Cool science stuff

The newest 18 Artemis astronauts, including nine women. Someone will walk on the Moon again in my lifetime, I'm hoping.

NASA Names Artemis Team of Astronauts Eligible for Early Moon Missions

 

Yep, and SpaceX has lots of Starship prototypes for just that reason.

 

Here’s the video of the test. You can watch the whole thing, which involves a complete reset of the launch clock and a whole bunch of just sitting there for over 100 minutes waiting for it to count all the way down, or you can pick it up here at 1:48:00 on the video timer and watch Starship SN8 launch, rise to 12.5km (7 miles) on three engines, hover on two engines, hover on a single engine, and then … they kill that one engine and things get really interesting at that point.

 

Unplanned Rapid Disassembly

 

I’m not so sure about that. They may have wanted to get data they could only get by crashing it, and Elon Musk had already said he expected the landing to fail. Look how long it took for the Falcons to land successfully, and now we just sort of expect the landing to occur. SN9 — the second full prototype with the functional winglets (SN8 being the first) — is already nearly assembled and ready to move to the other launch pad at SpaceX’s complex in south Texas.

 

Were the three boosters supposed to separate like that?

 

Yes. Computer-controlled hover, roll into descent, and then rolling back up to vertical for the landing attempt. This prototype is representative of the upper stage of the two-gigantic-stage Starship system and it’s designed to land vertically using those engines as retrorockets, so individual software-controlled man orientation of the nozzles is a requirement.

If you remember the general laughter when Eon referred to the first stage of a new project as the BFB … well, the first stage of Starship is that Big Fucking Booster (yes, it will land after launch for reuse) and the original internal code for the Starship project was the BFR.

Here’s the earlier BFR concept art. If it reminds you of the Space Shuttle … well, yeah. But the shuttles were never planned to go to Mars. Elon’s plainly state goal for the Starship is Mars, and there are also versions of the command module planned as fuel tankers, satellite delivery trucks, and a Moon-to-orbit system without the airbrakes and heat shields.

 

So it seems man-made climate change is a good thing -- in space, at least.

Whoops, Humans Made a Space Barrier Around Earth

 

Astronomers May Have Detected The First Radio Signal From an Exoplanet

 

Checking out the conjunction. Far out.

SW sky, maybe 15 degrees elevation.

 

Yeah, I looked at the conjunction for a minute and thought "Neat."

 

NASA completes another test on the way toward a November 2021 unmanned test flight.

SLS: Crucial test for Nasa's 'mega-rocket'