Space In General
- Thread starter BubbleBelly542
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
Dotini
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Dunno, I'm not overly well informed on this. Someone has to take overall responsibility for the Launch portion of the program. I thought the prime contractor was Lockheed Martin.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
NASA are coordinating the launch of a Lockheed capsule on a Boeing platform. Naturally all three agencies are heavily represented on the launch and control teams, and therefore on the anomaly-investigation teams that gather for debugging critical holds in the procedure.
The British spaceshot will be coordinated by Virgin trains with an Austin capsule on a Triumph platform. They're not sure when it'll go because Bob's at the doctor's all next Tuesday.
- 2,726
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- ECGadget
- Eh???
Tuesday? I thought he was going in on Monday?
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
Dotini
(Banned)
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- CR80_Shifty
http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=105025
Check out this bizarre image of the Moon.
Check out this bizarre image of the Moon.
CodeRedR51
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Good thing I can arrive at work whenever I want. Might need the extra 30-45 minutes.
Edit: or not.
Edit: or not.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
Tueday's free
Actually, it isn't free. Stupid Ten. There's another party due in next week so Orion has to fly this week, misses the booking or negotiate with other parties for them to relocate their own bookings. Problem is that the weather is worsening and it was already (clearly) marginal today.
BBC.
Tired Tyres
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- Tired_Tyres
- Tired Tyres
Live picture, no sound yet. I love seeing rockets in the dark.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.VIGCOTBCKYh
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.VIGCOTBCKYh
CodeRedR51
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Missed the launch. 
Had my alarm clock all set and ready to go, then woke up this morning at 8:45. (and late for work!) I guess I hit snooze and turned it off, and really have no memory of doing so at all. Oh well, glad to see everything went down without any issues. 
Had my alarm clock all set and ready to go, then woke up this morning at 8:45. (and late for work!) I guess I hit snooze and turned it off, and really have no memory of doing so at all. Oh well, glad to see everything went down without any issues. 
- 31,701
- Buckwheat City
- Dennisch
Biggest ever telescope get approval for construction
Sure, it will take 10 years to build, but isn't it something? 39 meter, 128 feet of shiny surface to take pictures with.
👍
Sure, it will take 10 years to build, but isn't it something? 39 meter, 128 feet of shiny surface to take pictures with.
👍
- 31,701
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- Dennisch
At 3:30 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) today, the probe's main computer will start waking up the rest of the instruments from their last hibernation. Then, at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT), New Horizons will send a simple confirmation message to scientists at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Moving at the speed of light, the message will take 4 hours and 25 minutes to travel all the way back to Earth.
Source
Source
Dotini
(Banned)
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- CR80_Shifty
From today's edition of spaceweather.com:
GROWING PERIL FOR ASTRONAUTS? NASA's successful test flight of Orion on Dec. 5th heralds a renewed capability to send astronauts into deep space. A paper just published in the journal Space Weather, however, points out a growing peril to future deep space explorers: cosmic rays. The title of the article, penned by Nathan Schwadron of the University of New Hampshire and colleagues from seven other institutions, asks the provocative question, "Does the worsening galactic cosmic ray environment preclude manned deep space exploration?" Using data from a cosmic ray telescope onboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they conclude that while increasing fluxes of cosmic rays "are not a show stopper for long duration missions (e.g., to the Moon, an asteroid, or Mars), galactic cosmic radiation remains a significant and worsening factor that limits mission durations." This figure from their paper shows the number of days a 30 year old astronaut can spend in interplanetary space before they reach their career limit in radiation exposure:
According to the plot, in the year 2014, a 30 year old male flying in a spaceship with 10 g/cm2 of aluminum shielding could spend approximately 700 days in deep space before they reach their radiation dose limit. The same astronaut in the early 1990s could have spent 1000 days in space.
What's going on? Cosmic rays are intensifying. Galactic cosmic rays are a mixture of high-energy photons and subatomic particles accelerated to near-light speed by violent events such as supernova explosions. Astronauts are protected from cosmic rays in part by the sun: solar magnetic fields and the solar wind combine to create a porous 'shield' that fends off energetic particles from outside the solar system. The problem is, as the authors note, "The sun and its solar wind are currently exhibiting extremely low densities and magnetic field strengths, representing states that have never been observed during the Space Age. As a result of the remarkably weak solar activity, we have also observed the highest fluxes of cosmic rays in the Space Age."
The shielding action of the sun is strongest during solar maximum and weakest during solar minimum--hence the 11-year rhythm of the mission duration plot. At the moment we are experiencing Solar Max, which should be a good time for astronauts to fly--but it's not a good time. The solar maximum of 2011-2014 is the weakest in a century, allowing unusual numbers of cosmic rays to penetrate the solar system.
This situation could become even worse if, as some researchers suspect, the sun is entering a long-term phase of the solar cycle characterized by relatively weak maxima and deep, extended minima. In such a future, feeble solar magnetic fields would do an extra-poor job keeping cosmic rays at bay, further reducing the number of days astronauts can travel far from Earth.
To learn more about this interesting research, read the complete article in the online edition of Space Weather.
GROWING PERIL FOR ASTRONAUTS? NASA's successful test flight of Orion on Dec. 5th heralds a renewed capability to send astronauts into deep space. A paper just published in the journal Space Weather, however, points out a growing peril to future deep space explorers: cosmic rays. The title of the article, penned by Nathan Schwadron of the University of New Hampshire and colleagues from seven other institutions, asks the provocative question, "Does the worsening galactic cosmic ray environment preclude manned deep space exploration?" Using data from a cosmic ray telescope onboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they conclude that while increasing fluxes of cosmic rays "are not a show stopper for long duration missions (e.g., to the Moon, an asteroid, or Mars), galactic cosmic radiation remains a significant and worsening factor that limits mission durations." This figure from their paper shows the number of days a 30 year old astronaut can spend in interplanetary space before they reach their career limit in radiation exposure:
According to the plot, in the year 2014, a 30 year old male flying in a spaceship with 10 g/cm2 of aluminum shielding could spend approximately 700 days in deep space before they reach their radiation dose limit. The same astronaut in the early 1990s could have spent 1000 days in space.
What's going on? Cosmic rays are intensifying. Galactic cosmic rays are a mixture of high-energy photons and subatomic particles accelerated to near-light speed by violent events such as supernova explosions. Astronauts are protected from cosmic rays in part by the sun: solar magnetic fields and the solar wind combine to create a porous 'shield' that fends off energetic particles from outside the solar system. The problem is, as the authors note, "The sun and its solar wind are currently exhibiting extremely low densities and magnetic field strengths, representing states that have never been observed during the Space Age. As a result of the remarkably weak solar activity, we have also observed the highest fluxes of cosmic rays in the Space Age."
The shielding action of the sun is strongest during solar maximum and weakest during solar minimum--hence the 11-year rhythm of the mission duration plot. At the moment we are experiencing Solar Max, which should be a good time for astronauts to fly--but it's not a good time. The solar maximum of 2011-2014 is the weakest in a century, allowing unusual numbers of cosmic rays to penetrate the solar system.
This situation could become even worse if, as some researchers suspect, the sun is entering a long-term phase of the solar cycle characterized by relatively weak maxima and deep, extended minima. In such a future, feeble solar magnetic fields would do an extra-poor job keeping cosmic rays at bay, further reducing the number of days astronauts can travel far from Earth.
To learn more about this interesting research, read the complete article in the online edition of Space Weather.
- 24,553
- Frankfort, KY
- GTP_FoolKiller
- FoolKiller1979
It must be anthropogenic space climate change.
Dotini
(Banned)
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- Seattle
- CR80_Shifty
The predictions are for almost zero sunspots for the years 2018 and 2019.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Predict.txt
The last time that happened was the mid-1600's, or "Little Ice Age", when the Thames River froze over.
The Svensmark hypothesis is that flat-lining solar magnetic fields admit more cosmic rays which nucleate more cloud cover which means Earth gets cooler. Another Ice Age? Maybe.
Solar physicists now seem to be able to predict solar cycles. But the truth is, the future is not set in stone and we don't really know. But you can bet your tax dollars are now going to study the effects of both global warming and global cooling, a comforting if expensive stance on the part of government.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/index.html
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Predict.txt
The last time that happened was the mid-1600's, or "Little Ice Age", when the Thames River froze over.
The Svensmark hypothesis is that flat-lining solar magnetic fields admit more cosmic rays which nucleate more cloud cover which means Earth gets cooler. Another Ice Age? Maybe.
Solar physicists now seem to be able to predict solar cycles. But the truth is, the future is not set in stone and we don't really know. But you can bet your tax dollars are now going to study the effects of both global warming and global cooling, a comforting if expensive stance on the part of government.
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- Dennisch
CodeRedR51
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Looking forward to the SpaceX ISS resupply launch next week. Apparently they are going to try and land the Falcon9 on a barge in the ocean.
