5 ms·

Absolutely fascinating. The technology that already existed in the 60’s and 70’s is mind boggling. Also, there is something really exciting about looking at pi

Absolutely fascinating. The technology that already existed in the 60’s and 70’s is mind boggling. Also, there is something really exciting about looking at pictures of an alien planet. :)

sixothree 5y ago
I might be wrong (I hope I am), but these are the only pictures I know of the surface of Venus. They really are incredible.
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  You are not wrong. Only two Venera probes landed and transmitted pictures during a limited time window before succumbing to the harsh conditions. (Other probes did land and send data but it was scientific measurements, not pictures).
melling 5y ago
Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed, a record player with all of the music in the world, a library with every book, a clock that is never wrong, a TV phone that can call anyone on the planet for free, a computer more powerful than every computer currently on the planet added together, a map of the entire world that knows where you are and can tell you how to get to anywhere you want to go to, in one candy bar sized piece of glass, that they all carry around in their pocket. or In 50 years, the US and Soviets will have colonized the entire solar system, and traveling to space will be as mundane to people then as riding the bus is now.
  - ansgri 5y ago
    You’d better add more details to the second option to make it fair, there’s a cognitive bias that leads to a more detailed option being more believable.
    - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
      The first option while more detailed focused entirely on advances in computing and digital signal processing; this was mostly unknown to laypeople in the seventies. So despite the level of detail, it’s likely that random people on the street would have considered the second option more likely / true, since the space race and Cold War were front-page news every day.
  - pmlnr 5y ago
    > a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed > a library with every book LOL. Reality wants a word with it's licenses and DMCA-s.
    - skhr0680 5y ago
      Hey, who said anything about paying?
      - pmlnr 5y ago
        It's not just the question of paying. There are so many movies, series, etc, especially dubbed ones, that only exist in closed, offline archives, and licensing prevents them from being digitalised at all.
        nomdep 5y ago
        Even blockbuster movies. Does anyone remember the movie “Cocoon”? Is impossible to watch it now unless you can find it in an old VHS tape
        5y ago
- The_rationalist 5y ago
  Major advances have been killed because of death aversion e.g The space shuttle. There was a human error and had they double/triple checked it would have been avoided. Anyway the human life cost is hypocrisy, with the budget they have and considering the gigantic number of avoidable deaths on earth through money they could have gotten a net life ratio by divesting e.g 0.1% of their budget, it's all inept media politics. In consequence, many things that were possible are no longer. About supersonic airflight, the Concorde was sabotaged, it was again much more safe than e.g driving a car and it was sabotaged economically by making illegal all air route except the transatlantic one. I'm unconvinced the bang from going beyond the speed of sound is that much of an issue, and they could done it higher in the air if needed? Anyway there are many technologies nowadays that reduce this noise, unfortunately the time to market and legal inept inertia will make us wait for another number of decades until this majorly useful technology come back. About maglevs and void tunnels trains I don't know why it doesn't pan out, must be too expensive, probably.
- u801e 5y ago
  > As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic. In the 1970s, we had calculator watches. Now we have smartphones. So that's one way to look at it :)
  - melling 5y ago
    If we are thinking in half a century, the Wright Brothers first flew in 1903 and Chuck Yeager went faster than sound in 1947. Sure, some things have greatly improved in the last 50 years. Color television was a big thing in the late 60’s. Now we’ve gone from analog to digital at 4K on huge flat panels.

Absolutely fascinating. The technology that already existed in the 60’s and 70’s is mind boggling. Also, there is something really exciting about looking at pictures of an alien planet. :)

sixothree 5y ago

I might be wrong (I hope I am), but these are the only pictures I know of the surface of Venus. They really are incredible.

loloquwowndueo 5y ago
You are not wrong. Only two Venera probes landed and transmitted pictures during a limited time window before succumbing to the harsh conditions. (Other probes did land and send data but it was scientific measurements, not pictures).

melling 5y ago

Technology developed fast. Sputnik was in 1957. 20 years later we had: The United States landed probes on Mars in 1976. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program The Voyager program: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 The Space Shuttle was developed in the 1970’s Supersonic commercial flight… bullet trains in Japan and France… As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic.

skhr0680 5y ago
I’m imagining talking to a person in 1971 and saying one of these things about the future is true and one is a lie: In 50 years, even people in the worlds poorest countries will have be able to send a letter that arrives instantly to any place in the world, have a color camera and video camera that can take almost unlimited photos and that you can view immediately and send to your friends instantly, a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed, a record player with all of the music in the world, a library with every book, a clock that is never wrong, a TV phone that can call anyone on the planet for free, a computer more powerful than every computer currently on the planet added together, a map of the entire world that knows where you are and can tell you how to get to anywhere you want to go to, in one candy bar sized piece of glass, that they all carry around in their pocket. or In 50 years, the US and Soviets will have colonized the entire solar system, and traveling to space will be as mundane to people then as riding the bus is now.
- ansgri 5y ago
  You’d better add more details to the second option to make it fair, there’s a cognitive bias that leads to a more detailed option being more believable.
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    The first option while more detailed focused entirely on advances in computing and digital signal processing; this was mostly unknown to laypeople in the seventies. So despite the level of detail, it’s likely that random people on the street would have considered the second option more likely / true, since the space race and Cold War were front-page news every day.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  > a TV that can watch any TV program or movie ever filmed > a library with every book LOL. Reality wants a word with it's licenses and DMCA-s.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    Hey, who said anything about paying?
    - pmlnr 5y ago
      It's not just the question of paying. There are so many movies, series, etc, especially dubbed ones, that only exist in closed, offline archives, and licensing prevents them from being digitalised at all.
      - nomdep 5y ago
        Even blockbuster movies. Does anyone remember the movie “Cocoon”? Is impossible to watch it now unless you can find it in an old VHS tape
        5y ago
The_rationalist 5y ago
Major advances have been killed because of death aversion e.g The space shuttle. There was a human error and had they double/triple checked it would have been avoided. Anyway the human life cost is hypocrisy, with the budget they have and considering the gigantic number of avoidable deaths on earth through money they could have gotten a net life ratio by divesting e.g 0.1% of their budget, it's all inept media politics. In consequence, many things that were possible are no longer. About supersonic airflight, the Concorde was sabotaged, it was again much more safe than e.g driving a car and it was sabotaged economically by making illegal all air route except the transatlantic one. I'm unconvinced the bang from going beyond the speed of sound is that much of an issue, and they could done it higher in the air if needed? Anyway there are many technologies nowadays that reduce this noise, unfortunately the time to market and legal inept inertia will make us wait for another number of decades until this majorly useful technology come back. About maglevs and void tunnels trains I don't know why it doesn't pan out, must be too expensive, probably.
u801e 5y ago
> As a kid in the 1970’s, I imagined 2021 would be much more futuristic. In the 1970s, we had calculator watches. Now we have smartphones. So that's one way to look at it :)
- melling 5y ago
  If we are thinking in half a century, the Wright Brothers first flew in 1903 and Chuck Yeager went faster than sound in 1947. Sure, some things have greatly improved in the last 50 years. Color television was a big thing in the late 60’s. Now we’ve gone from analog to digital at 4K on huge flat panels.