30 réponses à ce sujet

[Shinobu]

NASA apparently has over 1.8 million images of Earth taken by astronauts on the International Space Station and needs help cataloging what the images represent. Properly cataloged images can be used to track changes in the Earth over time (such as glacier melts, deforestation, etc.)

 

The original CNN article.

 

The NASA site.

 

After taking a quick tutorial (~7 min) on how to choose an image and overlay it on Google Earth to find its center, you register with the site and can get started identifying locations of landmarks photographed from space. The website is easy to use if you've done any image processing. It mostly consists of rotating and resizing images.

 

I only started 2 days ago but I'm already addicted. So far I've identified sections of the Colorado river, Venice, Acapulco, Kauai, Crete, atolls in the pacific, the Golden Gate Bridge, St. Louis, Pensacola, and the Grand Canyon. The images are really beautiful and you never know when you click one what part of the world it represents. (The site centers your google earth view over the spot the ISS was at the time the picture was taken, so you don't have to search the entire globe to find where the pictured volcano is.)

 

It's interesting, free and (supposedly) actually useful to scientists.

 

And for you competitive types there is a leaderboard.

[LPPrince]

Good share.

[Dovahzeymahlkey]

back in the good ole days, people PAID you to work for them.

[ComradeShepard7]

back in the good ole days, people PAID you to work for them.

 

Back in the "good ole days" NASA actually had a meaningful budget.

[Shinobu]

According to wikipedia NASA's budget is 0.5% of US tax revenue or ~$17 billion/year. American consumers spent $41 billion on video games last year.

 

Personally, I'm sad to see the decline of the US space program, though the shuttle disasters put a damper on everyone's enthusiasm for manned space flight. I would have liked to see the shuttles replaced by something new (I heard they had computers that used 8 inch floppy discs, fer crying out loud ).

 

It seems the private sector is taking over the mantle of space exploration.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Back in the "good ole days" NASA actually had a meaningful budget.

 

To send some wannabees to moon pointlessly.

[mybudgee]

Looks like I won't live to see the "Mars mission"...
*drinks whiskey*

[LPPrince]

I'm all for helping NASA get a little closer to doing something with Europa, but maaan are we far from a terraform of it happening

[LPPrince]

Well I'm not thinking of it in current-day terms. I'm thinking a few billion years ahead when Sol is bigger, brighter, and the inner planets(including Earth) are gone.

 

Europa would theoretically be in the "habitable" zone then. WE HAVE TO HELP THE NEXT CYCLE

 

This is assuming there isn't something incredible there already we just aren't aware of yet

[Cassandra Saturn]

According to wikipedia NASA's budget is 0.5% of US tax revenue or ~$17 billion/year. American consumers spent $41 billion on video games last year.
 
Personally, I'm sad to see the decline of the US space program, though the shuttle disasters put a damper on everyone's enthusiasm for manned space flight. I would have liked to see the shuttles replaced by something new (I heard they had computers that used 8 inch floppy discs, fer crying out loud ).
 
It seems the private sector is taking over the mantle of space exploration.

actually, NASA has manned space program. it's called Orion Program. it's three man spacecraft that can go into deep space basiicaly, to travel to asteroid belt and back. it's being funded by Private Sector.

so we're using advanced version of Apollo Program. Orion is due to launch in 2015.

[Tarek]

 

wow north Korea looks like a black pit of hell compared to all the neighboring countries

 

seems fate is not without its sense of irony

[Han Shot First]

To send some wannabees to moon pointlessly.

 

The space program is far from pointless.

 

 

[Eternal Phoenix]

Neil "smoke" DeGrasse Tyson.

 

I seriously love this guy's name.

 

Well I'm not thinking of it in current-day terms. I'm think a few billion years ahead when Sol is bigger, brighter, and the inner planets(including Earth) are gone.

 

Europa would theoretically be in the "habitable" zone then. WE HAVE TO HELP THE NEXT CYCLE

 

This is assuming there isn't something incredible there already we just aren't aware of yet

 

I think the technology to terraform planets would exist before a few billion years. In a few billion years, I think humanity would have long since sent ships to other systems (providing humanity still exists).

[LPPrince]

Neil "smoke" DeGrasse Tyson.

 

I seriously love this guy's name.

 

 

I think the technology to terraform planets would exist before a few billion years. In a few billion years, I think humanity would have long since sent ships to other systems (providing humanity still exists).

 

I doubt we will be. We're too self-destructive. We have the right minds to push us that far advancement wise, but most of us are basically cavemen and cavewomen beating up each other with sticks, physical and metaphorical. Thats not even counting how we're messing up our own home world;perhaps before we terraform a planet or moon we should learn to take care of the one we already have.

[fchopin]

Why is there no computer program that can resize and find the correct image for a place as this is something computers should do much easier and quicker than humans.

[Tarek]

pff who needs space colonization

 

after 200 years the earth's human population will be 50+ billion

 

we will all be one happy hungry, blood thirsty, water shortage, resource depleted family

[Derek Hollan]

I'm Derek Hollan and this is my favourite job on the citadel.

 

Cheers!

 

[metatheurgist]

back in the good ole days, people PAID you to work for them.

Ah, crowdsourcing, AKA "How to get people to work for nothing and call it competition." Yeah Capitalism.

[AlanC9]

Sure. If people are willing to give their labor to something without being paid, why pay them?

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Sure. If people are willing to give their labor to something without being paid, why pay them?

 

MASOCHISM.

[Shinobu]

Why is there no computer program that can resize and find the correct image for a place as this is something computers should do much easier and quicker than humans.

 

A good question. Many of the images were not taken straight down from the ISS, so there are images that are extremely foreshortened. Human brains are better at recognizing warped objects than computers are (thus those "type in the letters below to prove you're not a bot" security thingies). Also computers would probably have trouble distinguishing between clouds, snow and coral, which to a human eye, look somewhat different. Teaching a computer to tell them apart would require a lot of time, effort and mad computing skillz.

 

Apparently computers currently can't even tell the difference between a starry sky and a terrestrial cities at night, which is something a human can do easily.

[Shinobu]

actually, NASA has manned space program. it's called Orion Program. it's three man spacecraft that can go into deep space basiicaly, to travel to asteroid belt and back. it's being funded by Private Sector.

so we're using advanced version of Apollo Program. Orion is due to launch in 2015.

 

Thanks for the info!

[Nate Assassin]

By the time people can live on Mars, we will all be dead anyways.

[Giant ambush beetle]

By the time people can live on Mars, we will all be dead anyways.

 

And thats the mindset that ruins earth. ''Oh hell, I'll be dead in a few years anyway, lets stop advancing technology that won't have an immediate effect for me.  Let me rape the hell out of earth while I still can.  I'm sure future generation will figure out a way to deal with it all.