The Astronomy Thread

Lambourne

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We're basically in another Space Race to put a man* on the moon by 2030, will it be China or SpaceX?

*I could see China sending a woman just to dunk on the west. It's not important to them but they know it's important to the west. Cultural victory and all that.
 

Aaron

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Why hasn't NASA put guys back on the moon in 50 years? They can't. I was never, ever a believer in Capricorn One. But God damned, I look at NASA today and think "how the fuck did these losers put guys on the moon and bring them back 50 years ago?"
One had an agency full of straight, white guys where were hired based on meritocracy. The other is an agency filled with diversity hires to look good.

I recently read James A. Mitchner's Space. It is a long, historical novel about the US Space program right from the Nazis testing V2s in Germany through to the moon landings and beyond. One theme of the book is "why are their no blacks in the photos?" and the subsequent hunt for some black people "to make the pictures look more representative of America". And this is Mitchner here, a life long Democrat and lover of diversity, yet even in his books you can see it was all about looks and not competency.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Anyone hear boo about Polaris Dawn's new launch date? All I'm seeing is news that SpaceX is grounded.
Elon should tell the gubmint to go get those stranded astronauts themselves. And stop sending up resupply missions to the ISS.
 
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Gravel

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I wonder if the astronauts were polled and asked if they would rather take the Starliner back down or stay in space another 6 months and wait for SpaceX.
Makes you wonder if anyone will be willing to fly a Boeing spacecraft ever again. I'm sure someone will, but holy fuck I don't even want to fly a Boeing plane much less get marooned in space because of their dumb shit.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Makes you wonder if anyone will be willing to fly a Boeing spacecraft ever again. I'm sure someone will, but holy fuck I don't even want to fly a Boeing plane much less get marooned in space because of their dumb shit.
I'm not willing to fly a Boeing aircraft anymore. We took a longer flight to/from Vancouver just to fly an Airbus 321 both ways.
 
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Kiroy

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Polaris Dawn is back on for Wednesday (baring weather again).

This is a crazy mission - they gonna be streaming the whole shabang? Seems like a type of mission a lot of things could go wrong.
 
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Kajiimagi

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This is a crazy mission - they gonna be streaming the whole shabang? Seems like a type of mission a lot of things could go wrong.
My understanding is the whole thing will be streamed. The man guy has already been up in a dragon before. He's cool AF, flies a Mig-29 that he owns.
 
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