The Astronomy Thread

Earth like planet around Alpha Centauri

Scientists to unveil new Earth-like planet: report

khorum said:

So Moon Express finally got FAA and NASA approval for their private moon mission and their shot at the Google Lunar Xprize. They're gonna be the first private company to leave earth orbit. Which kinda explains why they'd pick someone other than spaceX to make their first two stages:

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Last I checked, the moon itself is in Earth orbit, so anything going there is not also leaving Earth orbit.

NASA's new HDR Stereo camera designed specifically to capture the dynamics within the booster plume:

Shits hot, I could have told them that for a fraction of the price.

I like how SpaceX have changed how we perceive the challenge of relanding boosters from "that's stupidly impossible" to "oh, yeah, they did it again" in less than a year.

Daelos said:

I like how SpaceX have changed how we perceive the challenge of relanding boosters from "that's stupidly impossible" to "oh, yeah, they did it again" in less than a year.

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Basically.. the moon landings for 2016.

Daelos said:

I like how SpaceX have changed how we perceive the challenge of relanding boosters from "that's stupidly impossible" to "oh, yeah, they did it again" in less than a year.

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The reason for this is because for everyone besides space X it is.

Space X can land its first stage because it uses nine small engines instead of one to three larger engines like other rockets. Those nine engines allow them to scale thrust downward enough by shutting down engines to allow first stage to land. Other rockets simply cant reduce their thrust enough to safely land.

They just stuck their sixth first stage landing yesterday. They're actually running out of storage space for all the recovered first stages now. Their own assessments didn't anticipate this much success so soon.

I think most people know that spacex actually plans for the ENTIRE mission stack to be reusable----so the first, second and even the dragon capsule is meant to land eventually.

Here's the abort test for the dragon capsule, but the motors on it are actually designed to eventually allow the capsule to land on earth or mars:

That Dragon-video makes me want to play Kerbal again.

pharmakos said:

um, whoa.

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um, holy shit.

Ukerric said:

Well, last thing I looked, Earth is rotating around Sagittarius A Black Hole so anything around here is not in Earth orbit.

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This is wrong; it is possible for things (such as the moon and all satellites of the moon and Earth) to be in orbit of Earth as well as the center of mass of the galaxy. You are dumb.