Spacefarer's Guide to Getting off this Planet

[dabiggestu2fan]

Anyone see the lunar eclipse last night? I didn’t take any photos this time as I am busy with my kitchen renos but it looked very nice indeed. Even though they are not as rare as solar eclipses, they still look pretty cool!

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

Not exactly.

Certain programs are from certain directives and they normally get remembered as such.

Despite not having changed anything at all, Trump’s directive was all near term lunar stuff (probably because he could take credit for it).

The same cannot be said about things like Mars InSight or various other elements that fall under different legacy programs.

This would be like saying Donald Trump receives credit for the F35 because it entered full active service during his presidency. Nobody looks at it that way ~at all~ .

Ah, i see what you and others are saying.

(bu don't you think your "at all" with typographical emphasis seems a bit snarky? I just stated a concern)

Originally Posted by DaveC

i can't think of any major space achievement that people really associate with a president, aside from kennedy making the speech setting the moon landing goal, but he had been dead almost six years and thoroughly mythologised by the time that actually happened.

Re: JFK & Moon landing: I was 10 when he was assassinated, 16 for the moon landing. All this made a very lasting impression.

So it's probably why I said what i said originally. I totally associate JFK with all the moon stuff, with of course all the NASA team and astros together. Sort of a knee jerk reaction; other presidents also then must be linked with x space achievements.

But you all are right i don't actually really associate any other President with a particular space program, initiative etc.

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by dabiggestu2fan

Anyone see the lunar eclipse last night? I didn’t take any photos this time as I am busy with my kitchen renos but it looked very nice indeed. Even though they are not as rare as solar eclipses, they still look pretty cool!

Disappointed i didn't get to see it. It was really cold that night. I couldn't see it from any of my windows- must of passed my sight line as my sis had seen it about an hour or so early just as it was getting all coppery red (different neighborhoods but we both have eastern windows). Said it looked very pretty. I have seen a few over the decades.
The last one just as it was getting to full coverage the clouds blocked it.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by dazzledbylight

(bu don't you think your "at all" with typographical emphasis seems a bit snarky? I just stated a concern)

Err no, I was emphasizing how Donald Trump definitely is not responsible for a sophisticated piece of state of the art technology. Not snarky lol.

[dazzledbylight]

'k

[LuckyNumber7]

🤷🏻*♂️ ok...

[dazzledbylight]

Good-bye, Opportunity Rover.

NASA sent it' s last 'hello, r u there?' signal to Oppie (their nickname) yesterday. No return response.
Still, for a ?90 day mission that lasted 15 years. That gave us major, and tantalising info about water on Mars etc.

[DaveC]

i love that there is a planet in our solar system that (as far as we know) is entirely inhabited by robots.

[BEAL]

https://twitter.com/lkrauss1/status/...244770817?s=21

Our first look at a black hole

[LuckyNumber7]

All that and they didn’t even use autofocus

[dazzledbylight]

Ooops!


Unless it really IS The Eye of Sauron. Blurry so as not to panic us.


Pretty damn awesome anyways!

[BEAL]

This is really cool

https://twitter.com/cnet/status/1116...239568384?s=21

[cobl04]

So fucking cool that we have 'seen' a black hole. Or more accurately the 'shadow' of a black hole, ie the very edges of rays of light before they disappear, meaning, as I understand it, the event horizon is a much smaller circle inside the black circle of the image.

I feel like over the past couple of years I've pretty much been slowly giving myself a degree in physics, without understanding any of the actual maths.

[DaveC]

RIP to cosmonaut alexei leonov, the first person to space walk ever in 1965.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...smonaut-russia

[Vlad n U 2]

RIP to a legend. At least we still have Tereshkova.

[dazzledbylight]

Originally Posted by cobl04

So fucking cool that we have 'seen' a black hole. Or more accurately the 'shadow' of a black hole, ie the very edges of rays of light before they disappear, meaning, as I understand it, the event horizon is a much smaller circle inside the black circle of the image.

I feel like over the past couple of years I've pretty much been slowly giving myself a degree in physics, without understanding any of the actual maths.

Good for you.
I don't get the math, either. However bc i was a preemi back in '53 (and among those whom a different amount of oxygen was used on in the incubators) I was given a series of IQ tests over time to make sure that (and I do believe in the variety of human intelligences as more recently theorized) it didn't affect my IQ.

Anyway they said my ability for abstract thought was just about off the charts. I think that's why can follow a fair amount of it.
Oh, and since you enjoy physics and since you seem to enjoy science fiction- you might enjoy reading David Brin's (Physicist) two "Uplft" trilogies. The very last one so far is "Heaven's Gate", which really pours on some wild physics! He really does very good characterization; human, dolphin, chimps, and a whole host of sapients, it has a serious ecological theme running through, a billions of years old galatic civilization, and more. He calls it a "space opera". It's intelligent, moving, quite funny, and wonder-filled.

Originally Posted by DaveC

RIP to cosmonaut alexei leonov, the first person to space walk ever in 1965.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...smonaut-russia

Wow.
RIP, Alexei.
And I remember that happening!

There's an organization called The Association of Space Explorers (ACE) which has astronauts from all over the world in it.

And ta da...

our latest space walkers, from The Atlantic

And for the first time in history, they were both women.

Christina Koch and Jessica Meir began a five-and-a-half-hour spacewalk this morning to replace a battery component on the station’s exterior. The device, which is used to charge the solar-powered batteries that power the station, failed last weekend.

The spacewalk itself was pretty uneventful—spacewalks, as I recently learned while watching seven hours of one, are essentially home-improvement projects for humankind’s home in space, complete with drills, bolts, and sore muscles. The excitement around the event was about the spacewalkers themselves, the 14th and 15th women to spacewalk since the first woman, the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, did it in 1984. Anticipation was especially high after an earlier attempt at an all-female spacewalk in March. That lineup was scrapped at the last minute after two female astronauts found that the ISS didn’t have enough spacesuits in the size they needed. This time, NASA officials said, astronauts had the right stuff, sartorially speaking.

(and about time!)

One mo'
And this is from Popular Mechanics (And not like from ? Infowars, etc)

The U.S. Army has joined To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a UFO research group, to investigate UFO technology.
To The Stars is the same group that released the UFO videos that the Navy confirmed were real.
We have questions. Lots of 'em.
The U.S. Army and a prominent UFO research group are teaming up to investigate mysterious technology, but won’t come out and say where the tech comes from

To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, the organization led by former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge, will work with the Army to “characterize” technology under the organization’s control, and then use the tech to improve military vehicles. We have a lot of questions about this bizarre partnership, starting with the most important: Where did the technology come from?

To The Stars, which released the infamous Navy-confirmed UFO videos, made the announcement today on its website, saying it has entered into a “Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to advance TTSA’s materiel and technology innovations in order to develop enhanced capabilities for Army ground vehicles.”

CRADAs are a form of joint research agreement between an agency of the federal government and research organizations, particularly academia, in which the feds provide “laboratories ... personnel, facilities, equipment or other resources with or without reimbursement.”

According to multiple definitions of CRADAs on federal websites, the transfer of federal funding is prohibited.

TTSA describes its contribution to the agreement as “technology solutions” that include “material science, space-time metric engineering, quantum physics, beamed energy propulsion, and active camouflage.”

What the....

[MrsSpringsteen]

RIP Katherine Johnson

[LuckyNumber7]

RIP an inspiration

[dazzledbylight]

Yes

Thanks for the photo, Mrs S! I sometimes miss The Kennedy Center Awards Ceremony!

Kudos Katherine Johnson for your superlative math skills, and along with your colleagues the stamina for enduring the racism, and sexism of the day.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Originally Posted by dazzledbylight

Yes

Thanks for the photo, Mrs S! I sometimes miss The Kennedy Center Awards Ceremony!

Kudos Katherine Johnson for your superlative math skills, and along with your colleagues the stamina for enduring the racism, and sexism of the day.

It was the Presidential Medal Of Freedom, awarded to her by President Obama in 2015. I went to see Hidden Figures with my Mom on Trump's inauguration day. It was very appropriate for that day.