The Astronomy Thread

Dom said:

I used to really love the idea of being something like Q from TNG and being able to just exist anywhere in a form capable of experiencing stuff like this in-person.

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As far away as everything is from everything else, are you really experiencing it in person?

Dom said:

I used to really love the idea of being something like Q from TNG and being able to just exist anywhere in a form capable of experiencing stuff like this in-person.

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It's my fantasy afterlife, fuck loved ones and friends. Well maybe that one dog, he can come along.

Tuco said:

Been a long road but I'm super happy we're back to being able to send our own astronauts to space.

Best part is this is just one of a handful of reasons to be super excited about space exploration in the next year, let alone the next decade. This isn't just some one-off, massive taxpayer funded project that checks a box, it's just the next step in a continuation of the development of technology that enables a whooole lotta cool shit.

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I'm all for SpaceX, but being able to take people to the space station isn't a next step (Russia has been doing it for us for years).

Now if they get SN-4 working, THAT will be a next step.

Tuco said:

SpaceX getting human riders is a huge next step. USA resuming ownership of human space transport is a huge next step. Mankind sending human riders on reusable rockets is a huge next step. Lots of huge steps here.

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I do understand what you are saying and it is true from a certain point of view. I don't think of it as 'next' though as it is something we used to do (send people to orbit), before some of us on the forum were born, even.

It's good once we've regained the capability (which hasn't actually happened yet), but it's just regaining something we had once and we lost it because of the suppression of anything that wasn't the shuttle until near the end of the shuttle's lifetime.

The capabilities that Starship is *supposed* to get will eclipse anything else, assuming SpaceX can pull it off. That's what tickles my pickle. We will finally have a *real* interplanetary manned space craft. I think it's the only one that has a hope of becoming reality within my lifetime. No one else *REALLY* cares (to the point of spending the money to develop it) about making such a thing.

The SLS won't really send manned expeditions to other planets - at best it will take people to the Moon so ULA can make money and Trump can say he took us back to the moon, after that the program will get cancelled as too expensive.

there's a starlink launch in aboot an hour

Yay, SpaceX. They recovered the first stage (4th time this one has landed). Satellites were deployed.

Now we are just being mocked...

Think I got that link right, came across this on my travels today, thought it was worth a share. Vid is 3D of Pillars of Creation. Original BBC article Hubble telescope's Universe revealed in 3D Apparently more stuff done in 3D too, but haven't gotten around to checking it all out yet.

I hope they have strong wires holding it, very windy here in okieland so probably windy there too

I hope the box it came in was labeled 'some assembly required'.