The four Inspiration4 astronauts launching SpaceX's first-ever all-civilian spaceflight this week will have arguably the best bathroom view in human history.
That's because the toilet in their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is apparently on the ceiling. And since this flight is not going to the International Space Station (but instead orbiting the Earth), the company removed the traditional docking adaptor that is located at the nose of the spacecraft and replaced it with a glass dome.
The dome, called a cupola, is kind of a smaller, bubble version of the iconic seven-window observation dome on the International Space Station, providing astronauts with epic views of the planet below. In the case of Inspiration4, the crew could have stunning views of the Earth while sitting on the toilet.
The Inspiration4 crew is set to blast off on Sept. 15 during a five-hour window that opens at 8:02 p.m. (0002 GMT on Sept. 16).
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
They've really lucked out with the weather, no rain within about 40 miles and what there is isn't moving towards the Cape. Funny that our local media hasn't said a word about expecting large crowds. And it's a night launch to boot.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:05 pm
I don't know why I'm concerned, but the fact that the cupula piece is new to this mission - just kinda troubling me.
Same. I'm sure they know what they're doing, but I'm a little surprised they chose their first private mission to try it out.
Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 6:05 pm
I don't know why I'm concerned, but the fact that the cupula piece is new to this mission - just kinda troubling me.
Same. I'm sure they know what they're doing, but I'm a little surprised they chose their first private mission to try it out.
Well it looks like it's about 5 inches thick, and the view is the whole point if you're generating buzz for private space travel.
I assume it's oriented away from the heat of re-entry.
Hope it all goes ok. Rooting for the girl that beat cancer to see the stars.
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I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
The cupola is oriented away from the reentry heat and has a cover.
The wife and I went up to Titusville for dinner, T'ville being right across the river from the Cape. Two hours before launch there wasn't a parking spot to be had along the river.
Last edited by jztemple2 on Wed Sep 15, 2021 9:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
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I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
Dead stars, like pulsars and magnetars (two types of ultradense, collapsed stars), are also unlikely explanations, the team wrote. While pulsars can stream bright beams of radio light past Earth, they spin with predictable periodicity, usually sweeping their lights past our telescopes on a timescale of hours, not weeks. Magnetars, meanwhile, always include a powerful X-ray counterpart with each of their outbursts — again, unlike ASKAP J173608.2−321635's behavior.The closest match is a mysterious class of object known as a galactic center radio transient (GCRT), a rapidly glowing radio source that brightens and decays near the Milky Way's center, usually over the course of a few hours. So far, only three GCRTs have been confirmed, and all of them appear and disappear much more quickly than this new ASKAP object does. However, the few known GCRTs do shine with a similar brightness as the mysterious signal, and their radio flare-ups are never accompanied by X-rays.
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I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
So I was coming from my room to sit down for dinner. There was thunder in the area and the usual rumbles. Then there was a different boom and I said to my wife "That's a sonic boom". And it surely was, it was the Inspiration4 mission heading for splashdown right offshore. Pretty cool.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:25 pm
So I was coming from my room to sit down for dinner. There was thunder in the area and the usual rumbles. Then there was a different boom and I said to my wife "That's a sonic boom". And it surely was, it was the Inspiration4 mission heading for splashdown right offshore. Pretty cool.
Details are still scarce as to what happened with the space toilet, but the anomaly involved its suction fan, according to Reed. The suction fan is responsible for removing waste products.
So maybe the problem was that the shit didn't hit the fan?
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Details are still scarce as to what happened with the space toilet, but the anomaly involved its suction fan, according to Reed. The suction fan is responsible for removing waste products.
So maybe the problem was that the shit didn't hit the fan?
That would not be a fun cleanup in that tight space...
Berger's closing statement and a bunch of the comments seem to agree that this is both a) a bad look, effectively demoting a female leader who has by most accounts done a great job, and b) potentially a way to slip in additional support for SLS.
Hopefully that's reading too much into it. I can't help but feel that if this were truly just 'filling in a thin leadership bench,' Free should have come in reporting to Lueders.
Well, I believe in the current era if Kathy Lueders had been a him rather than a her there wouldn't be so much chatter about it. So many of the comments want to read something into that. I've learned over the years that the great unwashed masses are quick to look for conspiracies. It is just as possible that the original job had just gotten to be too much for one individual.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:40 pm
Well, I believe in the current era if Kathy Lueders had been a him rather than a her there wouldn't be so much chatter about it. So many of the comments want to read something into that. I've learned over the years that the great unwashed masses are quick to look for conspiracies. It is just as possible that the original job had just gotten to be too much for one individual.
I agree. And it DOES seem like the original job is getting to be too big, and that's a good thing. We now have Artemis, the Human Landing System, Starship, Gateway, and numerous commercial rocket w/ science payloads headed for the moon. On top of that, there are still current operations on ISS and Crew Dragon. Don't forget that once Artemis, HLS, Starship, and Gateway become operational, they fall under SpaceOps, leaving Exploration Systems Development free to pursue other development goals.
The splitting of HEOMD is a return to the way things used to be at NASA. In 2011, the agency created HEOMD by combining the Space Operations and Exploration Systems mission directorates.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:39 pm
Y'all may be right, but the spidey-senses of a lot of people who cover this professionally are going off pretty strongly.
IMHO,
"a lot of people who cover this professionally and would love to make something out of it to get more clicks..."
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:39 pm
Y'all may be right, but the spidey-senses of a lot of people who cover this professionally are going off pretty strongly.
IMHO,
"a lot of people who cover this professionally and would love to make something out of it to get more clicks..."
That's certainly not the case with Berger. I can't speak for many of the others, tho.
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:39 pm
Y'all may be right, but the spidey-senses of a lot of people who cover this professionally are going off pretty strongly.
IMHO,
"a lot of people who cover this professionally and would love to make something out of it to get more clicks..."
That's certainly not the case with Berger. I can't speak for many of the others, tho.
Ever since Berger made that comment about how cost plus contractors had no motivation to meet schedule obligations I see him as someone who has an ax to grind.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
While part of me enjoys seeing Boeing fumble going head-to-head with SpaceX, my rational side knows that a fallback launch vehicle is still valuable, and my taxpayer side wants it to work. Even if Boeing's covering the retesting/redesign out-of-pocket, we have a lot of sunk costs and Boeing has a contract to fulfill.
We just got our first look at the U.S. Space Force's formal wear.
Gen. John "Jay” Raymond, the Space Force's chief of space operations, unveiled the military branch's prototype dress uniform Tuesday (Sept. 21) at the Air Force Association's Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
The dress uniform consists of gray pants and a dark blue coat. The coat features six diagonally arrayed silver buttons, giving the ensemble a bit of a "Battlestar Galactica" vibe. Adding to the sci-fi appeal, each button bears the Space Force's "Star Trek"-esque delta logo. The number of buttons references the Space Force's status as the sixth and newest American military branch, Air Force magazine reported.
Also...
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket completed another milestone on its way to launch with the Umbilical Release and Retract Test (URRT). The URRT was performed on the rocket on September 19 while it stood in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
During the test, the swing arms and T0 umbilicals at the base of the rocket were commanded to retract from the vehicle as they will during a standard SLS launch countdown.
The test occurred on Mobile Launcher 1 (ML-1) and allowed ground teams to verify and validate the mechanisms, timings, and function of the umbilical release and retract system that will separate and move the arms — that support data and communications pathways as well as fueling ports for the upper stage — away from the SLS rocket and against the tower at launch.
The tower itself is built onto ML-1 and supports not only the swing arms and their data and fueling systems, but also the Orion capsule and Service Module with purge lines, data and communication paths, and access to the Orion vehicle for crewed missions.
My father said that anything is interesting if you bother to read about it - Michael C. Harrold
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that amidst Blue Origin suing SpaceX and complaining about how complex Starship is, SpaceX went out and registered this?
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:04 pm
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that amidst Blue Origin suing SpaceX and complaining about how complex Starship is, SpaceX went out and registered www.immenselycomplex.com.
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:04 pm
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that amidst Blue Origin suing SpaceX and complaining about how complex Starship is, SpaceX went out and registered www.immenselycomplex.com.
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:04 pm
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that amidst Blue Origin suing SpaceX and complaining about how complex Starship is, SpaceX went out and registered www.immenselycomplex.com.
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:04 pm
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that amidst Blue Origin suing SpaceX and complaining about how complex Starship is, SpaceX went out and registered www.immenselycomplex.com.
Zaxxon wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:04 pm
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that amidst Blue Origin suing SpaceX and complaining about how complex Starship is, SpaceX went out and registered www.immenselycomplex.com.
It's there, but since it isn't secure your browser should be warning you off. If you go ahead and connect to it anyway, it just redirects to the Spacex site.
I didn't dig into myself, but from the comments I've seen, it seems that while someone is trolling Blue Origin, it probably isn't Spacex because if it was they wouldn't be shy about owning it. Musk would be rubbing it in Bezos's face.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
