The Off Topic Topic

[Ed Anger]

http://www.xojane.com/issues/donald-trump-election-reaction-selfies

After reading the internet today, I'm sorta hoping for cattle cars and death camps.

[CountDeMoney]

After reading the internet today, I'm sorta hoping for cattle cars and death camps.

Dude, that was part of the platform. Don't play dumb now.

[citizen k]

http://www.xojane.com/issues/donald-trump-election-reaction-selfies

After reading the internet today, I'm sorta hoping for cattle cars and death camps.

I think they'll commit mass suicide before they can be loaded onto the trains.

[celedhring]

Abandoned in space in 1967, a US satellite has started transmitting again


An American satellite abandoned in 1967, now assumed to simply be space junk, has started transmitting again after 46 years.

This was one of the satellites designed and built by Lincoln Laboratory at MIT between 1965 and 1976, for testing techniques for satellite communication.

They made the series of satellites easy to recognize by naming them LES1 through to LES9. LES1-LES4 suffered different launch issues. LES1 and LES2 were supposed to be delivered to the same 2800 x 15000 km orbit, but a failure of a boost stage left LES1 in a 2800 km circular orbit.

LES3-LES4 were supposed to land in geostationary orbit, but didn't make it due to a launch problem which left them in transfer orbit. Even though the first four satellites in the series ended up in the wrong orbits, they all produced remarkable results. LES 5, 6, 8, and 9 all ended up where they were supposed to. LES7 never made it anywhere due to the funding drying up and the program being canceled.

In 2013 in North Cornwall, UK, an Amateur Radio Astronomer picked up a signal which he determined to be the LES1 that was built by MIT in 1965. The satellite never made it to its intended orbit and had been spinning out of control ever since.

Phil Williams, the amateur radio astronomer from near Bude, picked out the odd signal which was transmitting due to it tumbling end over end every four seconds as the solar panels became shadowed by the engine. "This gives the signal a particularly ghostly sound as the voltage from the solar panels fluctuates," Williams said.

It's more than likely the onboard batteries have disintegrated, and something else caused its 237Mhz transmission to resume when it was in sunlight.

The LES1 is about the size of a small automobile and should not cause any issues more than any other piece of space junk in orbit.

This proves electronics built around 50 years ago, 12 years before Voyager 1, and far before microprocessors and integrated circuits are still capable of working in the hostile environs of space. Phil refers to his hobby as "Radio-Archaeology".

LES1 and LES2 were almost identical experimental communication satellites. They both had a single X-band transponder and an 8-horn electronically switched antenna. Altitude control and sensing experiments were conducted on these twin satellites.

Their first project initiative was to build, launch, and field a system to show  off practical military satellite communications. Project West Ford's availability for the advanced super-high-frequency (SHF) technology (at seven-to-eight gigahertz) contributed to the decision to design the system for that band.

The concurrent procurement of a series of satellites and terminals for the Department of Defense that commenced with the Initial Defense Communications Satellite Program (IDCSP) meant lessons were learned from the experiments would find an additional application.

On February 11, 1965, LES1 was launched from Cape Canaveral but only accomplished a few of its objectives. It seems miswiring of the satellite circuitry was what caused it to never leave the circular orbit and it stopped transmitting in 1967. LES2, the twin of LES1, did much better; it made its planned final orbit on May 6, 1965.

My first thought upon reading this was "V'ger" 

[Josquius]

This is the start of a tale of cosmic horror.

[Tamas]

Canadians hearing a pinging from the sea, an old satellite reactivating 50 years after it was supposed to die... WHAT'S NEXT?!! 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Canadians hearing a pinging from the sea, an old satellite reactivating 50 years after it was supposed to die... WHAT'S NEXT?!! 

[Martinus]

I already recounted by surprise some months ago upon finding myself trapped on a train carriage full of civilized children.  Because germam speakers. .

Francophone and anglophone kids are loud mouthed barbarians always trying to act big.
Tyskaphone? Allemaophone? Deustchaspraaker?  Kids are civilized.
As are the Japanese.

Whoosh.

I know. It's amazing, isn't it? 

[CountDeMoney]

Abandoned in space in 1967, a US satellite has started transmitting again

My first thought upon reading this was "V'ger" 

Close, but it's really the beacon that was set specifically to start transmitting back to Lyndon Baines Johnson's home planet once the Great Society was eliminated once and for all.

Better hope we can figure out time travel to go back to the 60's and find a civil rights activist to communicate with the space probes when they arrive, or it's game over.

[Martinus]

YOU NEED TO ADD NATIONALISM

[Martinus]

So, apparently, starting with Trump's birth date (14 June 1946), his Presidential inauguration (20 January 2017) will be exactly 70 years, 7 months and 7 days later.  

[Valmy]

So, apparently, starting with Trump's birth date (14 June 1946), his Presidential inauguration (20 January 2017) will be exactly 70 years, 7 months and 7 days later.  

Is 7077 some kind of magical number?

[mongers]

So, apparently, starting with Trump's birth date (14 June 1946), his Presidential inauguration (20 January 2017) will be exactly 70 years, 7 months and 7 days later.  

Surely that's 6 days.

[Martinus]

No, but 777 is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/777_(number)

It is the number of God, and the number of jackpot on slot machines; also in Unix it is used as the universal access code.

[Martinus]

So, apparently, starting with Trump's birth date (14 June 1946), his Presidential inauguration (20 January 2017) will be exactly 70 years, 7 months and 7 days later.  

Surely that's 6 days.

Not if you count the first day as well.