The Great Ongoing Space Exploration Thread

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Lumpy

an advanced civilisation might want to live in what it calls a “red frame environment”: an area with heavy time dilation which would therefore allow it to explore outwards in a way that synchronises the rate of passing time.

Interesting; do you mean a civilization that lives in the bottom of a deep gravity well (like in close orbit around a black hole) so that time passes for them at about the same rate as it does for explorers accelerating to a high fraction of C in flat space; so the people who launched an expedition and those who went on it can stay in close synchronization? My only quibble is how much extra dilation would be involved in climbing out of the gravity well before being able to embark on a voyage to other solar systems. I had envisioned “slow” civilizations that used hibernation at home to effect the same thing, waiting centuries to hear back from explorers…

An interesting Star Trek: Voyager episode along those lines: Blink of an Eye (episode) | Memory Alpha | Fandom

[xtenkfarpl]

@Lumpy

Interesting; do you mean a civilization that lives in the bottom of a deep gravity well (like in close orbit around a black hole) so that time passes for them at about the same rate as it does for explorers accelerating to a high fraction of C in flat space

OH, there’s an SF story using that idea! What was it? No worries, I’ll find it tomorrow; busy with dinner at the moment…

[dtilque]

@dtilque

More likely [Russell] Vought wanted to cut it in half; Trump just went along with it. Now if they can do the same for the NSF, CDC, and NIH research budgets, there won’t be the destruction of US science that we’re facing.

Some good news: the Senate voted to fund several research budgets at levels higher than Trump’s budget proposals. These are for NSF, NOAA and NASA, but not for the CDC and NIH.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-senate-passes-bill-boost-federal-science-spending-after-white-house-sought-2026-01-15/

[Darren_Garrison]

@xtenkfarpl

OH, there’s an SF story using that idea! What was it?

This one?

Have we reached the point when it is kooky to not believe in massive amounts of intelligent life having evolved throughout the universe?

In the David Brin short story Crystal Spheres, it turned out that multiple advanced civilizations were using black hole time dilation to reach the future where there’d be more advanced civilizations. None of them wanted to be the burned-out, jaded “ancient precursors”.

[Der_Trihs]

@Darren_Garrison

This one?

Yes, and also in the Heechee Saga.

[Darren_Garrison]

So yesterday there could have been history’s first space capsule vs cruise ship collision.

Cruise Ship Appears in Live Footage as SpaceX Crew-11 Descends for Splashdown...

[Elendil_s_Heir]

CYA at NASA… or something to actually be worried about?

NASA is about to send people to the moon — in a spacecraft not everyone...

[LSLGuy]

This might be of interest to the crowd in this thread:

40th anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger

Hard to believe. I recall the fifth anniversary. Someone called for a memorial at MIT, but only three people showed up, including me. It was a predicted and avoidable disaster, and has been chronicled in enough places, including Adam Higgibotham’s book Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space that came out two years ago. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/25/g-s1-106940/40-years-after-challenger

[silenus]

Lest we forget…

[Elendil_s_Heir]

I was working at a radio station as an intern that day, and remember being both horrified at what had happened, and excited to be among the first to see the news coverage as it came in.