Bucket list

[cjsmith]

Someone I value asked about my bucket list. I haven’t really ever written one up, but I know the green flash was on it.

I don’t have very much on there. Not any more, anyway. Id like to see Victoria Falls some day. Bucket list item? Perhaps. Maybe Machu Picchu, too. Maybe the northern lights (I’ve tried). The rest is stuff I can’t control.

What are some things on your bucket list?

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

One thing I have done is to remove goals. I wanted to live a whole life with my own teeth (nope, have an implant), without ever breaking any bones (pinky, rib), etc. A friend insisted that I stop thinking of body goals, so I have.
We saw the final shuttle launch (after trying before), so we squeaked by with that one. Northern Lights is one for us as well. We were amused to learn that a resort in Yellowknife offers heated lawn chairs for people to sit in while looking at the sky, but didn't actually book a trip. Have seen more than one solar eclipse, and hope for more. Hmm. So far they sound pretty sky-related, but I have no interest in jumping out of a plane.

[cjsmith]

I agree that body-related goals are tough. You can be lucky, or... not. Mostly I’m not, so a bucket list relying on luck wouldn’t serve me well. YMMV.

Congrats on the shuttle launch! That’s super!

Looking at the skies is good for my soul as well. Perhaps I should put another eclipse on my bucket list. I hope you get to see another soon! Are you thinking of the next North American total solar?

[lauradi7dw]

What would be the chances of clear weather in Newfoundland in 2024? See some cool stuff on the ground, and then look up? Not thrilled at the thought of Texas, but there is a long time to plan.

[cjsmith]

If I had to guess, I’d say 2024 will not look as much like 2019 as we would hope because we are on the hockey stick part of the climate curve. Nooooo idea. :-/

[nosrednayduj]

My plan is to go to Mazatlan in 2024, assuming we aren't at war with Mexico.

[siliconshaman]

Ditto on the Green flash and the Aurora [not bothered which pole]. I'd like to see the world, for preference from orbit, or the lunar surface. I.e high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. Simerily, I'd like to see sunrise on another planet.

[cjsmith]

Oh wow! I’d give up everything else on my bucket list if I could do even one of those last few.

[siliconshaman]

I have a very short bucket list...

[cjsmith]

I hear ya!

If I thought I had even a prayer of success, I'd say my bucket list had one item: get to space. But I'm sort of automatically deleting things I know won't happen, like be pain free for 24 hours, be perceived as a full and worthwhile individual human being, and be able to levitate. And get to space. :)

[siliconshaman]

Well.. I've kinda got the "get to space" thing already figured out. Not easy, but do-able, just.

However, the "getting back down again alive" part..not so much.. I mean, the 'getting down' part yes..but that last bit's proving to be a tad tricky to work out.

There's also the 'surviving long enough to appreciate the view' part as well..

[cjsmith]

Surviving long enough to appreciate the view is definitely a key part. (Being willing to ditch everything else on my bucket list in order to get to space means that maybe the getting back down alive again part isn't an absolute requirement. I don't value my life as highly as most people seem to value theirs, and while I get a lot of flak for that, it also makes certain possibilities comprehensible...)

[siliconshaman]

Yeah... not much point doing it if you can't enjoy the view, even for only short time. I think I'd consider it if I didn't have much time left anyway, for whatever reason. It's not the life I value, it's the time and the potential to do and see other stuff in it.

I mean, I want to live forever. The future sounds like it could be fun! Come to think of it, that's one to add to the bucket list, watch the sun go nova in about 14 billion years time [from a safe distance!]

But... if you're gonna die anyway, might as well go out in blaze of glory! Either on reentry, or in 14 billion years time..

[cjsmith]

The future could indeed be fun! I might be a person some day. That would be even better than space.

And yeah, blaze of glory sounds just right. In either of those cases.

[siliconshaman]

*raised eyebrow* You mean you're not a person now?

And yeah, if we're talking going out gloriously.. then a mil-surplus high altitude flight suit, a chair bolted to the nose of a home-made atlas missile [basically, a metal cylinder thirty foot long and 7 foot wide, stuffed with a mix of sugar and perchlorate oxidizer], and a joystick to fly it with.

You'd get about 20 minutes of freefall, and then burn up on reentry. But it would be worth it I think.

[cjsmith]

No, I'm seen as female now. If I could live long enough, perceptions might shift such that we are human beings.

Wow, that is quite the setup. Physiologic limitations might make that flight tough to control, but... maybe control isn't the biggest goal. I might want something to make sure the burnup was at least *quick*. And yeah, might be worth it.

[siliconshaman]

calculated G-force on take off would be about 6 to 7 gees, for around 140 seconds, tapering off to under 3 gees for 3 minutes after q-max.

But yeah, control would be a bitch... but all you'd have to do is keep the nose pointed up at about 60 degrees, and aim roughly east, to take advantage of the earth's rotation.

It's based off one of the early ICBM designs, just a big old solid fuel bucket of boom! Most of the guidance is ballistic. You'd get 45 minutes of flight, with 20 minutes of freefall before you hit atmo again... although, add a wooden ablative heat shield [yeah, really! that's what they used to use] and if you can get a 15 degree pitch, you could skip off the troposphere and double the flight time or better.

There's even a slight chance of survival then... at least until you hit the ground. parachutes are good idea, but they add weight. I figured, if you could somehow bail out after reentry, then you only need a chute large enough for a person... but you'd still need to slow down below Mach 1 first.

It gets complicated the more you try to do, and complicated decreases the probability of everything working right and being built on a budget.

[cjsmith]

Mmm, I've never experienced over 6G. Five and a fraction, yes. Six no. Don't know how I'd do at seven!

Agree that complexity adds to the failure rate. Still... intriguing. Very intriguing.

[siliconshaman]

There's a chap in Barnsley building something similar, he's got sponsorship from Tate&Lyle because he's using sugar as a fuel. It's smaller, and rather more complicated, but the unmanned test flight hit 89 miles altitude. [he was hoping for a 100, but there was a glitch.]

A staged rocket, would cut the gee force down to a manageable 4g, spreading the acceleration over a longer boost phase. But that significantly increases the complexity again.

The other solution would be to use a hybrid motor, solid fuel and nitrous oxide gas, this would mean you could pack more fuel into the rocket and have a more controllable burn, allowing you to have smoother acceleration. It would also allow you the option of turning the motor off in event of something going wrong. It's more complicated as motor, but it reduces the complexity of the rocket, because you can build it with enough fuel, and basically do something like space X do with their rockets and slow down.

[nosrednayduj]

I've already done a lot of cool things, e.g. see two eclipses, see polar bears in Churchill Manitoba, see the 40-foot tides in Nova Scotia, sail halfway across the atlantic, so my bucket's already pretty full.

Strangely, I have Mt. Rushmore and the Dakota Badlands on my list. Never been there or anywhere close. I kind of had scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef on the list, but it's seeming that I may have missed my chance there. I'd like to go scuba diving again.

If space vacations, or even day-trips, become a thing that people who are only moderately well-off can attain without spending their entire retirement funds in one day, I would like to do that. But I don't want to have to work as a wal-mart greeter for the rest of my life afterwards...

[lauradi7dw]

My daughter went to Badlands right after doing some other more impressive (garish? outlandish? *) parks, so she felt it was nice but not astounding. It's still on my list of NPS sites to visit.

* Overheard on the London Underground: "I'd like to go to the United States to see weird nature in the national parks." Yep. We have that.

[cjsmith]

LOL! That's a great quote. We sure do have that.

[cjsmith]

Wow, you've done a ton of nifty!

I enjoyed both Rushmore and the Badlands, but I think I'd trade 'em for the tides in Nova Scotia or another eclipse. :)

Edit: speaking of tides! You might enjoy the whirlpool of Corryvreckan.
.

[hitchhiker]

the northern lights are on mine too!

[cjsmith]

Nice! What else?

[hitchhiker]

total solar eclipse, and a rocket launch if i can manage that.

[cjsmith]

Ooo, yes, that'd be super. Should add that to mine.

[hitchhiker]

we can go together!

[cjsmith]

Dream trip!