Space and Science BS Thread

So this just popped into my feed this morning...
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/entertainment/william-shatner-blue-origin-space-mission/index.html

Boldly going where many, many men and women have gone before.

 

https://twitter.com/latestinspace/status/1445154762501066759?s=21

 

https://www.space.com/bright-fireball-meteor-colorado-video

From my front door:

 

Yes, yes I’ve wondered..

https://twitter.com/ulalaunch/status/1445413013222301697?s=21

 

https://twitter.com/rocketrundown/status/1445484427115581452?s=21


Speaking of SpaceX:

https://twitter.com/chrisg_nsf/status/1445771816539099149?s=21


Keep an eye out for additional reassignments.

Starliner is the only reason all members of NASA astronaut group 21, chosen in 2013, haven’t flown. Reassignment of Mann (CFT-2) and Cassada (Starliner-1) might open the door for others to be reassigned.

Other NASA and JAXA Astronauts assigned to Starliner include:
Barry Wilmore
Mike Finke
Suni Williams
Jeanette Epps and
Koichi Wakata

 

WTF is this lens flare shit, is he shooting for the next J J Abrams Star Trek installment?
(But for real awesome to see, thanks for sharing)

 

Makes no sense to keep them stuck in a que that isn’t flying. Better for them and the programs to keep cycling through active schedules.

 

Agreed.

Makes me wonder if NASA regrets going w Boeing rather than SNC’s Dream Chaser. That would’ve been a kick ass ride!

I hope the Cargo Dream Chaser is able to avoid the bs with Vulcan and adapt to an F9 fairing if needed. Don’t know too much about SNC but it seems like they’ve been working on Dream Chaser for at least a decade..

 

My understanding is it'll fit any 5m fairing, so I'm guess it could fit on a Falcon 9. I wonder if at this point there's a signed contract keeping it on Vulcan that'll cost them a lot of money to get out of. Also, if I had to guess Elon is happy to let them wait on Vulcan, while we get to keep seeing 2-3 Dragons docked to ISS at any given time.

I'm not sure we're ever going to see crewed Dream Chaser flights. The big problem is the non-uniform lift distribution, meaning any launch of it either needs a huge fairing, or will have to be able to handle a sideways lift vector that changes as they ascend through the atmosphere. If someone like SpaceX had wanted to do it, it'd be easier, because they wouldn't have to be doing all the external coordination on how to handle that, and could afford to run non-fairing'ed launches of it as a cargo flight. Since SNC would have had to pay a subcontractor for each and every flight, I can understand them running a smaller cargo DC in a fairing.

As a side note, went to an SNC presentation on dream chaser ... 7 or 8 years ago (Something like that?) that they were giving at the Wings Air and Space Museum, and my takeaway at the time was that they were the better part of a decade behind their competitors, and didn't know what they didn't know (that they should have known by then).

 

, much appreciated.

SNC does seem a bit too OldSpace to pull a crewed version off

It's a shame because the design is really cool and pilots would actually be in a position to pilot

 

https://twitter.com/FccSpace/status/1445856398751924227?s=20

 

Funny how the info trickles out as if to soften the blow to the Starliner program:
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1446168953559134210?s=21

 

Guessing the next crewed Dragon gets named “Enterprise”

https://twitter.com/stephenclark1/status/1446176559186984960?s=21

 

I thought they named it Endurance because of all of Boeing's BS they had to endure....

 

Then it would be Job

 

As long as it's not shackleton.

 

I don't know, the guy was kind of a badass.

 

I'm pretty sure that a capsule stuck in the snow and crushed is the last thing I want

 

According to this week’s Rocket Report- the FH flight for USSF-44 has been delayed to early next year

 

In case you didn’t get enough:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/inspiration4photos/