The Official Space and Astronomy Thread v. Well, this is weird.

[cramx3]

RIP

[Azyiu]

It was a spectacular mission finale to a GREAT mission! Thanks, Cassini 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I'm so fascinated and amazed by the thought that this spacecraft been in space for 20 years and was still functional until the very end. Kind of puts things in perspective when you think about everything that's happend on Earth since it's launch in 97.
These types of spacecrafts and it's missions are such a monumental engineering and technical achievement that is not highlighted enough in mainstream media imo, atleast not the work behind the scenes. I can only imagine how emotional it must be for those people that worked on the mission from start to finish when the signal was finally lost.

Nice video about the mission:
https://youtu.be/aqSCoQJxbMI

[Azyiu]

^ lovely video, so well done... again, thank you Cassini.

[MirrorMask]

These types of spacecrafts and it's missions are such a monumental engineering and technical achievement that is not highlighted enough in mainstream media imo, atleast not the work behind the scenes. I can only imagine how emotional it must be for those people that worked on the mission from start to finish when the signal was finally lost.

Indeed, I've read a comment somewhere about it and if you really think about it, it's a day job for some people, and after all this time having no longer to follow the spacecraft, it's a bittersweet feeling.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

So what do you guys think about this:

SpaceX Intercontinental Transport System

It's a cool idea if it ever becomes reality but honestly, who's it for? I'm guessing rich people. Heard something about 50k for a ticket.

[jasc15]

All he is talking about is the possibility of using sub orbital flight to travel to other places on the globe.  This is easier than getting into orbit.  The trouble of course is in the details.  Spacex has made good progress in reusing first stage boosters, but its a very different thing to (economically) make reusable terminal stage vehicles, especially with the safety required for transporting civilian passengers.  You won't be boarding in your business suit and tie.

[El Barto]

I doubt many would find this anywhere near as interesting as I did, but on the off chance someone might, this thing really sucked me in last night. I wound up listening for 2 hours or so, well past my bedtime (and intend to continue it later). Somebody put together ~6 hours of the flight director loop from the Apollo 13 accident, beginning about five minutes prior to the kaboom. You basically hear everything that was done afterward, in real time, and from the perspective of the top dog; Krantz at first and Glenn Lunney for most of it. You hear CAPCOM and whichever astronaut he's talking to in the background (CAPCOM sat next to FLIGHT), but what you're listening to is FLIGHT and whichever controller he's engaging. We all know the story, but hearing it like this is both fascinating as hell and more than a little dramatic without the need for Imagine Entertainment to make it so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWfnY9cRXO4

Some quick takeaways:

The whole thing developed very slowly. Ron Howard and The Discovery Channel make it seem like they're all over it from the second it goes bang. In reality it was 3 or 4 minutes until anybody even brought it to FLIGHT's attention and another half hour before the reality of the situation started to set in.

The incident occurred with about an hour remaining in Krantz's white team shift. He gets all the attention now, because he's genuinely a stone cold badass, but there were a lot of supermen working this thing. Lunney, and in particular Sy Lybergot (EECOM), deserve way more credit than they'll ever get. Sy should have a freaking statue somewhere in the grounds of JSC, AFAIC.

It's amazing to me that 1 hour into a crisis situation Krantz just up and announces, "alright, time to let black team deal with this," and hands off the whole thing to the next crew who just arrived. If I were in his position I think they'd have to drag me out of there in a straight jacket.

Those people give new meaning to Grace Under Pressure. The situation slowly evolves from "maybe it's an instrumentation failure," to "whatever you don don't fuck up the moon landing," to "Christ, those guys might really die up there," and there's never a change in their tone or demeanor. It's all just problem solving to those guys. Quite remarkable.

[Chino]

That sounds awesome. If I could get on the wifi at work I'd definitely listen to that in its entirety tomorrow.

[El Barto]

I downloaded them from Youtube and copied them over to my phone. Unfortunately whatever YT Downloader I use won't save them as MP3s, so they remain video files.

[Chino]

I downloaded them from Youtube and copied them over to my phone. Unfortunately whatever YT Downloader I use won't save them as MP3s, so they remain video files.

Oh, that's fine. As long as I'm not chewing through my data. I have a 128GB microSD card in my phone just for occasions like this. I never thought to download the Youtube vid. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Luoto]

Lapland got a decent sized rock from space today, the air burst was well bright enough to turn night into day. The furthest observation was about 600 km away from the explosion.

Facebook video. Totally digging the thumbnail, because at this time of year it's not even possible for the day to be that bright without a fireball

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I love reading about old missions still being active, must be a very special feeling and honor for scientists to work on a mission like Voyager, a true testament to the brilliant engineers that buildt the spacecraft 40 years ago.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/12/after-37-years-voyager-has-fired-up-its-trajectory-thrusters/

[cramx3]

Took this pic of the super moon last night with my new camera:

[MirrorMask]

Pretty nice!

I've seen the moon. There's a fragment of it at the Science and Technology Museum of Milan. I would have never imagined seeing such a tiny rock would give me so much emotion!!!

[The Walrus]

That's an incredible shot, cram. Wow.

[cramx3]

That's an incredible shot, cram. Wow.

Im no photographer or anything, I hardly know how to use the basic settings of my new camera, but it has a really good zoom and just using the auto settings and handheld was easily able to snap this.  Helps to have a clear sky with a huge moon, but I'm happy with how simple and easy the camera is while being able to take a quality photo.  I actually took similar ones the last few nights leading up to the super moon hoping for a clear sky.  Flew home last night before taking that photo and the sky was sooo lit up and beautifully reflecting off the clouds below.  Definitely one of the best flights I've ever had.

[Podaar]

I'm impressed with the optical chip in your camera. I pulled your shot into photoshop and did some level tweaks and there is quite a bit of detail even in the white areas. Very nice.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Nice photo Cram! 

[cramx3]

That's pretty cool Podaar!

[Podaar]

The detail in the giant craters on the upper right edge are fantastic.

[jasc15]

What the hell lens were you using to "just using the auto settings and handheld.'?

[cramx3]

This is the camera and deal I used to get it from costco.  I mainly bought it for filming concerts (worked wonderfully for that too, check out the DT tour threads if interested where I posted links).

https://www.costco.com/Panasonic-LUMIX-ZS60-Travel-Camera-Bundle.product.100354931.html

I'm no photographer.  This is my first time working with a non phone camera so I'm a total newb when it comes to shutterspeeds and aperture.  I am learning, but literally it was auto sensing and hand held so I am creditting the camera, not anything that I did to take that picture.  I did see a youtube review of the camera with someone zooming in and out of the moon to know this was possible though.  Otherwise I don't think I would have thought my camera would be able to take such a nice photo of the moon.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

This could easily only be a commercial or cinematic but the fact that a "crazy" billionare is actually going to do it is hilarious. NASA would never in a million years do it even if they wanted too. Good times to be a space nerd.

Hopefully it won't blow up although that would also be kind of awesome.

https://youtu.be/Tk338VXcb24

[El Barto]

I gave very serious thought to flying out there to see this. Spent a couple of hours trip planning to see if I could pull it off. Seeing a rocket launch, and then ideally a rocket explosion, is very high on my list of things to do. This one stands a very good chance of meeting both requirements. Even Musk was kind of clear that it's got a decent chance of blowing up before reaching orbit. Also, SoA is playing the Wang this weekend, so it would have been a pretty good trip. The dealbreaker was that they extended the range saftey area to include the Playa Linda beach for this launch, so the best viewing locale is out. Outside of KSC tickets, which are already sold out, you can only get to within about 13 miles or so.

[lonestar]

Thanks for the heads up, I got the morning off, will make sure to tune it.

[Azyiu]

Seeing a rocket launch, and then ideally a rocket explosion, is very high on my list of things to do.

You evil you, lol! 

[Chino]

I booked a meeting room tomorrow and blocked off my calendar for the launch. I plan on watching it on a huge projector. I'm effing stoked. I'm predicting a successful launch with both side boosters landing on land and the center core exploding on impact when it tries to touch down on Of Course I Still Love You.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I'm rooting for 100% success just because that would be such a big win for the company and a big step forward for space aviation. Then again as long as the whole thing dosen't explode immediately and the main rocket survives all the stages one booster failure won't really be a big deal in the long run.

I booked a meeting room tomorrow and blocked off my calendar for a launch. I plan on watching it on a huge projector. I'm effing stoked. I'm predicting a successful launch with both side boosters landing on land and the center core exploding on impact when it tries to touch down on Of Course I Still Love You.

That would be best of both worlds in a way, the main rocket survives and heads for Mars while we get two awesome booster landings and everything ends with an epic explosion. 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Update: Falcon Heavy is scheduled to launch Feb. 6 at 2:20 pm E.T.

[BlobVanDam]

So that's about an hour from now?

Damn, I'll probably have to watch this on my phone while in bed.

[Chino]

I just read that it got pushed to 3:15 because of high altitude winds.  I have a meeting with a real asshole at 3:00 that I can't move or reschedule. 

[BlobVanDam]

Damn, I thought that time already was the pushed back time. Looks like I won't get to watch it live.

[Chino]

I just read that it got pushed to 3:15 because of high altitude winds.  I have a meeting with a real asshole at 3:00 that I can't move or reschedule.

Scratch that.

3:05

My bad

[Chino]

Got bumped to 3:45.

No way this is happening today. Their launch window closes at 4:00