[Shadowmuse Blown]

And in that same span of time we went from not having any person in even sun-orbital space to men walking on the Moon.  We need to spend a little more money and get some of that spirit back or the Chinese will have a presence on the Moon before us and won’t let us land.

Can't happen! Neither China, nor any other nation can lay clam to the moon according to an international agreement that was done I think sometime back in the sixties.

Obviously, you haven't heard what China is doing in the South China Sea, the Sea of Japan and other geographical areas in which they have illegally claimed and don't give a shit about the rulings of the international court and other bodies even though they signed The Law of the Sea Treaty. The Chinese will do whatever they want unless there is strong pushback. They are Communists, therefore pathological liars and aggressors. 

Yeah, I wasn’t talking about international treaties, unfortunately, Sam.  Let’s say China sets up an operation on the Moon for mining and also builds a huge particle accelerator.  Once they have things calibrated they would be able to lob Moon regolith at any nation on Earth without worrying about nuclear fall-out as you would have with nuclear missiles.  It would be a global checkmate where they could devastate any city on Earth.  It’s just one scenario worth thinking about. 

When we return to the Moon, we should also return with the Space Force or our people will be defenseless if the Chinese opt to bring weapons.

[solvegas]

I guess the place smells like rotten eggs. 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

I guess the place smells like rotten eggs. 

Methane is odorless.  Utility companies add that smell so a person can detect a leak.

[solvegas]

I guess the place smells like rotten eggs. 

Methane is odorless.  Utility companies add that smell so a person can detect a leak.

I know that. I was just joking. Did you not see the wink emoji? 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

I guess the place smells like rotten eggs. 

Methane is odorless.  Utility companies add that smell so a person can detect a leak.

I know that. I was just joking. Did you not see the wink emoji? 

No. You usually use so many emojis that I don’t really pay attention to them. Sorry.

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Don’t expect to see a docking like this—with Lunar Starship and Orion—any time soon.  NASA has admitted that Starship simply isn’t going to be ready for test landing on the Moon in 2024.

You think?

They have pushed it back to 2026, but many think 2028 is more likely.  Not only does Starship still need to attain orbit, but the whole docking/ refueling thing will have to be figured out and tested prior.  We gots a long way to go.  When we get there, we may find the Chinese waiting.

[SamV]

I don't think anyone posted anything here yet about the ESA's Euclid space telescope, which seems strange. Anyway, it is the latest scientific instrument to join the James Webb telescope and others at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (L2), which on average is about 1.6 million kilometers (over a million miles) out in space. The L2 point is where the sun's and earth's gravitational forces create a spot where objects parked there always maintain a fixed distance in space from the earth, even while it orbits around the sun.

The Euclid telescope has a 1.2 meter main mirror, which is smaller then the James's Webb mirror, but it does use the same segmented Korsch-style mirror as Webb. It also has VIS and NISP instruments. The VISible camera is for visible light imagery used to measure shapes, while the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP camera) is for infrared shots that also measure the light being emitted by celestial objects in various bandwidths. Early test images from the instruments are both clear and detailed.

Euclid's goal is to scan about a third of the sky in six years, which will be far more than the Hubble telescope has done since first being put in to orbit. It will focus mostly on extra-galactic targets up to 10 billion light years away. It will create a 3D map of the universe's large-scale structures, which could help scientists unlock the secrets about dark matter and the earliest eons of the universe.

The ESA doesn't know for sure how long Euclid will last, but it has kept open the possibility of tacking on five years at the end of the primary mission. The Webb telescope will probably still be going strong when it's time for Euclid to call it a night. The perfect launch that it had helped Webb save fuel, boosting its expected life from ten to twenty years.

Below is an early test shot done using the Euclid's main mirror. It lacks the colorization and enhancement that has been shown in photos from the Jame's Webb. Eventually Euclid photo's will also be enhanced once various preliminary testing on the instrument is complete.
     

[Shadowmuse Blown]

^Thanks Sam

I wonder how many objects can sit at L2 before the area gets too cluttered?  I’m guessing thousands, but I don’t have any idea. It’s an ideal spot not only because it requires no fuel to sit there, but because, unlike langrange points L1, L3, L4 & L5, Earth blocks out the Sun, nicely.

[TheZookie007]

And in that same span of time we went from not having any person in even sun-orbital space to men walking on the Moon.  We need to spend a little more money and get some of that spirit back or the Chinese will have a presence on the Moon before us and won’t let us land.

Can't happen! Neither China, nor any other nation can lay clam to the moon according to an international agreement that was done I think sometime back in the sixties.

Obviously, you haven't heard what China is doing in the South China Sea, the Sea of Japan and other geographical areas in which they have illegally claimed and don't give a shit about the rulings of the international court and other bodies even though they signed The Law of the Sea Treaty. The Chinese will do whatever they want unless there is strong pushback. They are Communists, therefore pathological liars and aggressors. 

That's provably untrue; also, more than a little bit of pot-calling-the-kettle-black.

To return to the actual topic of this thread: was anyone able to watch the Perseid meteor showers?

[SamV]

^Thanks Sam

I wonder how many objects can sit at L2 before the area gets too cluttered?  I’m guessing thousands, but I don’t have any idea. It’s an ideal spot not only because it requires no fuel to sit there, but because, unlike langrange points L1, L3, L4 & L5, Earth blocks out the Sun, nicely.

Well the way to get around that problem is to reserve enough fuel propellant so at the end of the mission, one simply sends it hurtling out of L2 and towards the Sun, where it will burn up long before actually reaching it. Remember the Sun has a a corona, which is hotter than the Sun's surface (about 1 million °C vs 5,500 °C), and extends about 5 million miles out in to space.    And BTW in the diagram you posted, you might have stated the yellow ball is the Sun and the blue ball the Earth.    

[Shadowmuse Blown]

^Thanks Sam

I wonder how many objects can sit at L2 before the area gets too cluttered?  I’m guessing thousands, but I don’t have any idea. It’s an ideal spot not only because it requires no fuel to sit there, but because, unlike langrange points L1, L3, L4 & L5, Earth blocks out the Sun, nicely.

Well the way to get around that problem is to reserve enough fuel propellant so at the end of the mission, one simply sends it hurtling out of L2 and towards the Sun, where it will burn up long before actually reaching it. Remember the Sun has a a corona, which is hotter than the Sun's surface (about 1 million °C vs 5,500 °C), and extends about 5 million miles out in to space.    And BTW in the diagram you posted, you might have stated the yellow ball is the Sun and the blue ball the Earth.

D’oh! 

Actually, I had been looking at several diagrams and I remember another one was, indeed, labeled, but I got so wound up in looking for a clear one, that I forgot that this one wasn’t labeled.

The yellow one is the Sun and the blue one is the Earth . (Although one can infer that from my text, I just realized)

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Human sized door in this S22 nose cone.  Is it a Human Landing System mockup?

[SamV]

^Thanks Sam

I wonder how many objects can sit at L2 before the area gets too cluttered?  I’m guessing thousands, but I don’t have any idea. It’s an ideal spot not only because it requires no fuel to sit there, but because, unlike langrange points L1, L3, L4 & L5, Earth blocks out the Sun, nicely.

Well the way to get around that problem is to reserve enough fuel propellant so at the end of the mission, one simply sends it hurtling out of L2 and towards the Sun, where it will burn up long before actually reaching it. Remember the Sun has a a corona, which is hotter than the Sun's surface (about 1 million °C vs 5,500 °C), and extends about 5 million miles out in to space.    And BTW in the diagram you posted, you might have stated the yellow ball is the Sun and the blue ball the Earth.

D’oh! 

Actually, I had been looking at several diagrams and I remember another one was, indeed, labeled, but I got so wound up in looking for a clear one, that I forgot that this one wasn’t labeled.

The yellow one is the Sun and the blue one is the Earth . (Although one can infer that from my text, I just realized)

Well the L1 langrange point that is between the Earth and Sun is current in use by he Solar and Heliospheric Observatory because it offers an uninterrupted view of the Sun. The other remaining one's, L3, L4 and L5, I don't think are used for anything.
   

[solvegas]

 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Although, the image there is NOT the picture of Earth that Explorer 1 took, but an artist’s interpretation