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Space... the Final Frontier

April 8, 2022, 10:36 a.m.
chupacabra
chupacabra
Posts: 12259
Joined: June 29, 2006

Since there are so many awesome things happening in space exploration these days I thought I would start a thread.  Recently Hubble found a massive planet 9 times the size of Jupiter and the farthest star that formed just 900 million years after the big bang.  It kind of feels like Hubble is upping it's game now that the James Webb is gearing up to see farther than we ever have been able to before and reveal the properties of planets.  

I am pretty stoked about all the cool space stuff happening.  Anyone else?  I leave you with a picture of SpaceX Starship and the Super Heavy booster being loaded with Mechazilla.  It is just under 400 ft tall.  When the ship returns the Mechazilla contraption is supposed to catch it.  There will almost definitely be some great fail videos.

April 9, 2022, 11:01 p.m.
Hepcat
Hepcat
Posts: 2129
Joined: Nov. 8, 2003

I feel like a much bigger deal should have been made about those first SpaceX returnable rockets. 

Rockets that look like that /\ and return to land tail first have been a staple of SciFi for like a hundred years, then we finally do it and it was easy to miss.

I replayed the first video clip of those landings endlessly to make sure I could believe my eyes lol

April 9, 2022, 11:30 p.m.
KenN
Posts: 16818
Joined: Nov. 20, 2002

Posted by: chupacabra

There will almost definitely be some great fail videos.

"Rapid unscheduled disassembly"😁

April 10, 2022, 8:29 p.m.
PaulB
Posts: 1738
Joined: Aug. 6, 2009

Posted by: Hepcat

I feel like a much bigger deal should have been made about those first SpaceX returnable rockets.

Rockets that look like that /\ and return to land tail first have been a staple of SciFi for like a hundred years, then we finally do it and it was easy to miss.

I replayed the first video clip of those landings endlessly to make sure I could believe my eyes lol

I just recently realized that while I used to watch every landing attempt, I haven't done so for months, because it's almost a surety that they will be successful. Looking forward to some Falcon Heavy launches this year, with at least double, and possibly triple, booster landings.

The James Webb deployment was incredibly impressive when you consider all the moving parts (literally) that had to work to get the heatshield and mirrors deployed. Amazing engineering.

The Perseverance Rover rolling around Mars drilling core samples to be picked up and returned to Earth by a future mission is also very cool.


 Last edited by: PaulB on April 10, 2022, 8:32 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
April 11, 2022, 10:11 a.m.
chupacabra
chupacabra
Posts: 12259
Joined: June 29, 2006

Posted by: Hepcat

I feel like a much bigger deal should have been made about those first SpaceX returnable rockets. 

Rockets that look like that /\ and return to land tail first have been a staple of SciFi for like a hundred years, then we finally do it and it was easy to miss.

I replayed the first video clip of those landings endlessly to make sure I could believe my eyes lol

When I watched that first video where the 2 rockets landed side by side I felt like I just stepped into the future.  20 years ago that video would have been believable in scene from Dune, now it is just another launch.  

James Webb has me most excited since it is going to see things we have never seen before and really start to piece together what the other planets and solar systems are like

Artemis is 2nd on my list of cool shit to happen relatively soon.  I don't see any need to rush humans to Mars though.  Let's get our space robots dialed in first.  The moon mission would be a good test ground for making robots that can prepare bases for future human missions.

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