The Astronomy Thread

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

Mudcrush Durtfeet

Hungry Ogre
2,428
-758
I know the sun is just kinda "dragging" everything through space with it and that's why the orbits are so weird.

BUT WHAT IF
An undetectable black hole of a given mass would have (barring collisions) no different effect than an undetectable non-black hole


kinda long but well worth the watch, our motion through space is pretty nutty
Note that our motion is always measured in relation to something else. There is no absolute velocity. This is why no matter how much one accelerates in any direction, if you measure the speed of light emitted by that object, the speed of light is still the same, relative to that object.
 
Last edited:
  • 2Dislike
  • 2Like
  • 1Picard
Reactions: 4 users

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
16,295
11,937
awesome job. Looks like it landed on 2 vs 1 engine?

Can’t wait to see the next designs
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Break

Silver Baronet of the Realm
4,187
11,651
Think James Webb Telescope will actually launch this year? Originally scheduled for 2007 but corrupt bureaucracy.

What really excites me about Starship isn't Mars so much as it paves the way for the possibility of a space telescope larger than the JWST. I'm hopeful they'll build and launch a Hubble 2 in the next 5 or 10 years max.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Mudcrush Durtfeet

Hungry Ogre
2,428
-758
Think James Webb Telescope will actually launch this year? Originally scheduled for 2007 but corrupt bureaucracy.

What really excites me about Starship isn't Mars so much as it paves the way for the possibility of a space telescope larger than the JWST. I'm hopeful they'll build and launch a Hubble 2 in the next 5 or 10 years max.
It paves the way to a whole bunch of things. Seriously.
 
  • 2Dislike
Reactions: 1 users

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
16,295
11,937
Think James Webb Telescope will actually launch this year? Originally scheduled for 2007 but corrupt bureaucracy.

What really excites me about Starship isn't Mars so much as it paves the way for the possibility of a space telescope larger than the JWST. I'm hopeful they'll build and launch a Hubble 2 in the next 5 or 10 years max.

Lunar missions with starship massive cargo capacity could open up the possibility of a lunar observatory in the next couple decades as well. A radio observatory on the far side of the moon for instance would probably be the first option.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Mudcrush Durtfeet

Hungry Ogre
2,428
-758
Getting one back intact will probably help a lot in determining how well parts of the rocket held up so that they better know what needs improvement in order to make rocket reuse easier.

Next steps I imagine are reusing a rocket and getting closer to actual orbit, as well as flight testing the booster and the combined rocket.
 
  • 2Dislike
Reactions: 1 users

Burns

Golden Baronet of the Realm
5,886
11,841
Looked up the Lagrange points to see if we have any other sats out there (other than the L1 sun monitor DSCOVR) , before Webb (we do), and ran into the NASA write up on Webb. They have a video of the path out to L2 (with corresponding setup steps) and orbit at L2. I guess I never thought about it before, but the L2 is absolutely huge.

The yellow loops on the right side of the picture below (from the video), are the orbit Webb will take, around the L2. It looks like it is at least 6 times the diameter of the earth.

L2.png


Video:
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
7,862
9,413
A radio observatory on the far side of the moon for instance would probably be the first option.
I think the Chinese advertised plans to build that kind of thins using automated rovers already.

Although they're still significantly behind, even if I'm pretty sure they're copying all they can from SpaceX.
 

LachiusTZ

Rogue Deathwalker Box
<Silver Donator>
14,472
27,162
I'm sure space X has better info security than our govt
 
  • 1Picard
Reactions: 1 user

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
7,862
9,413
I'm sure space X has better info security than our govt
You don't need hackers. I've been managing computer security in highly sought-after IP situations for a few years and we never got hacked. What we got was the intern with a fistful of small USB keys copying everything on shared drives that wasn't secured (don't get me started on server shares with Everyone:ALL permissions). The rest can usually be inferred from that (or if it can't, you still get years of leapfrogging in your own development process).

I think Musk said once he wasn't patenting much for SpaceX because he knew the Chinese were his true competition there and they'd copy everything anyway.
 
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 1 user

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
45,320
73,377
hey guys I'm back from the future in 2026 with this history vid

 
  • 4Like
  • 2Worf
Reactions: 5 users

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
<Silver Donator>
14,366
2,139
A lot of shit has to go right for that to play out but based on what SpaceX has done already I wouldn't bet against them.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 2 users

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
16,295
11,937
I think it is cool. Lets kids with physical disabilities be able to see people with similar conditions do stuff like go into space and also general people that you can still do very physically demanding things, kind of like how the paralympics shows people can still perform at a high level.

I remember attending this seminar and they had a dude who had suffered double leg amputations due to frostbite. He was an avid mountain climber and he had specialized leg attachments that let him mountain climb to an insane degree (like specialized feet that let him use cracks/small rock outcrops that a regular foot could never use effectively). I would be curious to see what type of prosthetic limbs they might develop for zero G usage.
 
  • 4Like
Reactions: 3 users

Cynical

Canuckistani Terrorist
2,120
5,094
I think it is cool. Lets kids with physical disabilities be able to see people with similar conditions do stuff like go into space and also general people that you can still do very physically demanding things, kind of like how the paralympics shows people can still perform at a high level.

I remember attending this seminar and they had a dude who had suffered double leg amputations due to frostbite. He was an avid mountain climber and he had specialized leg attachments that let him mountain climb to an insane degree (like specialized feet that let him use cracks/small rock outcrops that a regular foot could never use effectively). I would be curious to see what type of prosthetic limbs they might develop for zero G usage.
Joking aside, I see nothing wrong with amputees, assuming they are trained and still capable of doing the job. It would be perfect for someone missing legs, even someone in a wheel chair on the ground, could do well with all that upper body strength.

Long as it isn't Cindy, with the hump, service poodle, I gots 37 disorders, lawd I can't breathe, type disabled.
 
  • 1Like
  • 1Picard
  • 1OK, Sure
Reactions: 2 users