Space and Science BS Thread

https://twitter.com/tgmetsfan98/status/1578349147509624835?s=46&t=6ZyAxTfiI4_W59RCkgu2LA
Uncropped pic:


Made it!

 

Seeing these photos and conjecture Starship might be flying soon, made me think of how quickly Crew Dragon has dominated recent human orbital flights.

Since 5/30/20, the launch of DM-2, there has been no less than 8 crewed flights of the Crewed Dragon.

If successful, does Starship beat it?

 

From this week’s Rocket Report:
Falcon Heavy launch later this month. The world's largest active rocket is set to fly again as soon as October 28 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a long-delayed national security mission for the US Space Force, Spaceflight Now reports. The Falcon Heavy rocket mission, codenamed USSF-44, is expected to be the next launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy following Wednesday's Crew-5 launch. The USSF-44 mission was originally scheduled to launch in late 2020 but has been delayed nearly two years by issues with the Space Force payload.

Lots more flights in the hopper ... A military spokesperson told the publication that the USSF-44 payload issues are now resolved, without offering additional details. This will be the first Falcon Heavy launch in more than three years. However, such missions should become much more frequent as long-delayed payloads start becoming ready to fly. Tom Ochinero, SpaceX’s vice president of commercial sales, said in September that the company plans six Falcon Heavy missions over the next 12 months. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Bold, italics and underline by me

 

https://twitter.com/engineers_feed/status/1578383348744876034?s=46&t=6ZyAxTfiI4_W59RCkgu2LA

 

Booster 7 is currently being hugged by the Chopsticks. They will probably lift it onto the OLM sometime today.

 

A lot will depend on the success(or lack of it)of BE-4 and both the Vulcan and New Glenn rockets they are supposed to power and they still need more engines as well as time to test and integrate them. I’d be very surprised to see any military payloads before 2024. Falcon Heavy won’t have any competition for some time yet.

 

I think complete success would certainly beat everything else hands down. Since the shuttle nothing has carried as many crew on one mission and “success” would mean several times as many people or as many with several times the cargo, or simply more of both. Still a ways to go yet but even the initial success of the cargo version will be a game changer. I still think that there will be a market for smaller crewed missions and if Spacex doesn’t fill that void with a methalox Raptor powered Falcon then somebody else will. With all of the various space stations that will be in orbit some will need a bus and some just a taxi.

 

Pic ‘O the ‘Evning: https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/1578885854893813762?s=46&t=kZ8vxkeQ3DOF-fqJCva2WA

 

The Crew 5 CMR and PLT were the last of the ‘8 Balls’ to fly:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Astronaut_Group_21

A long time to wait to do your job.

Jeanette Epps, from the earlier 2009 class, has yet to fly but is assigned to the Starliner 1 mission. She’ll be the last ‘Chump’ to fly.

 

I don't for one minute believe the "official" explanation of their class nickname

 

Yeah, that’s right, NASA is in the business of recruiting coke addicts for their astronaut corps

 

Wasn't exactly what I had in mind, was think more of something along the lines of there being 8 people in the class but only 8 balls...

But let's not forget about Lisa Nowack, NASA has missed the mark before.

 

Glad to see SpaceX put B7 back up on the OLM today.

 

And let’s hope for the last time!

 

https://www.space.com/nasa-capstone-moon-probe-stop-tumbling-space

 

A visual representation:
https://twitter.com/nicansuini/status/1579577996444598272?s=46&t=KGq9w4eLkeWgf5zYca4CRA

 

It took them probably 20 minutes to get it down the last ~3 feet.

 

I wonder who made those valves.

 

I don’t think it was the manufacturing. From the last line of the article:
An improperly formatted command caused the issue and engineers addressed it successfully the next day.

 

DART update today:
https://twitter.com/nasa_marshall/status/1579592612021170176?s=46&t=taWiWJ0F46F-E_kk0UA7Hw