Space stuff (NASA, UKSA, CSA, ESA, etc)
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
The Challenger explosion is the one that hits me the hardest. I didn't see it happen -- I was on work study. My boss came in a exclaimed "the Shuttle's exploded". I went outside and saw the broken launch plume. I kept looking to see if there was any evidence that the orbiter had managed to separate from the main tank. By the time I went back inside, someone had dug up a TV set and we watched the news for the next hour or so, trying to make sense of it.
Also,
Also,
Challenger is saw live because I had made sure to get out of class to get to the library to watch the launch.
Columbia affected me much more directly. I's final resting spot is about 50 miles east of me, lots of family lives there, many pieces were found on land that we own, and we know the exact spots that remains were found. I have never been into the museum that they have there.
Edited to correct which direction (east vs west) the crash occurred, I was a little messed up emotionally this morning.
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GasBandit
Staff member
If you live between Oregon and South Carolina (@Dave), you might want to watch the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse visible in the continental US in 99 years when it happens on August 21st.
http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/path_through_the_US.htm
http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/path_through_the_US.htm
I'm hoping to see it. If anyone wants to come out to Oregon in August for this, let me know!
Booked my hotel room in Nashville last June, it's going at over twice the rate I booked at now. Just north of Nashville is the longest duration of total eclipse. This is one of my bucket list items.[DOUBLEPOST=1489800951,1489800884][/DOUBLEPOST]
My daughter and her soon-to-be husband are going to the Portland area for their honeymoon/his birthday/eclipse.
This article was great: Elon Musk Wants To Reuse All Of SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket By 2018, Slashing Cost Of Space Travel
Especially these two paragraphs:
Especially these two paragraphs:
On one level, I hope this is the case, so that the "old guard" is routed, but OTOH competition is ALWAYS a good thing for having a technology race, and so the lack of a clear competitor would be bad long-term. But maybe that's Blue Origin's job, which would be OK.
Paul Allen gets in on stuff with a physical unveiling: Paul Allen’s colossal Stratolaunch plane emerges from its lair
It's a rather "negative" article, but not unrealistic concerns either. I just wonder if the person writing it has stock in Boeing or something.
It's a rather "negative" article, but not unrealistic concerns either. I just wonder if the person writing it has stock in Boeing or something.
There will still be a business case for launches like this. Current launches depend on fixed ground positions and narrow windows for specific orbital slots. As our sky becomes more crowded and satellites get smaller there will be a need to be able to reach slots that are currently unavailable to existing ground stations. Today these slots are reached with a large increase in fuel for the rocket and the satellite, but with this type of system you could launch at any angle, any time, and possibly reach orbits that are resource/cost prohibitive.
Further, it's using standard off the shelf parts and engines. So it should be easy and cheap not only to maintain, but to relaunch quickly. The turnaround time could be far shorter than SpaceX's reusable rockets, and those are slated for a turnaround time of just a day. This one could turnaround in hours.
Lastly, a lot of rocket launch problems occur in the initial atmospheric stage of the launch. This would reduce those issues significantly, and if something does go wrong the pilots may be able to return the satellite to the ground, saving a lot of cost, prior to launch.
Plus it's just amazing and fantastic. We will see, but my guess is that as long as they have staying power we could have two competing methods spread across three or more competing companies, which would only serve to continue the dramatic decline in cost in space exploration and satellite communication.
Further, it's using standard off the shelf parts and engines. So it should be easy and cheap not only to maintain, but to relaunch quickly. The turnaround time could be far shorter than SpaceX's reusable rockets, and those are slated for a turnaround time of just a day. This one could turnaround in hours.
Lastly, a lot of rocket launch problems occur in the initial atmospheric stage of the launch. This would reduce those issues significantly, and if something does go wrong the pilots may be able to return the satellite to the ground, saving a lot of cost, prior to launch.
Plus it's just amazing and fantastic. We will see, but my guess is that as long as they have staying power we could have two competing methods spread across three or more competing companies, which would only serve to continue the dramatic decline in cost in space exploration and satellite communication.
Latest landing of a SpaceX rocket:
Notice at the 5-6 second mark how something gets blown off of the pad to the right of the rocket? I wonder what wasn't secured correctly on the pad itself. Well away from the rocket, so that couldn't have damaged it, but I wonder what's "on the pad" to go flying around like that, and if there's anything closer that could potentially do the same?
Notice at the 5-6 second mark how something gets blown off of the pad to the right of the rocket? I wonder what wasn't secured correctly on the pad itself. Well away from the rocket, so that couldn't have damaged it, but I wonder what's "on the pad" to go flying around like that, and if there's anything closer that could potentially do the same?
Looks like it came from the edge of the darker area (repair?) and acts much like a roof shingle in it's flight.
I agree about where it appears to come from, but as for the "roof shingle" we have to remember scale here. That pad is hundreds of feet across (or more... i couldn't easily find dimensions, but that could be google-fu failing me). That "shingle" is probably 10ftx10ft or larger.
The video was uploaded at 4k resolution, 60 frames per second, so you could probably download it and examine it in reasonably high resolution frame by frame. There are actually two tiles, flat and approximately square, which are flat on the ground just outside the large black ring, both of which get picked up and thrown. They don't appear to have any markings meant to be visible at this range.[DOUBLEPOST=1496845257,1496844996][/DOUBLEPOST]http://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-landing-pad-dragon-facility/
The landing pads appear to be concrete, but concrete doesn't like high temperature gradients and sudden temperature changes. My guess is these are tiles meant to protect the concrete from the rocket exhaust, and a few of them weren't needed, but weren't secured since they were so far from the expected blast radius.
The landing pads appear to be concrete, but concrete doesn't like high temperature gradients and sudden temperature changes. My guess is these are tiles meant to protect the concrete from the rocket exhaust, and a few of them weren't needed, but weren't secured since they were so far from the expected blast radius.
I zoomed in and took a few stills, then asked on Stack Exchange to see if they might be able to figure it out:
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/21838/spacex-crs-11-landing-pad-debris-identification
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/21838/spacex-crs-11-landing-pad-debris-identification
Hmm, maybe I should create a SA account.
...'cuz the first thing I thought when I read the responses was "It's 'fora' not 'forata!'"
--Patrick
Apparently it's neither:
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/69/which-is-the-plural-of-forum-fora-or-forums
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/69/which-is-the-plural-of-forum-fora-or-forums
Common English usage is "forums," but if they're going to try and substitute the archaic form, they should at least get it right!
-ata is the correct pluralization for words ending in -*ma (stoma, schema, stigma), not words ending in -um.
Source: once had to create a routine that pluralizes words and decided to massively overdo it, some of the research is still with me.
--Patrick
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SpaceX has successfully completed a 48 hour turnaround on its rocket. It put a satellite in orbit, landed, then 48 hours after landing launched 10 more satellites in different orbits in one launch.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/25/s...hes-and-recovers-second-falcon-9-in-48-hours/
This should radically change the cost of placing satellites, among other things, into orbit.[DOUBLEPOST=1498475303,1498475023][/DOUBLEPOST]Here's the webcast of the second launch, including spitting the ten satellites out:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/25/s...hes-and-recovers-second-falcon-9-in-48-hours/
This should radically change the cost of placing satellites, among other things, into orbit.[DOUBLEPOST=1498475303,1498475023][/DOUBLEPOST]Here's the webcast of the second launch, including spitting the ten satellites out:
@steinman, they did it from two separate pads, and two separate rockets. This wasn't a turnaround situation.
Still good stuff that they're being successful, but it's not THAT thing.