
Apollo 13 enhanced images reveal life on stricken spacecraft - I-M-S
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52264743
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tenant
I remember watching the Apollo 13 movie for the first time in 1995 and
thinking at the time how modern they were in those far off days of 1970. Now
the same length of time has passed since 1995 (in the blink of an eye) and it
still hasn't dated. The internet is huge but it feels like the only thing
we've done since 1970.

~~~
redis_mlc
I understand that space fanbois find manned space exploration romantic. But
it's not all about entertaining you.

Manned space flight has been a complete waste of resources and money, and
likely will remain that way for the next 100 years.

Since 1970 far more influential events:

\- 747 (early 1970)

\- Intel 4004 (1971)

\- GPS (1980s)

\- Internet (1990s)

But aside from that, there have been incremental improvements of 1%/year in
areas like fuel efficiency, medicine and metallurgy. That really adds up over
50 years.

The Space Shuttle literally ate America's space exploration budget, and didn't
even go past LEO. Everybody knew this, yet nobody did anything about it.

The US needs to adopt space policies that actually advance science and
technology, not manned spaceflight just for feel-good PR shots.

A good start would be de-orbiting the ISS ASAP - the final manned space flight
should be to send somebody to the ISS with a chain saw.

~~~
kiba
The problem is not manned space exploration. The problem is a lack of focus on
making space exploration cheaper, and a lack of investment.

Space Shuttle wasn't cheaper. It was ridiculously expensive, with designs
decisions that shouldn't be made in the first place. If it was just a rocket
that launched astronauts into space. That would be one thing. It's quite
another to carry literal deadweight into space.

Look at SpaceX's starship program. It's much more ambitious than anything we
have on the drawing board. It isn't just another super heavy lift rocket, but
a _mass manufacturable_ reusable launch system. Everyone else is still
thinking about how they will make reusuable rockets. Meanwhile, SpaceX is
making their own game, playing on their own level.

Manned flight isn't a burden. It has nothing to do with why we stagnated in
rocket development. In fact, manned flight is the point of SpaceX, especially
colonization.

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gibsonf1
Can you image the government in charge of mobile phone design? The incredible
innovation of Space X is primarily that it's a private company with
accountability and incentives around it's customers, and of course run by
someone who truly understands both the problem and the evolving technology.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Can you imagine mobile devices that are not built to extract the maximum
possible profit from the systematic exploitation of people's private data and
attention spans, leading to political manipulation and instability, all to
further fill the coffers of the global elite, who already own most of the
world?

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conistonwater
Not directly related to the article, but I would like to point out that Jim
Lovell, commander of Apollo 13, is a fantastic public speaker, have a look at
this talk he gave at MIT:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUUgTavzgSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUUgTavzgSk).

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sillyquiet
Anybody else who got curious as I did at which pre-Sony Walkman portable tape
recorder the Apollo program used, it's _probably_ the Sony TC-50. My search
brought me to this excellent techmoan video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXRVyszFbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXRVyszFbo)

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nayuki
Basically,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_compensation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_compensation)
plus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-
resolution_imaging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_imaging)

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Lukas_Skywalker
When reading the title, I first thought NASA found microbes or other forms of
life on pictures of the spacecraft. That would have been an insane level of
enhancement. Still a very interesting read though.

~~~
singlow
Yeah, I was imagining they had used image enhancement to see thermal
signatures of the astronauts from exterior terrestrial photographs during the
radio blackout.

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AA-BA-94-2A-56
Apollo 13 enhanced images reveal life...

:D

...on stricken spacecraft...

:|

