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View Full Version : Super Advanced Tech @ NASA



TheGreatSatan
09-02-2007, 01:53 AM
So much money is spent on sending probes all around the solar system, but there's one problem. Why the hell aren't the pictures taken in color? The rings of Saturn, the surface of titan, are all B&W. Why?

simon275
09-02-2007, 04:43 AM
The photos are infrared perhaps not normal visible light.

Eclecticos
09-02-2007, 05:36 AM
Apparently they are equipped with color cameras. .
Here (http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/040701science.html) it the best explanation I could find.

Because of Cassini's enormous velocity - 60,000 mph or so at engine cutoff - its cameras were programmed with shutter speeds of five thousandths of a second to prevent blurring. In the minute required to snap a picture, record the data and be ready for another shot, Cassini moved hundreds of miles, preventing researchers from taking overlapping photos or the multiple images required for color.

TheGreatSatan
09-02-2007, 09:08 AM
It's annoying because the guy is looking at the photos and saying "you can see a light spot here and a darker looking spot here........this could be snow or rock......"

If it was in color you'd know! Can't they just put a cheap digital camera with flash on there?

crenn
09-02-2007, 09:31 AM
I don't quite think you're getting the point..... Move on a freeway at high speed and use a camera to take a picture. You'll see.

Eclecticos
09-02-2007, 09:51 AM
Well I guess were just gonna have to live with the Hubble space telescope images until they can get a better camera out there.
On first thought I figured it had something to do with relaying all that data through space. . you know lost a bit and byte of quality here and there.

I remember watching the videos of saturns moons a while back I'ts still preddy amazing. . we can sit behind our computers at home and see video of a planet that is 1.3 Billion Kilometers away.

I remember watching somethine on tv about it being nearly impossible to land anything on saturn. .It would vaporise before getting anywhere near the surface. So no Saturn
Rovers anytime soon. . There working on a way to do it though.

Got werk to do. . I'll post some kewl stuff here later on.

xRyokenx
09-02-2007, 10:29 AM
Not to start another debate (not that it's a bad thing)... but NASA uses like $4 billion, and the situation in the Middle East costs upwards of $100 billion, or something like that. If someone has a more accurate estimate, go ahead and let me know, I'm curious.

elbarto241
09-02-2007, 10:37 AM
yea, i think the NASA program is under funded, but i guess we have to fix the problems here on earth before we start them again on another planet.

TheGreatSatan
09-02-2007, 11:16 AM
I don't quite think you're getting the point..... Move on a freeway at high speed and use a camera to take a picture. You'll see.

Have one pop out after it's already landed. No movement.

xRyokenx
09-02-2007, 11:33 AM
...and come to think of it, I wonder if NASA's funding is being cut due to the war, huh... but yeah, there are also probably some technical difficulties that they have, or maybe color pictures take up more memory and the device they have is either limited or they take too long to transmit back, who knows?

Eclecticos
09-02-2007, 02:56 PM
Here (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/features/saturn/video/video.html) are several videos on the Cassini Saturn Mission. .
Explains allot . .kinda boring though. :)

simon275
09-02-2007, 08:20 PM
If the US gov put all the Iraq war funding into NASA we would have a moon base by now and have colonized mars.

xRyokenx
09-02-2007, 11:22 PM
If the US gov put all the Iraq war funding into NASA we would have a moon base by now and have colonized mars.

We'd probably be closer, but human minds fortunately (?) don't run on money... but I'm quite sure that it would give a really good boost to our space programs though.