[TheZookie007]

Space Patrol!

[Shadowmuse Blown]

What's up with those "space waders" they're wearing?

What if they step in a pile of space muck, huh?  What’re you gonna do without your space-wellies?  These guys have to be prepared for every contingency!

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Looks like we have a couple o’ billion years before things start to heat up.

[solvegas]

Elon Musk unveiled a new concept for the spaceship. Shiny, uh? 

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Elon Musk unveiled a new concept for the spaceship. Shiny, uh? 

Hard to believe that was only about two-and-a-half years ago, huh?

[TheZookie007]

Elon Musk unveiled a new concept for the spaceship. Shiny, uh? 

So how are the astronauts supposed to get into the thing?!

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Elon Musk unveiled a new concept for the spaceship. Shiny, uh? 

So how are the astronauts supposed to get into the thing?!

That’s a mock-up prototype, built before the hoppers proved a large vehicle could do vertical take off and landing.  It was never meant to launch, much less carry people, but it was an early idea for how Starship might look.

[Shadowmuse Blown]

More reasons why SLS and Boeing suck!   Is this thing ever going to carry Artemis to the Moon?  Ugh!

The Angry Astronaut explains: https://youtu.be/y-dHqSRQftk

[CarlTL]

Had the Soviet’s N1 rocket not self destructed, taking out much of the Soviet Union’s launch facilities in the process, they may have been able to send a modified Soyuz to Moon orbit with two astronauts.  One of them would have then have had to have made a space walk to enter their lunar lander: the LK, where the lone cosmonaut would then have made the descent to the surface. 

I'm sure he got over it, but I still feel bad for Michael Collins.

Michael Collins was the one taking the picture of all of humanity living and dead.

[TheZookie007]

Had the Soviet’s N1 rocket not self destructed, taking out much of the Soviet Union’s launch facilities in the process, they may have been able to send a modified Soyuz to Moon orbit with two astronauts.  One of them would have then have had to have made a space walk to enter their lunar lander: the LK, where the lone cosmonaut would then have made the descent to the surface. 

I'm sure he got over it, but I still feel bad for Michael Collins.

Michael Collins was the one taking the picture of all of humanity living and dead.

Yes, but he didn't get to walk on the moon. I wish the Apollo program had had a rule that said "the dude in the Lunar Orbiter module on the previous mission, gets to go on the surface in the next one"

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Had the Soviet’s N1 rocket not self destructed, taking out much of the Soviet Union’s launch facilities in the process, they may have been able to send a modified Soyuz to Moon orbit with two astronauts.  One of them would have then have had to have made a space walk to enter their lunar lander: the LK, where the lone cosmonaut would then have made the descent to the surface. 

I'm sure he got over it, but I still feel bad for Michael Collins.

Michael Collins was the one taking the picture of all of humanity living and dead.

Thanks Carl, we’re aware:

I'm sure he got over it, but I still feel bad for Michael Collins.

I was thinking, “where is he?  On the other side of the Moon?”  And then it hit me: he’s the one taking the picture from the command module. 

Exactly right.

[TheZookie007]

"Each and every day NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observes our Sun and relays observational data to scientists on Earth in an effort to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO is helping researchers understand the Sun's influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously.

SDO's goal is to understand, driving towards a predictive capability, the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity's technological systems by determining how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured, and also how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance.

This image of the Sun was taken on May 15, 2018, by SDO. See other images from today's SDO observations."

Image Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

[Shadowmuse Blown]

Brand-spanking new Crew Dragon Freedom arrives at launch pad 39A ahead of its launch to the ISS with Crew-4 on April 23rd.

[solvegas]

 

[TheZookie007]

Scott Manley, July 17, 2021: "Is Apollo 11's Lunar Module Still In Orbit Around The Moon 52 Years Later?"

"In 1969 Neil Armstrong announced a safe touchdown on the moon with the words 'The Eagle has Landed'. "Eagle" was the name of the Lunar Module, the spacecraft which carried Neil and Buzz to the surface of the moon. After they walked on the surface of the moon they flew the Eagle back into orbit, docked with the Columbia command module and undocked the Eagle, leaving it in orbit while Columbia returned to Earth.

Most spacecraft in lunar orbit suffer from instability in their orbits due to the 'lumpy' nature of the lunar gravity which tends to cause the orbits to eventually get so elliptical that they hit the moon.

However, an amateur space fan wanted to narrow down the possible impact location and used orbit modelling software to propagate the orbit forwards in time until it hit the moon. He was surprised to find that it didn't hit the moon, and remained in a stable orbit for decades, this suggests that the Eagle may still be orbiting the moon over 5 decades after being left there.

Here's the paper:
"Long-term Orbit Stability of the Apollo 11 Eagle Lunar Module Ascent Stage", by James Meador

And his github with the scripts for GMAT: https://github.com/RogerTwank/Eagle

And more information in the blog: https://snoopy.rogertwank.net/2020/09/has-eagle-landed.html

NASA's GMAT software: https://sourceforge.net/projects/gmat/

The thread in Unmannedspaceflight.com showing processing of ingenuity images and Seán Doran's YouTube channel."