SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

Post by jztemple2 »

Holman wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:30 pm
Daehawk wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:23 pm If you cant do it safely you shouldn't be allowed in space.
In 1979 we dropped Skylab all over Australia.
Is that the royal "we"? I don't recall doing it myself.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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jztemple2 wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 4:18 pm
Holman wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:30 pm
Daehawk wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:23 pm If you cant do it safely you shouldn't be allowed in space.
In 1979 we dropped Skylab all over Australia.
Is that the royal "we"? I don't recall doing it myself.
Fine. *You're* allowed in space.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Holman wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 4:24 pm
jztemple2 wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 4:18 pm
Holman wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:30 pm
Daehawk wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:23 pm If you cant do it safely you shouldn't be allowed in space.
In 1979 we dropped Skylab all over Australia.
Is that the royal "we"? I don't recall doing it myself.
Fine. *You're* allowed in space.
Nope, my wife vetoed my astronaut application back right after we were married. Something about me being the breadwinner or her being in love with me or she just liked me home at night :wink:. Actually too many over-achievers in the program for me to have gotten in anyway, I'm pretty much a lazy bastard :D
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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jztemple2 wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 4:29 pm Nope, my wife vetoed my astronaut application back right after we were married. Something about me being the breadwinner or her being in love with me or she just liked me home at night :wink:. Actually too many over-achievers in the program for me to have gotten in anyway, I'm pretty much a lazy bastard :D
My Dad got recruitment offers from two big organizations when he finished grad school in 1965 (three years before I was born).

I've still never gotten over his choosing AT&T over NASA.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Daehawk wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:23 pm If you cant do it safely you shouldn't be allowed in space.
I guess this means we're going to ban SpaceX for the debris they dropped in Washington state and Oregon back in March?

Actually space flight cannot be done safely, it is all about managed risk. But then you're probably more likely to be killed by lightening than be hit by space debris.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Hypothetically, what would have happened if this rocket had come down in Manhattan? Would it have wrecked a building? A block? Half the borough?

Of course wrecking "just a building" can be catastrophic if the building is a skyscraper.

Presumably the rocket wouldn't have exploded on impact (as on 9/11) because it wouldn't have been full of fuel. Or would it?
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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jztemple2 wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 5:03 pm
Daehawk wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 2:23 pm If you cant do it safely you shouldn't be allowed in space.
I guess this means we're going to ban SpaceX for the debris they dropped in Washington state and Oregon back in March?

Actually space flight cannot be done safely, it is all about managed risk. But then you're probably more likely to be killed by lightening than be hit by space debris.
I almost wish there wasn't. Then there'd be no Musk and no Starlink.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Holman wrote: Sun May 09, 2021 5:13 pm Hypothetically, what would have happened if this rocket had come down in Manhattan? Would it have wrecked a building? A block? Half the borough?

Of course wrecking "just a building" can be catastrophic if the building is a skyscraper.

Presumably the rocket wouldn't have exploded on impact (as on 9/11) because it wouldn't have been full of fuel. Or would it?
Nope, no fuel. Since the booster would have broken apart during re-entry there would have only been a few parts with enough density and mass to reach the surface with enough velocity to cause damage. Since rockets are built to be as light as possible those parts would probably have been the engines. I'm guessing that if an engine had hit the top floor of a building it would have punched a hole down several stories, but probably without taking down the whole building.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Maybe take out Donnie Darko.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Also remember that the booster reentry would initially be almost parallel to the earth's surface, arcing down as air resistance increased. Very unlike, say, a meteor which might have a near vertical reentry path.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Would only take a small object at speed to kill someone.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Ars has an article on the new Amazon Unbound book, which paints Blue Origin in a not-so-flattering light.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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A thought provoking article from Space.com, Is war in space inevitable?
Here on Earth, the air, land, and sea are zones of conflict, clashes and combat. There is a growing perception that next up is the ocean of space, transformed into an arena for warfare.

There is ongoing chatter regarding military use of space by various nations. The freshly established U.S. Space Force, for instance, is busily shaping how best to protect U.S. and allied interests in the increasingly contested and congested space domain.

What conditions could lead to clashes in space? Is such a situation a given, or can conflicts be short-circuited ahead of time? Could nations "slip into" off-planet muscle-flexing, quarreling and actual warfighting in space that might spark confrontation here on terra firma?

Space.com contacted several leading military space and security experts, asking for their opinions on the current status of the militarization of space.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Congress is injecting all sorts of bullshit into Artemis after NASA awarded SpaceX the only contract rather than including the puppet masters pork contributors.

Unsurprising, but ironic given that NASA's hand was forced on this issue by... Congress failing to fund them adequately for multiple awards.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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CNN
Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane, carrying two pilots, soared into the upper atmosphere on its third mission to reach space Saturday morning.

The success cues up Virgin Galactic to begin launching paying customers within the next year as the company works to finish its testing campaign at its new headquarters in New Mexico.

Spaceplane VSS Unity reached an altitude of 55.45 miles, according to the company. The US government recognizes the 50-mile mark as the edge of space. The company tweeted Saturday morning that the spaceflight carried technology experiments for NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.
...
Recently, the company installed a new CEO, former Disney executive Michael Colglazier, and has been pledging to slowly ramp up to commercial operations over the next year or so. It's also focused on constructing a new line of planes, called SpaceShipIII, and is angling to one day fly about 400 flights each year from its New Mexico spaceport.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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A suborbital joyride would have to be cheap to draw my interest. Methinks it won't be.

Also, 62 miles (100 km) is the most widely recognized "edge of space."
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Spoiler:
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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I'm not sure what all factors go into those ratings, but I have read that earth benefits immensely from having an oversized moon and from having Jupiter being large enough to absorb or deflect planet-busting objects. Some speculate that such a configuration for a planet in the Goldilocks zone could be extremely rare if not unique.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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I'd like to see the (simple) justification for not putting the Earth's value at the middle of the range of habitability index scores. (I.e., have we fouled things up so badly that planets untouched by humans are actually scoring better than our own Mother Earth?)
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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This is getting fun, Protests, trolling and more: Drama swirls around NASA's next moon lander for astronauts
The United States' next moonshot is shaping up to be a contentious affair.

In mid-April, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to finish development of its Starship vehicle and fly two missions with it to the lunar surface for the agency's Artemis program. If all goes according to plan, the second of those missions will put two astronauts down near the lunar south pole in the mid-2020s — the first crewed moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, beat out two commercial competitors for the lunar lander deal — Dynetics and the "National Team," which is led by Blue Origin, a spaceflight company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos. But those two groups didn't accept the decision and move on. They both filed protests with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in late April, citing perceived flaws in the award process. NASA has held up the $2.9 billion until the GAO finishes an investigation into the matter, which will wrap up by early August.

A chief complaint of both protests was the fact that NASA selected just one company, after the space agency had said it aimed to pick at least two at this stage to maintain competition and redundancy. And the passage of a month doesn't seem to have softened this objection, for Blue Origin aired it again, in a very public fashion, on Thursday (May 27).
But my favorite part is the new amendment by Bernie Sanders, the "To eliminate the multi-billion dollar Bezos Bailout" amendment.

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Sanders and Paul in vehement agreement with one another. You love to see it.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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The Meal wrote: Thu May 27, 2021 7:33 am I'd like to see the (simple) justification for not putting the Earth's value at the middle of the range of habitability index scores. (I.e., have we fouled things up so badly that planets untouched by humans are actually scoring better than our own Mother Earth?)
I believe that "habitability" means "favorable conditions for life as we understand it to arise" rather than "Neil, get out of the lander and take off your helmet."

I'm sure you know we're very unlikely to discover a planet where humans could live without suits and shelters. But it's easy to see how (e.g.) an Earthish planet out of the range of its sun's solar flares would score higher than Terra.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Image

Just imagine how many debris pieces missed by going just past that skinny arm :shock:
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Got behind a car today with a bumper sticker: "HAIL SAGAN"
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Bezos will be dog-fooding his rocket to the Karman Line next month. I guess give him credit for putting his family's life where his mouth is...
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Good primer on why NASA will send a couple of new robots to Venus around the end of this decade, and why other countries are also looking to the morning star.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Kraken wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:40 pm Good primer on why NASA will send a couple of new robots to Venus around the end of this decade, and why other countries are also looking to the morning star.
I did my masters thesis using data from Magellan. It's good that we're going back there again.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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New image from Ganymede. Juno went screaming by so fast that there was only time to snap five photos.

Enlarge Image
Using its green filter, the spacecraft’s JunoCam visible-light imager captured almost an entire side of the water-ice-encrusted moon. Later, when versions of the same image come down incorporating the camera’s red and blue filters, imaging experts will be able to provide a color portrait of Ganymede. Image resolution is about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) per pixel.
1 km/pixel gives you an idea how big that moon is; Ganymede is larger than Mercury.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Just watched the ring of fire live on CNN as the moon passed in front of the sun. Its neat to think a long time ago with the moon closer that it would have covered the entire sun and for longer. One day it wont block it out .
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Nalgene $11.99 per

Enlarge Image Enlarge Image

I figured there might be a person or two that might be interested.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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The meatball or the worm? Hmmm.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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I went meatball.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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NASA Selects New Science Investigations for Future Moon Deliveries.

So as Artemis becomes more of a real thing NASA is looking at commercial deliveries of scientific payloads. One of my colleagues at APL had his proposal selected - a joint lander and rover payload suite slated for delivery to Reiner Gamma.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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raydude wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:03 pm NASA Selects New Science Investigations for Future Moon Deliveries.

So as Artemis becomes more of a real thing NASA is looking at commercial deliveries of scientific payloads. One of my colleagues at APL had his proposal selected - a joint lander and rover payload suite slated for delivery to Reiner Gamma.
Cool stuff 8-). Pix when they become available please :)

And also, Boeing schedules launch date for second Starliner test flight. "The second uncrewed Starliner test flight launch will take place July 30 at 2:53 p.m.".
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Oops, missed this item, EGS starts Artemis 1 SLS Core Stage lift.
After a month of thermal protection system foam repairs and other preparations, workers with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) and prime test operations and support contractor Jacobs at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida started lift operations on the Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage for Artemis 1 in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on June 10. Early on June 11, two of the overhead cranes in the VAB rotated the Core Stage from horizontal to vertical in the Transfer Aisle.

Work will continue over the weekend of June 12-13 to lift the stage up into High Bay 3, position it in between the two SLS Boosters already stacked on Mobile Launcher-1, and bolt them together.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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I just found out that some of the Apollo stage one sections from the 60s are still orbiting Earth. They crashed a few into the moon to get seismic readings. There may be one orbiting the moon but I cant recall. So neat.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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55 weird objects seen on Mars, explained

Each has a photo too so pretty cool.
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Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff

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Daehawk wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 7:51 am Just watched the ring of fire live on CNN as the moon passed in front of the sun. Its neat to think a long time ago with the moon closer that it would have covered the entire sun and for longer. One day it wont block it out .
Believe it or not, most of that footage was via our local club/RASC Centre. It was first streamed to TimeandDate.com and others picked it up such as NASA, and from there, other news agencies were syndicating it. It was our club's first time live-streaming event. If what you saw included the Devil's Horns as they call it, it was definitely our footage.
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