's simply worked quite well, so not much need to change. Kinda like AK-47's and cockroaches.

I'd guess they're probably working on a successor though.

[ferkeap]

@dangerouslytalented  no need to replace, yet. The A5 is in many configs.

soyuz en vega will be added.

[dangerouslytalented]

so basically what you are saying is that it is a versatile vehicle and is capable of recieving many upgrades before it gets replaced?

[BlueNile123]

inspirational vid

[zx1011]

men on earth invented dick shaped rockets as a metaphor of their desire to fuck all the chicks of the universe no matter what planet they live on =D

[Meathead36]

not a bad little video

[adsensus]

Do i have to pick just one? bummer.

[kermheat]

good video !

[tomaselvis]

Pure love...

[teenspirit1]

there isn't really a limit to the speed of a rocket in space other than the theoretical speed of light.

[AcanLord]

that might not be entirely true. the thrust vs Mass factors for example. The more mass it has the more thrust its going to need, the more thrust it has the more fuel it needs, The more fuel it has, the greater its mass.

so unless we find some really super efficient, extremely potent fuel source, or develop some better ion engines, for now i think he are still grounded.

[teenspirit1]

I don't think it is about fuel at all. After the rocket has accelerated to a limit with the available fuel, with a little luck, gravity wells can keep on accelerating it to near light speed. Just trying to be accurate.

[AcanLord]

what i mean is, The amount of fuel required

to reach even close to that speed would be enormous. and Orbital velocities though immense aren`t even close to what is required to reach even remotely close to the kind of speed we are talking about. don`t get me wrong, it would be pretty damn fast. but not anywhere near 299,792,458 meters a second.

[Nerusai]

Look up our ion drive probes, to my knowledge they will reach the speed of light, give or take, and quite efficiently so. (Wiki Ion Thruster or one of the probes like Deep Space 1)

[truvelocity]

Really? So, ions are the way to solve the problem of speed of light? Cool.

[Nerusai]

Well, theoretically, I admit that I don't think they'll get the craft all the way there yet.

Just read up on it (wiki Ion Thruster to start), it's the most effective propellant driven engine we have, and if memory serves, the theoretical limit to it is close to the speed of light.

[truvelocity]

OK, because I know that mass will break apart pretty close to or at the speed of light... So, I thought they had some way of using ions to shoot out beyond the craft itself to send information. Which would be radical and probably beyond our technology at that. That's what I was imagining, though. Still.... Pretty cool.

[Nerusai]

They were more or less information transmission studies, one way they did it was manipulating the speed of light itself.

[truvelocity]

Oh, OK! Got it.

[Nerusai]

And quantum entanglement was another I believe, something with photon pathways - I'm no physicist, I recommend you attempt to find the article :)

[AcanLord]

i know what your describing.

but technically that`s not moving at all. you can`t move faster then light, that would basicly defy casuality. but you can get around that by moving the space which an object occupies instead. Which i don`t think they have any of the tech to do anything even remotely that complex yet. i might happen though.

[puncheex]

Ummmm, any rocket can get near the speed of light; all it takes is enough fuel and reaction mass. The ion engine is very efficient - that is, it is the best at converting fuel and mass into kinetic energy.

[balanceseeker]

@puncheex

Again, you are right. All it does take enough fuel and reaction mass. The question is HOW MUCH.

Remember, the faster an object moves, the more mass it has (Theory of Relativity), and therefore the more energy it takes to accelerate the object further. And so while the ion engine is a promising drive system, I do not think it will go half the speed of light, much less deliver on your idea of "approaching" the speed light.

Maybe if we used all the energy in the solar system...

[puncheex]

I agree, ans point out that approaching is a very relative term. It can, in principle, go as high a fraction of SoL as you want it to.

[AcanLord]

i am familiar with them. the current ion drives give about 1 ounce of thrust. There is a newer design that is being tested that will increase that. they can never reach the speed of the light though.

such a thing is actually impossible.

[Nerusai]

Oh no, they've already been experimenting with ways to move faster than light. I believe there was a recent article on the physorg website

[truvelocity]

What are they experimenting with, particles? Because mass breaks apart into energy or explodes when approaching close to or at the speed of light, which is what the formula E=MC2 demonstrates.

[azaroth001]

It's not about mass breaking apart. To object with mass greater than zero you need infinite amount of energy to accelerate that object to speed of light.

That is the problem.

[puncheex]

No, they won't; nothing we have right now will approach a percent of the speed of light. What they do is to driave a payload out in space very efficiently (that is, best acceleration for the fuel and reaction mass consumed). They are not very powerful (yet), but they are very efficient.

[balanceseeker]

@puncheex You are right. Nothing we have will come anywhere close to one percent of the speed of light... nowhere close.

The fastest record for anything man-made is 150,000 mph (Helios 2), but it got that speed by slingshotting around the sun which is gravity driven, not drive driven.

However, even as fast as that is, Helios 2 would have had to travel 45 times faster than that to equal 1% of the speed of light (671 million mph).

[Nerusai]

Slingshot maneuvers are currently just a bonus, with the new ion drives :) But humans don't have too long a lifespan yet, so speed is of the essence I guess :)

[ndyt]

yurp, USA should never have gone to the shuttle, we should have continued with our Apollo and Saturn rockets. Expensive mistake.

[azaroth001]

Space Shuttle was not mistake. Shuttle is flying laboratory, service vehicle and truck in single package. But only for orbit around Earth.

Without it, you can't do many things, like repairing of Hubble Space Telescope. Mission to Mars we need brutal force to lift parts of space ship from the ground.

For that purpose is space shuttle vehicle too universal to be effective.

Space shuttle was success for it's purpose.

[ndyt]

azaroth001, the Shuttle is more expensive, less safe, and lifts less then the Saturn V. Yes, the Shuttle is a mistake.

[BoneySkylord]

Wow! Excellent video!

And to think it all started with early explorers in a hollowed-out log! "Let's find out what's round the river bend..."

Humanity is awesome. Reality rocks!

[DooMDrat]

Imagine if they had to contend with scoffing morons like we do now...

"You damned explorers, your claims of the world's size is always changing! Every year you claim to discover new places. Why can't you just accept there's nothing beyond those mountains and stop telling lies!"

[jody291972]

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

As for the rest of us were going into space.

[AmpRebel1]

Haha, good one!

[WouldbeSage]

Whatchu wanna build a rocketship fer? All you's need to know is right in this here Bible. If God wanted us ta 'splore space, he woulda made us born in spacesuits. Yep.

[0PsycoDad0]

LOL!

Go back into your cave!

[niiidar]

He's a troll, relax. Not a very good one either.

[imarchello]

Riiiiight.....

[ugene1975]

Very interesting.....i love science,i just wish they told the whole truth in science the things we should know about LIKE OTHER LIFE.....They do exist!!!! all you have to do is ''WANT TO BELIEVE''

[jzuidema]

ROFL at the typo at 4:29 (fundamenTTal), Im sorry, its nitpicky, but it shouldnt be there in such a great video, probably with some budget.... Video itself is very cool by the way 5*

[defect530]

cool, it's about time! haha just kidding.

[jesse0192]

Beautiful, one of man's greatest works of art... a visceral image of humans breaking their ties from the earth that gave us life.

[RustyCyler]

Bad-ass rocketry

[Rockster969]

Bad-ass indeed!

[Gorillathehun]

@RustyCyler

Bad ass-rocketry!

 (sorry, I got that from XKCD and can't stop lol)

[Zlibservacratican]

@geturphil69 What did you win?

[KoningStoma]

First fail that is.

[Clod15]

Lol he even misspelled "First" xD