Spacefarer's Guide to Getting off this Planet

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
For those still interested in seeing my eclipse shot please see links below :)

Howdy Everyone,
I could go on forever processing tons of images so I will leave it at that and say that I am done! Here are the links to the images on my site and to the two animations I've made! Enjoy! :)

Nicolas Carbajales | Solar Eclipse 2017! (New!)

Animation # 1:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X3GRZUXQ...6cbND6Whn6wCLcBGAs/s1600/eclipse+1+%28500.gif

Animation # 2:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tvZIW7i...S8OvQGc_WIoACLcBGAs/s1600/Eclipse+Sunspot.gif
 
Aaaaah, beautiful! Look at that corona and solar flares!

Thanks for sharing w us. So glad you got there and had good weather, etc. :hyper:

Any deep night star scapes or Milky Way photos from the night before?

Thanks so much Dazzle!! I am Glad you like the pics! I was happy that everything lined up. Weather was fantastic, traffic (on the way there) wasn't the Armageddon they were predicting. I think there was so much talk about how bad it was going to be, that many people did not bother to go which is great for those that did go. The night sky was amazing! Was a bit cloudy at sundown but then cleared up nicely! I had every intention of doing some Milky Way shots and even some deepsky shots but the minute I set up my scope, I had like 10-15 people at any given time wanting to look through the scope! I can't complain, I loved seeing the reactions of both adults and kids when I showed them things like Saturn! After quiet time (1100 pm) everyone left but I was having problems with my goto mount (wasn't taking me to where I asked it to). I thought no problem, I'll just find some deepsky objects on my own. I haven't done any observing of deepsky objects in about 5 years. So out of practice in navigating through the night sky. That combined with the fact that I didn't have my usual finder scope (a 0x Finder that projects a bulls eye image into the sky via a small glass window) and about two years ago I had a serious infection on my right eye which ruined my vision, made it almost impossible to find anything. The finder scope I had, an 8x50mm I just realized is almost useless to me without good vision on my right eye. So after about half an hour I got very frustrated and packed up. I do plan on going to a dark sky location sometime before the winter and bringing my other finder scope since I can use my left eye. I will be trying some deepsky shots and some piggy mounted camera Milky Way shots! But honestly seeing how people were so fascinated by what they were seeing, made it all worthwhile for me. Their reactions were exactly like my reaction the first time I viewed through a scope! Otter amazement!
 
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Yes, I'm here in Adelaide at the International Astronautical Congress (bumped into Bill Nye like four times).

We presented our architecture on the topic during that symposium (the deep space gateway). It was met with a huge audience! It was also a day long event of us sharing the same results jerking each other off. So, hey, the community agrees on how to do things.

As for the Russians... they're strangely nonexistent in this conference, which is abnormal. They (Roscosmos) don't even have a display in the main exhibit.
 
LN7, what do you do????

I admire the man's vision, think the bluster's all a bit too much considering every second rocket they ignite blows up, but it's really fucking cool that it's making this stuff more mainstream. Nothing more fascinating than the Universe, I live for this shit.

I'd highly recommend Kurzgesagt's videos, these are awesome.

 
LN7, what do you do????

I admire the man's vision, think the bluster's all a bit too much considering every second rocket they ignite blows up, but it's really fucking cool that it's making this stuff more mainstream. Nothing more fascinating than the Universe, I live for this shit.

I'd highly recommend Kurzgesagt's videos, these are awesome.





Im a space systems engineer - just went back to school in Europe and finished my masters degree. Most of what I do is human-rated exploration systems and mission fabrication design.

Yet to work on anything that's flown, but I'm hopeful that soon I'll have a big boy position. Our masters project got five time slots at IAC and was super well received, so I'm pretty happy right now.

re: Musk. SpaceX is more successful than you're giving them credit for. They've got a phenomenal launch record for a new rocket with a less than a decade history. Musk also converts on literally everything he's claimed so far. They've only had one or two blow up of the Falcon 9. If you're talking about the failed landings... gotta remember those are the first time that's ever been attempted, and now they're 16 in a row!

As for space elevators - one of our papers is a space elevator. I can tell you that the idea of one is... err... not feasible :p of course that's the freeze frame. The video was cool!
 
Wow. I take back every mean or jokey thing I ever said about you. That is insanely cool. Congratulations, would love to read some links... My dream job is astronomer, but you have to be good at maths :scream:

And yeah, I highly doubt we will see a space elevator for hundreds of years, if ever.
 
Err... well no worries because I don't even know what you're referring to.

I can siphon up some links when they're actually made available. As for being an astronomer... certainly a lot of math there, but I think it's frequently a lot more boring than folks know. Either way, screw playing your strong card. If you have a resilience trait, just do what you want. I've borrowed Bill Gates' saying - "success is a bad teacher." I've turned it into a thing of my own - it's never a bad idea until you can explain or reason why.
 
Well I've been a bit of a dick over the years due to your propensity to get into strange arguments haha. But now I respect you more than any person who has ever signed up to this forum.

I just watched Gravity - what did you think of that? (And Interstellar)
 
Well I've been a bit of a dick over the years due to your propensity to get into strange arguments haha. But now I respect you more than any person who has ever signed up to this forum.

I just watched Gravity - what did you think of that? (And Interstellar)


Well, thank you. Still slightly confused, but, if we are all good here, sounds good to me :)

Also, I take flak for not having seen: Gravity, Interstellar, The Big Bang Theory, or Rick and Morty. True story, I was on cruise for a wedding last week and purposely avoided Big Bang Theory trivia with the party because people always tell me I'm Sheldon or whatever Sheldon's friend's name is and I barely get the reference lol.

However, I'm likely more of a Gravity person than an Interstellar person. Especially with Sandra Bullock!
 
So last week I took another internship offer at NASA Johnson, and I'm going to be working on astrodynamics for Orion.

I'M GONNA BE DONALD GLOVER EVERYONE!

martian-donald-glover.jpg
 
This man is about to launch himself in his homemade rocket to prove the Earth is flat
By Avi Selk November 21 at 1:51 PM

Seeking to prove that a conspiracy of astronauts fabricated the shape of the Earth, a California man intends to launch himself 1,800 feet high on Saturday in a rocket he built from scrap metal.

Assuming the 500-mph, mile-long flight through the Mojave Desert does not kill him, Mike Hughes told the Associated Press, his journey into the atmosflat will mark the first phase of his ambitious flat-Earth space program.

Hughes’s ultimate goal is a subsequent launch that puts him miles above the Earth, where the 61-year-old limousine driver hopes to photograph proof of the disc we all live on.

“It’ll shut the door on this ball earth,” Hughes said in a fundraising interview with a flat-Earth group for Saturday’s flight. Theories discussed during the interview included NASA being controlled by round-Earth Freemasons and Elon Musk making fake rockets from blimps.

Hughes promised the flat-Earth community that he would expose the conspiracy with his steam-powered rocket, which will launch from a heavily modified mobile home — though he acknowledged that he still had much to learn about rocket science.

“This whole tech thing,” he said in the June interview. “I’m really behind the eight ball.”

That said, Hughes isn’t a totally unproven engineer. He set a Guinness World Record in 2002 for a limousine jump, according to Ars Technica, and has been building rockets for years, albeit with mixed results.

“Okay, Waldo. 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!” someone yells in a test fire video from 2012.

There’s a brief hiss of boiling water, then . . . nothing. So Hughes walks up to the engine and pokes it with a stick, at which point a thick cloud of steam belches out toward the camera.

He built his first manned rocket in 2014, the Associated Press reported, and managed to fly a quarter-mile over Winkelman, Ariz.

As seen in a YouTube video, the flight ended with Hughes being dragged, moaning from the remains of the rocket. The injuries he suffered put him in a walker for two weeks, he said.

And the 2014 flight was only a quarter of the distance of Saturday’s mile-long attempt.

And it was based on round-Earth technology.

Hughes only recently converted to flat-Eartherism, after struggling for months to raise funds for his follow-up flight over the Mojave.

It was originally scheduled for early 2016 in a Kickstarter campaign — “From Garage to Outer Space!” — that mentioned nothing about Illuminati astronauts, and was themed after a NASCAR event.

“We want to do this and basically thumb our noses at all these billionaires trying to do this,” Hughes said, standing in his Apple Valley, Calif., living room, which he had plastered with drawings of his rockets.

“They have not put a man in space yet,” Hughes said. “There are 20 different space agencies here in America, and I’m the last person that’s put a man in a rocket and launched it.”

He compared himself to Evel Knievel, as he promised to launch himself from a California racetrack — the first step on his steam-powered leap toward space.

The Kickstarter raised $310 of its $150,000 goal.

Hughes made other pitches, including a plan to fly over Texas in a “SkyLimo.” But he complained to Ars Technica last year about the difficulty of funding his dreams on a chauffeur’s meager salary.

A year later, he called into a flat-Earth community Web show to announce that he had become a recent convert.

“We were kind of looking for new sponsors for this. And I’m a believer in the flat Earth,” Hughes said. “I researched it for several months.”

The host sounded impressed. Hughes had actually flown in a rocket, he noted, whereas astronauts were merely paid actors performing in front of a CGI globe.

“John Glenn and Neil Armstrong are Freemasons,” Hughes agreed. “Once you understand that, you understand the roots of the deception.”

The host talked of “Elon Musk’s fake reality,” and Hughes talked of “anti-Christ, Illuminati stuff.” After half an hour of this, the host told his 300-some listeners to back Hughes’s exploration of space.

While there is no one hypothesis for what the flat Earth is supposed to look like, many believers envision a flat disc ringed by sea ice, which naturally holds the oceans in.

What’s beyond the sea ice, if anything, remains to be discovered.

“We need an individual who’s not compromised by the government,” the host told Hughes. “And you could be that man.”

A flat-Earth GoFundMe subsequently raised nearly $8,000 for Hughes.

By November, the AP reported, his $20,000 rocket had a fancy coat of Rust-Oleum paint and “RESEARCH FLAT EARTH” inscribed on the side.

While his flat-Earth friends helped him finally get the thing built, the AP reported, Hughes will be making adjustments right up to Saturday’s launch.

He won’t be able to test the rocket before he climbs inside and attempts to steam himself at 500 mph across a mile of desert air. And even if it’s a success, he's promised his backers an even riskier launch within the next year, into the space above the disc.

“It’s scary as hell,” Hughes told the AP. “But none of us are getting out of this world alive.”

This is true. Yet some will try to live to see its edges.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...th-is-flat/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.29196eff7d29
 
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this was back page news yesterday:

2RCnYHi.gif


it feels like we are really on the precipice of some really big leaps in space flight very soon.
 
watched it live at my desk while slacking off working today. the perfect double-landing of the side boosters was a thing of absolute beauty. feeling sort of inspired to fire up KSP when i get home tonight, i haven't played it in forever :hmm:
 
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