The Astronomy Thread

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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Sending humans to Mars is still a stupid proposition. Until Elon gets his robot army building facilities. And even then we only have a dozen or so folks willing to test the experience at the poles. A big group signed up to go to Mars, but 99.999% are literally insane and not appropriate or educated enough. And a fear campaign (death of the earth, global warming, climate change, etc) isn't gonna get it done, either.

Yeah I remember when that happened. It was advertised as a 1-way trip too. Those people are basically signing up to die in a Winnebago with a bunch of strangers and never eat another good meal in however many years it takes for that to happen. I'm sure it would feel pretty amazing to be the first person on an alien planet, but I bet the view out the window would get old pretty fast and the regret wouldn't take long to set in.
 
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meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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After stealing rocks from Ryugu Japan's Hayabusa-2 returns 6 years after it's launch to attack Australia.


Sample return container will land in Australia this weekend.
 

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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6 spacecraft at the ISS as of today w/ the arrival of cargo dragon.

1607367031002.png
 
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Oldbased

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14 hours till first solid window for SN8 15km jump.
 
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Aaron

Goonsquad Officer
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Long term survival of the species dictates we need to leave Earth at some point. At some juncture we will need resources beyond what is on the Earth, or even the moon. We need to start pushing now, not when shit has hit the fan and we are all scrambling for a solution.

On an order of magnitude, Mars is closer to the belt than Earth in any event. It has abundant water, and presumably resources that can only develop with the presence of water.

1990s me would agree with you. 2020 me wishes the giant meteor would hurry up and put an end to our missery. Maybe the sentient cockroaches will do better in 300 million years.
 
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Oldbased

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You can actually see the fail to ignite on 1( maybe 2? )engines that caused the t-1 abort.
Good system to abort within a second at least.
Another attempt possible today or tomorrow.
Didn't realize they were trying so much stuff. Something is likely to go wrong as they admit.
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Due to a Raptor engine auto-abort at T-1 second, the SpaceX team is standing down from Tuesday's attempt of a high-altitude suborbital flight test of Starship serial number 8 (SN8) from our site in Cameron County, Texas. We have additional test opportunities available on Wednesday, December 9 and Thursday, December 10. The schedule is dynamic and likely to change, as is the case with all development testing. Stay tuned for more information on the next target test date and time.

This suborbital flight is designed to test a number of objectives, from how the vehicle’s three Raptor engines perform to the overall aerodynamic entry capabilities of the vehicle (including its body flaps) to how the vehicle manages propellant transition. SN8 will also attempt to perform a landing flip maneuver, which would be a first for a vehicle of this size.

With a test such as this, success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship.
 

Kiroy

Marine Biologist
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well it beefed hard and blew up but damn - almost worked! that's a success
 
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