Spot the Space Station

[gratus fermentatio]

ISS transits sun during solar eclipse:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJAdndv_0hE[/ame]

 

[passedpawn]

Goodbye Cassini. Kinda makes me sad.

 

[kombat]

Goodbye Cassini. Kinda makes me sad.

You know what makes me sad? That every article on this topic mentions that the reason they deliberately destroyed it was to avoid risking contaminating two moons (Enceladus and Titan) that could potentially harbour life.

Except that they've already potentially contaminated Titan when they landed the Huygens probe on it in 2005.

I get that they don't want to risk contaminating Enceladus, and don't want to risk contaminating Titan further, but as an enthusiast of this kind of stuff, it bugs me that they keep implying that they're trying to keep Titan pristine, so if they ever find life on it, they can be confident it wasn't accidentally delivered there by an earlier probe. I'm sure NASA knows the difference, so I blame lazy journalism.

 

[passedpawn]

You know what makes me sad? That every article on this topic mentions that the reason they deliberately destroyed it was to avoid risking contaminating two moons (Enceladus and Titan) that could potentially harbour life.

Except that they've already potentially contaminated Titan when they landed the Huygens probe on it in 2005.

I get that they don't want to risk contaminating Enceladus, and don't want to risk contaminating Titan further, but as an enthusiast of this kind of stuff, it bugs me that they keep implying that they're trying to keep Titan pristine, so if they ever find life on it, they can be confident it wasn't accidentally delivered there by an earlier probe. I'm sure NASA knows the difference, so I blame lazy journalism.

That's really interesting.

While we do know the elements that make up our world, and we don't expect to find any new ones in our solar system, life will undoubtedly be of a very different form than what's here on earth. That's mainly because the development of life depends completely on environmental pressures, and those pressures are far different on other planets / moons. So yea, I agree, NASA shouldn't have any trouble concluding whether it's a new species or some cling-on from the space probe. I'm no scientist, but I will still guess that there's nothing to be discovered in our solar system, but more likely in another system with a Goldilocks planet.

 

[bob1852]

That's really interesting.

While we do know the elements that make up our world, and we don't expect to find any new ones in our solar system, life will undoubtedly be of a very different form than what's here on earth. That's mainly because the development of life depends completely on environmental pressures, and those pressures are far different on other planets / moons. So yea, I agree, NASA shouldn't have any trouble concluding whether it's a new species or some cling-on* from the space probe. I'm no scientist, but I will still guess that there's nothing to be discovered in our solar system, but more likely in another system with a Goldilocks planet.

*

 

[passedpawn]

*

nice selfie. maybe consider a comb-over?

 

[arturo7]

You know what makes me sad? That every article on this topic mentions that the reason they deliberately destroyed it was to avoid risking contaminating two moons (Enceladus and Titan) that could potentially harbour life.

Except that they've already potentially contaminated Titan when they landed the Huygens probe on it in 2005.

At the time Huygens landed on Titan, the prevailing science said that chances of finding life there were insignificant. This view changed, so the decision was made to scuttle Cassini.

 

[applescrap]

Eclipse pictures, err, kind of. We were laughing hard at these the other night. My wife took these at her work, these were people from her building.

View attachment 1505681242617.jpg

View attachment 1505681250778.jpg

 

[kombat]

At the time Huygens landed on Titan, the prevailing science said that chances of finding life there were insignificant. This view changed, so the decision was made to scuttle Cassini.

Hmm, that's not how I remember it. I can't find any references, but my recollection is that they chose Titan specifically because of its potential for life. The rest of the moons were mostly boring, desolate rocks, but Titan has a thick atmosphere and was overflowing with hydrocarbons. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any references to support this, as it was quite a while ago.

 

[arturo7]

Hmm, that's not how I remember it. I can't find any references, but my recollection is that they chose Titan specifically because of its potential for life. The rest of the moons were mostly boring, desolate rocks, but Titan has a thick atmosphere and was overflowing with hydrocarbons. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any references to support this, as it was quite a while ago.

I heard it in an interview on NPR with someone from the project team. Also googled to confirm.

 

[passedpawn]

60 years ago today in 1958, the US entered the space game with Explorer 1, our first satellite. Just a few years later, president Kennedy stated that an American would walk on the moon within the decade, and indeed it happened in '69.

http://www.latimes.com/science/scie...er-1-60th-anniversary-20180131-htmlstory.html

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

https://twitter.com/tweetsoutloud/status/958837206004592641?s=09

 

[bob1852]

And now we have this...

https://astronomynow.com/2018/01/31/curiosity-snaps-spectacular-mars-panorama/

It's been an amazing 60 years...

 

[MaxStout]

60 years ago today in 1958, the US entered the space game with Explorer 1, our first satellite. Just a few years later, president Kennedy stated that an American would walk on the moon within the decade, and indeed it happened in '69.

http://www.latimes.com/science/scie...er-1-60th-anniversary-20180131-htmlstory.html

I still remember the Apollo 11 landing, us kids glued to the TV as we watched the fuzzy outlines of Armstrong exiting the LEM. I was 10 years old and the event left a lasting impression on me. It was that cool.

When going through my mom's stuff after she passed away last year, I found a box of my old stuff in her garage, including the local newspaper I had saved from '69. I built a frame for the front page and it's now hanging in my home office.

 

[passedpawn]

Falcon Heavy today. I got goosebumps. Elon Musk / SpaceX is the man. Follow along with the countdown with the mission timeline I posted below the video.

Bowie and his tesla (and a reference to HGTTG in the car) at 11:00 was very cool. And the gal who is gushing at 12:30 like she just got a backstage pass to a justin timberlake concert was hilarious.

 

[AJinJacksonville]

I know I must have heard it or read it somewhere...but apparently Harrison Ford flew in to watch the launch...as it was named in part for the Millennium Falcon. How cool is that?

 

[passedpawn]

I know I must have heard it or read it somewhere...but apparently Harrison Ford flew in to watch the launch...as it was named in part for the Millennium Falcon. How cool is that?

If Solo was on the ground then I guess Chewy was in the spaceman suit Nobody else can fly that hunk of garbage.

 

[AJinJacksonville]

Hahaha. Too funny. I'm having mixed feelings on the Solo movie coming up...they've got so many lined up that I feel like we're about to experience a Star Wars dud at some point. Better not be on Solo's watch!

 

[MaxStout]

With the Tesla payload, made me think of this.

 

[Konadog]

It was pretty awesome to watch the two booster rockets land at the same time, not sure if the 3rd landed on the barge (video cut out) . Still pretty cool to watch that stuff come back down and land!

 

[AJinJacksonville]

It was pretty awesome to watch the two booster rockets land at the same time, not sure if the 3rd landed on the barge (video cut out) . Still pretty cool to watch that stuff come back down and land!

Pretty wild stuff. I just checked, and about 20 minutes ago they announced that it missed the drone ship. Haven't found any video of the miss though...

 

[passedpawn]

Side cores landing on the drone ship again at 15:45 in video was equally impressive. Incredible.

Pretty wild stuff. I just checked, and about 20 minutes ago they announced that it missed the drone ship. Haven't found any video of the miss though...

If I was in control I'd cut the public video broadcast if I detected a problem. Super bad PR.

 

[Quadrupled]

It’s also how Lone Starr and Barf got the Winnebago up there to battle Dark Helmet.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Side cores landing on the drone ship again at 15:45 in video was equally impressive. Incredible.


If I was in control I'd cut the public video broadcast if I detected a problem. Super bad PR.

Musk has made some great videos of failures. It's a part of learning. Even this launch he said there was a high probability of failure. Either way it's going to be a great show


From SpaceX.com

 

[passedpawn]

Musk has made some great videos of failures. It's a part of learning. Even this launch he said there was a high probability of failure. Either way it's going to be a great show


From SpaceX.com

Nice, thanks. I'm guessing there's video of the booster that missed the barge. I'm just suggesting that it would detract from the mission successes if the video feed ended with it. I guess it's possible that the video on the barge coincidentally failed just before the booster crashed, but if you can have all that other video, from the falcon and other boosters, working fine, that's a pretty big coincidence.

Anyway, it was a great day and I swear to gawd my nerd buddy and I are driving across the state to watch the next one.

 

[MaxStout]

Yesterday, I thought this was going to be just a stunt. Or the launch was going to blow up on the pad. Now...I'm kind of stoked. Musk might really be on to something. Putting a heavy payload in a cyclic orbit between Earth and Mars will be quite a feat if it continues to work out. Buzz Aldrin developed the idea of a "Mars cycler" that would continuously shuttle crews to and from Mars in roughly 4 year intervals. Looks like this could be a rough approximation of that trajectory.

Long way to go, but nice to see some serious effort to someday get humans to Mars. We haven't had anyone above LEO since '72.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Nice, thanks. I'm guessing there's video of the booster that missed the barge. I'm just suggesting that it would detract from the mission successes if the video feed ended with it. I guess it's possible that the video on the barge coincidentally failed just before the booster crashed, but if you can have all that other video, from the falcon and other boosters, working fine, that's a pretty big coincidence.

Anyway, it was a great day and I swear to gawd my nerd buddy and I are driving across the state to watch the next one.

They do a lot of spy satellites and vehicles. They will cut the videos on them. There was a recent failure of dispatching the Zuma vehicle that failed. Apparently everything went fine with SpaceX. Supposedly Zuma was lost during separation but who knows.....

 

[Konadog]

I just heard that the booster that was supposed to land on the barge ran out of fuel, that's why it missed and splashed down next to the barge. Well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad considering what they are trying to do.

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Everyone likes a good explosion.

 

[day_trippr]

The "out of fuel" thing could explain why they only got one re-entry rocket engine to light (supposedly they use three total) so the center core hit the water around 300mph, incurring some damage to the barge as well...

Cheers!