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709
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2012-07-13, 20:58

That looks quite a bit like the Ares V. Is it? The article didn't say either way.


[edit]: Wiki says: "The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 envisions the transformation of the Ares I and Ares V vehicle designs into a single launch vehicle usable for both crew and cargo." So I guess kind've, even though it sure as hell looks like the latter, just with new paint.

So it goes.
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zippy
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2012-07-13, 23:36

This is sort of relevant to the thread - Massive Solar Eruption and CME headed toward planet Earth. Expected to hit around 5-9 am Eastern Saturday. It's and X-Class eruption, so should be a good Northern Lights display, possibly visible to some who are usually a bit too far South for such things.

Do you know where children get all of their energy? - They suck it right out of their parents!
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Dave
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2012-07-14, 01:30

Quote:
Originally Posted by zippy View Post
This is sort of relevant to the thread - Massive Solar Eruption and CME headed toward planet Earth. Expected to hit around 5-9 am Eastern Saturday. It's and X-Class eruption, so should be a good Northern Lights display, possibly visible to some who are usually a bit too far South for such things.
Like... In TX?
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SpecMode
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2012-07-14, 02:32

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave View Post
Like... In TX?
Probably not. Latest forecasts predict the strength of the geomagnetic storm associated with this CME will likely only reach G1, possibly as high as G2 (on a scale of 5). The latter is expected to cause aurorae to appear as far south as New York and Idaho; it would likely take a strong G4 or G5 storm to push it all the way down to Texas (and by that point, we'd probably be preoccupied with other things, like the potential collapse of the national power grid {pdf link}).
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Dave
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2012-07-14, 13:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpecMode View Post
it would likely take a strong G4 or G5 storm to push it all the way down to Texas (and by that point, we'd probably be preoccupied with other things, like the potential collapse of the national power grid {pdf link}).
Huh... Well at least I'd be able to see it with all the light pollution distracting me.

I wonder if I took a picture of it with my iPhone, would it still get into PhotoStream? Cell towers and network backbones have UPSs, right?

Time to stock up on canned soup again...

When I was a kid, people who did wrong were punished, restricted, and forbidden. Now, when someone does wrong, all of the rest of us are punished, restricted, and forbidden... and the one who did the wrong is counselled and "understood" and fed ice cream.
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Quagmire
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2012-07-15, 07:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by 709 View Post
That looks quite a bit like the Ares V. Is it? The article didn't say either way.


[edit]: Wiki says: "The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 envisions the transformation of the Ares I and Ares V vehicle designs into a single launch vehicle usable for both crew and cargo." So I guess kind've, even though it sure as hell looks like the latter, just with new paint.
Yeah, it does look like the Ares V, but it is a little different. Mainly in the core stage. The Ares V was going to use the RS-68 engine( the same engine the Delta IV uses). The SLS will use the RS-25D's( which are the Shuttle's SSME's) until the remaining engines are used up and then switch over to the RS-25E's which would be cheaper and be more practical to be expendable.

giggity
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SpecMode
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2012-07-16, 00:31

The geomagnetic storm associated with that CME finally hit G2 strength this morning, and has stayed at around that level all day. There doesn't seem to be any indication that it'll get any worse from this point, though obviously SWPC is keeping an eye out for any additional activity.

Last edited by SpecMode : 2012-07-16 at 00:55. Reason: Added link
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Moogs
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2012-08-30, 11:14

This is a giant pile of coolness.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19421453

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Moogs
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2012-09-10, 15:56

Best Curiosity animation I've seen, from launch, to landing, to mission.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw
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curiousuburb
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2012-09-10, 17:17

Looks like it mirrors EYES ON THE SOLAR SYSTEM - NASA's own visualisation toolkit... Anyone can use the free web app to "Ride along on an asteroid orbit, or follow Curiosity during flight, or cruise over the Moon with GRAIL, or join VOYAGER 1 or 2, or check out the JUNO mission"

Same workstation-quality visuals, real telemetry/data, but now with user configurable cameras etc.

All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.
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Moogs
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2012-09-11, 13:04

That is a really cool interactive concept. Reminds me of Celestia a little bit but inside the browser and more features / control.
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Quagmire
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2012-09-14, 04:28

Endeavour has begun her trip to the mate/de-mate device.
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Moogs
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2012-09-18, 12:52

Hey Burbs check your email when you get a chance. Meantime, did you guys know Curiosity is on Twitter? Over a million followers already. Pretty humorous / good way to get kids involved in science missions.

@MarsCuriosity

...into the light of a dark black night.
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curiousuburb
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2012-09-25, 09:21

NASA proposes Deep Space Base

As in 'past the Moon and then some'.

Quote:
Documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that NASA wants to build a small outpost — likely with parts left over from the $100 billion International Space Station — at what's known as the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2, a spot about 38,000 miles from the moon and 277,000 miles from Earth.

At that location, the combined gravities of the Earth and moon reach equilibrium, making it possible to "stick" an outpost there with minimal power required to keep it in place.

To get there, NASA would use the massive rocket and space capsule that it is developing as a successor to the retired space shuttle. A first flight of that rocket is planned for 2017, and construction of the outpost would begin two years later, according to NASA planning documents.

Potential missions include the study of nearby asteroids or dispatching robotic trips to the moon that would gather moon rocks and bring them back to astronauts at the outpost. The outpost also would lay the groundwork for more-ambitious trips to Mars' moons and even Mars itself, about 140 million miles away on average.

Placing a "spacecraft at the Earth-Moon Lagrange point beyond the moon as a test area for human access to deep space is the best near-term option to develop required flight experience and mitigate risk," concluded the NASA report.

From NASA's perspective, the outpost solves several problems.

It gives purpose to the Orion space capsule and the Space Launch System rocket, which are being developed at a cost of about $3 billion annually. It involves NASA's international partners, as blueprints for the outpost suggest using a Russian-built module and components from Italy. And the outpost would represent a baby step toward NASA's ultimate goal: human footprints on Mars.

... continues ...
Far out, dude... waaaaay far out.

Last edited by curiousuburb : 2012-09-25 at 09:31.
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Moogs
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2012-09-25, 10:25

Interesting. Not sure that's the best way to spend NASA's "half a penny on the dollar" budget (as Neil DeGrasse Tyson puts it). It seems like a solution in search of a real problem or objective. Why put people at an L2 orbit to get rocks from the moon... wouldn't it be easier to just go directly back to the moon and return?

The L2 point is where the James Webb Telescope will be... so I suppose NASA could propose that being able to get there would enable servicing missions but seems like those types of missions would be more expensive than Hubble missions and I don't know that the JWST is being built with servicing missions in mind (swappable modules, etc).

Fuel depot to Mars... also seems like a short-sighted idea. Not exactly sure to what degree a manned flight to Mars would require a refuel after launch, but seems like we'd have to spend and risk an awful lot of money and life just to get fuel safely stored at that point, in a way that could be offloaded onto a ship that arrives there on its way to MArs or somewhere else. Wouldn't it be better to have a fuel station much closer to earth? Both in terms of cost, risk, and making it easier to fix if something goes wrong initially? The launch itself is the biggest fuel guzzler so... why would the refueling need to be so far away?

...into the light of a dark black night.
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curiousuburb
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2012-09-26, 09:51

First there was the Hubble Deep Field... then there was the Ultra Deep Field... now behold the eXtreme Deep Field.



Click images for alternate sizes and top link for video explanation


Quote:
Like photographers assembling a portfolio of best shots, astronomers have assembled a new, improved portrait of mankind's deepest-ever view of the universe.

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time.

The new full-color XDF image reaches much fainter galaxies, and includes very deep exposures in red light from Hubble's new infrared camera, enabling new studies of the earliest galaxies in the universe. The XDF contains about 5,500 galaxies even within its smaller field of view. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.

Magnificent spiral galaxies similar in shape to our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy appear in this image, as do the large, fuzzy red galaxies where the formation of new stars has ceased. These red galaxies are the remnants of dramatic collisions between galaxies and are in their declining years. Peppered across the field are tiny, faint, more distant galaxies that were like the seedlings from which today's striking galaxies grew. The history of galaxies — from soon after the first galaxies were born to the great galaxies of today, like our Milky Way — is laid out in this one remarkable image.

Hubble pointed at a tiny patch of southern sky in repeat visits (made over the past decade) for a total of 50 days, with a total exposure time of 2 million seconds. More than 2,000 images of the same field were taken with Hubble's two premier cameras — the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3, which extends Hubble's vision into near-infrared light — and combined to make the XDF.

"The XDF is the deepest image of the sky ever obtained and reveals the faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen. XDF allows us to explore further back in time than ever before," said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz, principal investigator of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009 (HUDF09) program.

The universe is 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF reveals galaxies that span back 13.2 billion years in time. Most of the galaxies in the XDF are seen when they were young, small, and growing, often violently as they collided and merged together. The early universe was a time of dramatic birth for galaxies containing brilliant blue stars extraordinarily brighter than our Sun. The light from those past events is just arriving at Earth now, and so the XDF is a "time tunnel into the distant past." The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the universe's birth in the big bang.
... continues ...

Quote:
This image compares the angular size of the XDF field to the angular size of the full Moon. The XDF is a very small fraction of sky area, but it provides a "core sample" of the heavens by penetrating deep into space over a sightline of over 13 billion light-years. Several thousand galaxies are contained within this small field of view. At an angular diameter of one-half degree, the Moon spans an area of sky only one-half the width of a finger held at arm's length.

Quote:
This illustration separates the XDF into three planes showing foreground, background, and very far background galaxies. These divisions reflect different epochs in the evolving universe. Fully mature galaxies are in the foreground plane that shows galaxies as they looked less than 5 billion years ago. The universe is rich in evolving, nearly mature galaxies from 5 to 9 billion years ago. Beyond 9 billion years the universe is awash in compact galaxies and proto-galaxies, blazing with young stars.
[/Boggles][/Mind]

Last edited by curiousuburb : 2012-09-26 at 10:12. Reason: Trying to get reasonably sized images
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Moogs
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2012-10-02, 08:40

Holy....

Perfect timing too as I read Neil DeGrasse Tyson's book every night relating to this and connected subjects. Awesome. Maybe the JWST will help us to see all the way back to the initial states of matter (the uber-cloud).


I feel shame for my contribution today... harpooning space junk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19798745

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Quagmire
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2012-10-02, 09:03

NASA gives contracts to ATK, Dynetics, and Northrop Grumman for the advanced booster for the SLS.

Dynetics is the group that is proposing the F-1 powered boosters. ATK is of course sticking with solid fuel. Seems like Northrop Grumman is just developing the fuel tanks for the booster. So it is pretty much down to ATK's SRB's and Dynetics F-1 powered boosters. Go Dynetics.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012...iR0LE.facebook

EDIT: Ha. Got NASA's social network people to respond on Facebook saying that safety is their number one goal for SLS after trashing SRB's.

giggity

Last edited by Quagmire : 2012-10-02 at 14:18.
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Moogs
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2012-10-05, 22:56

Massive Radio Telescope array Down Under.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19840976
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Moogs
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2012-10-12, 10:15

First rock study shows signs of water, volcanic forces similar to earth, on Mars.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19923118
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Quagmire
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2012-10-13, 17:49

Great photo's of Endeavour's ongoing move through LA.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/12/us/gal...html?hpt=hp_t1

Though this is a major fail CNN.....

Quote:
Completed in 1991, Endeavour was built to replace the space shuttle Challenger, which disintegrated during a catastrophic re-entry accident. This fifth and final space shuttle orbiter circled the Earth 4,671 times and traveled nearly 123 million miles during its 25 missions from 1992 to 2011.

giggity
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tomoe
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2012-10-13, 23:50

Nothing of note to add other than a few weeks ago I went to the Presidio in San Francisco and watched the Endeavour flyover. Was pretty awesome, to say the least.
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curiousuburb
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2012-10-14, 12:36

www.redbullstratos.com

Felix Baumgartner just pipped Joe Kittinger's record for highest human in a balloon.

About to make his jump...

Live YouTube streaming linked there.

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Moogs
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2012-10-14, 12:53

Beat me to it... I don't like this mission control guy. He seems not 100% focused / too casual about this checklist.

This is amazing this guy is going to end up around 128,000 feet.

What was also curious to me was the temperature inversions at high altitude. Was much colder outside the capsule around 50K feet vs where he is now. I thought it was continually get colder.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Dave
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2012-10-14, 13:00

The video's not working. :-/
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Moogs
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2012-10-14, 13:03

Good here. Not opened the door yet / pressure not 100% equalize. Altitude now dropping slightly.
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Moogs
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2012-10-14, 13:04

Door's open. Man this mission guy is a doofus. Not cool.
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Moogs
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2012-10-14, 13:05

Inching his way out of capsule... holy fucking shit. I'm getting nervous just looking at the feed.

God Speed Alex.
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Moogs
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2012-10-14, 13:08

Jesus.
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Moogs
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2012-10-14, 13:11

So they turn off the telemetry in the feed during the most critical part. Nice job Red Bull.
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