The Astronomy Thread

Cybsled said:

They would have needed a boosted antenna and all sorts of other stuff to boost from way out there.

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With a radioactive decay power source and ya, at that point you are putting millions into communications and software and all sorts of shit to send back pictures of a spacesuit driving a car through space.
As for the car, I've seen people claim radiation will eat it up in a year or two, but who knows how it will actually fare.

I wonder how much carbon and tungsten pellets they could’ve boosted to cislunar L5 instead. Just let it chill there till you can eventually get a self-replicating robotic fab to make stuff with it.

Tuco said:

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That's impressive.

Pops said:

That's impressive.

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I wonder if one of those buildings is Jeff Bezos’ massive Blue Origin factory where they’re building a New Glenn rocket for its 2020 launch.

It’s a giant blue box right outside the Space Center’s gates:



The New Glenn is gonna have more capacity than the falcon heavy and its 2nd stage is also supposed to land. They just got their first paying customer too.

khorum said:

I wonder if one of those buildings is Jeff Bezos’ massive Blue Origin factory where they’re building a New Glenn rocket for its 2020 launch.

It’s a giant blue box right outside the Space Center’s gates:

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The New Glenn is gonna have more capacity than the falcon heavy and its 2nd stage is also supposed to land. They just got their first paying customer too.

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It only counts when they actually build and launch it (and it doesn't blow up). So far, BO has launched X number of orbital missions, where X is a non negative integer less than one.

Fuck that car.

The first of either SpaceX or Bezos or Virgin Galactic to bring our rovers home to the Smithsonian after years of tireless service on Mars should get a permanent charter to a third of NASA’s budget forever.

Bring Spirit Home!

re that old IMAGE satellite that was "found" transmitting still.

What one amateur observer did that kicked NASA into action – the backstory and timeline

from the article:

they have acquired the telemetry data and have decoded the data files. it is confirmed that it IS the IMAGE satellite, and the battery is at 100%, they still have not been able to decode the actual scientific data as of Feb 1.

in order to actually get some data...they needed to scrounge up some ...older equipment.. the files were on 16yr old 4mm TAPE cartridges.

Does anyone happen to have a 4 mm tape cartridge reader that will work on a modern Linux workstation and a 16-year-old data tape and not disintegrate it?”

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ultimately they were able to use the tape backup drive from SOHO (1995) mission

LachiusTZ said:

Just write Space X a giant check, and get the BFR development done.

NASAs ability to put things into orbit is a joke at this point. Fucking embarrassing.

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I talked to a former astronaut who repaired the hubble telescope about the futur of Nasa rockets, he said that they would be very happy if they could stop building rockets. Their goal is space exploration, not putting cargo into orbit. When they can completly outsource that, I'm sure they'll ditch any rocket developpment.