Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Gotta say SpaceX is the lone bright spot for humanity in the 21st century so far.
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The Astronomy Thread
- Thread starter Araxen
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The only good summary of the Chinese moon mission will end with the sentence, "and so after billions of wasted hours, and a nation furious at an incompetent and corrupt government, they gave up, and after three weeks of national unrest, the CCP was no more."
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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totally agree, but I recently read about the advantages of having a steel construction and a few other things that differentiate Starship from the Space Shuttle and it's pretty well thought out. The TLDR is the space shuttle's aluminum construction + complex geometry + tile attachment mechanism made everything unreliable, expensive and time consuming. Having a stainless steel frame with uniform curves that tiles can be bolted on should be way better.
I think there's a 10% chance they land it the first go around though. It's just a crazy maneuver, there's just not enough information about how it'll work. They'll run it, probably fail, get a lot of info and tweak it as they improve the starship.
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a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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I was watching for that one when he announced it in his previous video. That one delivers.
But you should also absolutely see the previous one about various views (including "achievement unlocked", lol):
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Brad2770
Avatar of War Slayer
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Iconic Arecibo Observatory radio telescope collapses after cable broke
Many scientists and Puerto Ricans mourned the news, with some tearing up during interviews.
www.cbsnews.com
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meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Probe has now landed.
Chinese probe lands on Moon to gather lunar samples
A Chinese space probe on Wednesday began drilling on the surface of the Moon hours after landing, in an ambitious attempt to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades.
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Kiroy
Marine Biologist
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great filter self destruction theory on display in three pictures
a c i d.f l y
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Mars is just another shell of a planet. While I understand the necessity of stretching our legs, until a monster improvement occurs in our ability to transit space, ends up being a massive sink for funding. Getting the general populous behind it is going to take some work when most currently think NASA has been a huge waste of tax payer money. Ironically. "Fuck the Russians" doesn't hold water. Yet is still used politically. There needs to be another propaganda campaign that actually focuses on the benefits, beyond the existential.
Sending humans to Mars is still a stupid proposition. Until Elon gets his robot army building facilities. And even then we only have a dozen or so folks willing to test the experience at the poles. A big group signed up to go to Mars, but 99.999% are literally insane and not appropriate or educated enough. And a fear campaign (death of the earth, global warming, climate change, etc) isn't gonna get it done, either.
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Tholan
Blackwing Lair Raider
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I do agree with you, but the question is not how much would it cost to go to Mars, or anywhere else, but why should we go there. Harvesting ressources ? Is our goal as a species to colonize as much worlds as possible ?
I think we should try to send rovers on Jupiter's moons or Saturn's moon. That would be fucking amazing, having some land shot with Saturn rising in the sky. Mars can wait, and fuck the moon.
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Cybsled
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Long term survival of the species dictates we need to leave Earth at some point. At some juncture we will need resources beyond what is on the Earth, or even the moon. We need to start pushing now, not when shit has hit the fan and we are all scrambling for a solution.
On an order of magnitude, Mars is closer to the belt than Earth in any event. It has abundant water, and presumably resources that can only develop with the presence of water.
On an order of magnitude, Mars is closer to the belt than Earth in any event. It has abundant water, and presumably resources that can only develop with the presence of water.
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