The Astronomy Thread

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BrutulTM

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Cybsled

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Technically Pluto has an atmosphere, but it is insanely thin and periodically freezes and falls to the surface. To get an actual Earth-like atmosphere on something the size of the moon would take far too many resources (even if you could access all the water trapped on the moon, it wouldn't be enough and it would be a waste in any event) and it would have to be periodically refreshed. The moon doesn't have a magnetic field currently and the Earth's doesn't provide any reliable protection for it either.

Also you joke, but during the Cold War there was a rejected plan to nuke the moon to show off American military might to the world.

In any event, if there was a plan to make a breathable atmosphere outside Earth, you'd be better off focusing on a massive terraforming project for Venus or Mars. Although even those would be projects on an almost unimaginable scale
 
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Edaw

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Technically Pluto has an atmosphere, but it is insanely thin and periodically freezes and falls to the surface. To get an actual Earth-like atmosphere on something the size of the moon would take far too many resources (even if you could access all the water trapped on the moon, it wouldn't be enough and it would be a waste in any event) and it would have to be periodically refreshed. The moon doesn't have a magnetic field currently and the Earth's doesn't provide any reliable protection for it either.

Also you joke, but during the Cold War there was a rejected plan to nuke the moon to show off American military might to the world.

In any event, if there was a plan to make a breathable atmosphere outside Earth, you'd be better off focusing on a massive terraforming project for Venus or Mars. Although even those would be projects on an almost unimaginable scale
We get that sucker spinning, we can make it work. Cores good, just needs a kick start.
 

Burns

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We get that sucker spinning, we can make it work. Cores good, just needs a kick start.
Nope. Cant spin at that distance, and at it's current, tidally locked distance, it helps to stabilize earth's wobble; pushing the moon away, so it is no longer tidal locked, will cause an issue on earth (also, the moon is already moving away, very very slowly).

Kurzgesagt did a neat video on Terraforming Venus:
 
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Loser Araysar

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800+ tons of thrust if true

SpaceX Raptor is under 300 tons

 
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Lenardo

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raptor is only 1 exhaust though the one above is 4.

raptor 2 is rated at ~230 tons of thrust-~269 max recorded in flight

raptor 3 was announced at ~269 tons in testing i think as a "base"

4 of those would be 1076 tons.

falcon super heavy according to an elon tweet is 8877 tons.
 
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Loser Araysar

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raptor is only 1 exhaust though the one above is 4.

raptor 2 is rated at ~230 tons of thrust-~269 max recorded in flight

raptor 3 was announced at ~269 tons in testing i think as a "base"

4 of those would be 1076 tons.

falcon super heavy according to an elon tweet is 8877 tons.

Sheeeeeit
 
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Aaron

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Interesting to know if Russia, China and others are developing or pursuing their own multi-use rocket technology, or if the USA is still alone in this field.
 

Tuco

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800+ tons of thrust if true

SpaceX Raptor is under 300 tons


Note that the Raptor has a diameter of 1.3m. The RD-170 is 3.8m, no idea about the RD-171. The thrust to weight ratio of the Raptor is 143 and RD-171 is 84.84. They cram some 33 of these on their booster.



09starship-02-fvqj-superJumbo.jpg


I think the most impressive part about the Raptors is the full-flow staged combustion it uses, which burns the fuel more completely and causes less soot build up. I'm no rocket scientist but this article is super interesting: Is SpaceX's Raptor engine the king of rocket engines?

Engine-comparison-1-1024x576.jpg


In comparison, the RD-171's chamber pressure is 245 bar
 
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Loser Araysar

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its been a year+ and i still havent seen a single good JWST image
 
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Burns

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its been a year+ and i still havent seen a single good JWST image
Cool story bro, were you thinking it was going to get pictures of Jesus's sphincter or something?

It's just a telescope with a mile long waiting list to do scientific stuff; the vast majority of which is going to look lackluster to people not on that list.