posted
Congress and the sequester, mostly. I don't know if it's possible to villianize them any more.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Guys (and gals), I strongly advise you guys to write your congress rep about NASA's potential shutdown.
Go to this link and click on Write to Congress. It's very easy and it automatically fills in a default letter for you. All you have to do is fill in your info and hit Send. It only takes like 60 seconds.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
| IP: Logged |
posted
Murray-Ryan just announced a budget deal in the last couple days that takes away a lot of the pain from the sequester. Any idea how that affects NASA funding? And how much of this is a problem with NASA funding vs. structure?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not really sure. There's certainly no happy chatter under the #PSDRandA hashtag on Twitter, which is what the planetary scientists have been using to complain about this.
It's not the missions that are getting cut, but the scientists who actually learn things from the missions years after the data gets sent down.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Which is good news, America only ever seems to throw money at the problem if it damages national pride.
Posts: 12931 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Someone once pointed out that the fact that Vladamir Putin and every other Russian citizen doesn't cry foul about the moon landing every time the US is even mentioned is pretty much proof that it happened. Because seriously: if we faked it 1. the USSR/Russia would know and 2. they would not let us get away with it.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Considering NASA's planetary sciences division is about to be hacked to pieces by budget cuts, I think we're heading in the other direction from China.
Looks like we're unilaterally ending our golden age of space exploration. Time for China, India, Japan and the EU to take over and explore space beyond LEO.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: We now need China to confirm that evidence of an American lunar landing can be found on the moon.
I think you can actually ball-park this.
http://www.google.ca/moon/ has the locations of the various moon landings. Location of the landing is Mare Imbrium apparently. Can't get directions on Google Moon, but eye-balling the scale gives maybe 900km? It can do 200m/hr, so 188 days driving in a straight line?
Then Wikipedia says that the maximum travelling distance is 10km? So, nope.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm a little disappointed that they didn't just drop their robot right on top of the flag at Tranquility.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:We now need China to confirm that evidence of an American lunar landing can be found on the moon.
Pretty please?
It wouldn't make any difference. There's already conclusive proof of the moon landing. So why would the nutters care about additional proof? They believe what they want to believe.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read earlier today that NASA is hoping to test the VASIMR system as early as March this year.
If VASIMR operates as promised, it could dramatically change space travel as we know it. The operating costs for the ISS would be more than halved. A round trip to Mars would be a couple months instead of two years.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
We discussed that one at work briefly. Curiosity has stereo cameras. Bright light only shows up one. Defect.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Looks like the KickSat burned up. From what I hear, it seems likely that the fault was due to cosmic radiation that exceeded the shielding they could afford.
They intend to kickstart another one. Hopefully that has more success. Either way, kudos to them for trying.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Russia has announced they are ending participation in the ISS 4 years early, and at that time will no longer ferry US astronauts to the ISS.
The race is on to see if NASA, Space X or others can get a Soyuz replacement into space by 2020.
Since Russia's ban on US astronauts also extends to selling Russian made engines to US companies, Space X, with their Falcon 9 engines, stands to come out as a huge winner.
Kind of a dumb decision by Russia. The US loses nothing and is forced to invest in its own domestic private space industry, likely pushing them ahead years faster than they otherwise would have
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wouldn't say that the US loses nothing. The Atlas rocket had some Russians parts in it, and the US needed a few more to launch several planned solar system missions.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Since Russia's ban on US astronauts also extends to selling Russian made engines to US companies, Space X, with their Falcon 9 engines, stands to come out as a huge winner.
Kind of a dumb decision by Russia. The US loses nothing and is forced to invest in its own domestic private space industry, likely pushing them ahead years faster than they otherwise would have
THIS IS WHY THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER
THANK U UKRAINE YOU JUST PUT A FIRE TO THE BUTTS OF OUR SPACE INDUSTRY YESSSS
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: I wouldn't say that the US loses nothing. The Atlas rocket had some Russians parts in it, and the US needed a few more to launch several planned solar system missions.
ULA has engines stockpiled for two years of launches. Even if they cut them off tomorrow they'd be able to carry on for some time.
ULA has been meaning to switch over to its Delta rockets exclusively for awhile, which are entirely US-made, so this lights a fire under them as well.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I stand corrected on that. They've moved faster than I previously thought.
I didn't think the manned dragon capsule was intended to fly before 2018, but it looks like mid 2016 for operational NASA flights is realistic.
The manned capsule hasn't flown at all yet. It'll be a full year before they even have their first test, let alone become operational. But they're still a good two years ahead of where I thought they were.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: there is 0% mocking going on there. i am glad this happened.
Ah, okay, cool. I misread you.
Like this is literally the most exciting space-related news ever because it's an incentive we can respond to productively.
I mean, look at us. Look at how critically we were defunding NASA and crippling it, punting forward on russian rockets, while spending literally trillions of dollars on a disastrous F-35 program and forcing the army to have tanks it doesn't even want.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, if you believe Woodward (who is a bit controversial) it can be scaled up enough for 1g accelerations of large spacecraft. You could get to Jupiter in 5-6 days and Proxima Centauri in just over 29 years. All without having to carry any reaction mass (propellent or fuel). You would need a LOT of electrical power but a few nuclear reactors should do the job. You would end up with a spacecraft quite similar to a nuclear sub.
That's probably still a LONG way off if this thing is even real but the fact that we now have two independent positive results (Chinese researchers and now NASA) gives us some hope.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
Uh oh, just read that the NASA test not only measured thrust in normal testing but the "null test" where the device was reconfigured in a way that it should not produce thrust, also showed thrust. Not a good sign.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
This thread needs a bump! 2015 is going to be a great year, seeing two new major, unseen objects-- Ceres and Pluto (and its 5+ moons)!
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: This thread needs a bump! 2015 is going to be a great year, seeing two new major, unseen objects-- Ceres and Pluto (and its 5+ moons)!
I remember when New Horizons was launched (I was in high school) being rediculously excited about it, but thinking "man, 2015! I'm going to be an old man by the time it gets there."
Anyway, this is the last "planet" (of the 9 I grew up with anyway) to be visited, and I'm tremendously excited to see the pictures come July.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
I'd say I was more excited for the Pluto encounter than the KBO one (not that I'm not excited about the KBO encounter). They're very different. It's just that Pluto's got so much weirdness going on all in one place, plus its five friends.
posted
I don't really know why, I just am. Maybe because I've known about Pluto my whole life. I may not have known all that much about it but I knew something. KBOs on the other hand are a bit more of a mystery. Also there is the possible usefulness in future spaced based endeavors. I suspect smaller things with smaller gravity wells like asteroids and KBOs will be more useful than frozen balls of planetoids.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
I used to have my favorites Astronomy pic of the day as background of my computers at work long before someone in the Corporate world decided that was a bad idea and forced people to use companies logos ;-)
IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
