Space and Science BS Thread

I checked the NASA TV schedule to see if they were going to cover the SpaceX launch....

It doesn’t look like they are BUT, starting Tuesday, NASA TV will have a bunch of programming commemorating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 12. Good stuff...

Edit: It’s THURSDAY for the Apollo 12 stuff

 

Agreed. I hope this eventually brings us into cheap orbital flights leading to space docks and colonization.

 

Here's a description of how they catch the fairings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRvO8D9TR08

 

NASA TV only covers NASA missions or missions pertaining to NASA

 

Elon Mush knows how to market ideas, which has helped him immensely. I am not saying this bash him, rather point out a very strong positive aspect.

Unfortunately, with all the technology in the world to solve the really difficult problems, without marketing, your solutions stay buried in the lab.

IMO, that is NASA's big problem right now. Back in the day of Apollo, marketing wasn't really needed, as space travel was on everyone's mind. The public wanted to know everything that was happening. All that changed once we landed on the moon. The public lost interest.

SpaceX is marketing Mars, NASA is talking about it, but with much less hype and emotion. Which makes me very sad...

 

Yean, that's a whole other aspect of it. I was thinking of it from an engineering standpoint, but you're right, they've made space and electric cars sexy.

 

4th landing for this rocket

 

I agree from the engineering standpoint - he has gathered/collected a group of really smart, motivated people to solve some really complex problems.

I guess what I am really to say is that it bothers me deep down that wonderful technical solutions to problems are for naught without marketing. Why can't people understand the value of these solutions without having to be spoon-fed the ideas.

A sad comment on society, I guess.

On the positive side, I just watched the launch from Florida. Perfect day, perfect process. And, the booster landed successfully for the 4th time!

 

Many people these days seem too wrapped up in their own situation to keep track of something that seems so far fetched. And I think we've got a serious education problem.


I can't get over how reliably spacex pulls these landings off. The initial attempts were not so good , but they learned from them very effectively.

 

https://youtu.be/bvim4rsNHkQ

 

Second use for this fairing pair.

 

To view the satellites:
james.darpinian.com/satellites/? special=starlink-2019-11
Put your address in the green box

 

Why do you think it wouldn’t be possible given that technology? The physics aren’t any different than now, we can just do the calculations faster and easier.

 

Esp since that same era is when we were literally shattering sound barriers and transsonic barriers in the X-1/15 programs, the Blackbird was coming online, we had a lot harder (in my mind) challenges on Earth. Once you got out of the atmosphere, the moon stuff was sort of easy by comparison.

 

The hard goods are even easier than the physics of it. We haven’t been back because no one has wanted to pay to go back. Until there is a real reason (making money from mining, relocating population, step off point to Mars, etc) it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go back.

 

Wow, you’ll troll any thread here wontcha?

 

Because of cost and politics and other sorts of BS. There is no commercial value in the moon, unless you build micro-gravity manufacturing facilities or space docks or some other shit that hasn't been invented yet. The moon stays purely in the realm of research and stays out of the current space program.

 

This one’s good too:
https://www.heavens-above.com/

 

Because those programs got gutted after the Russians failed to develop a response (the N1 Booster) and effectively ended the space race and the war in Vietnam sapped the budget, and we moved on to the space shuttle / ISS platforms. That and once we landed there a few times, we hit the "and what now?" phase.

Between the Apollo retroflectors, and the LROC imagery of 5/6 flags still standing I'm convinced.

Plus here's my take: Have you ever seen the government actually be able to keep a secret of that significance for any length of time? The word would have gotten out somehow by now. We found out from leaks about batshit insane things like Operation North Woods which were a lot more imperative than faking landing on the moon, and that got out almost immediately.

 

And the world is flat...