SunlitZelkova

It’s physically possible that the Moon landing was faked yet we don’t discuss that for obvious reasons.

The feedback they are interested in is related to the potential environmental effects. I myself am not concerned, not necessarily because I think the likelihood of Mars life negatively affecting Earth is low, but because based on the current schedule Tianwen-3 is going to arrive on Earth up to a year prior to the NASA-ESA mission so whatever they do for Earth protection is pointless. We are at the mercy of CNSA in that regard.

Just because one can’t see any other purpose for a thing besides what they believe makes sense to themself, does not mean that is the only justification the party actually using the thing sees. On both sides of the globe, each can’t see each other doing anything for peaceful or defensive purposes. X country’s stuff must be for offense according to Y, and Y country’s stuff must be for offensive according to X. IMO none of this is supposed to make sense. It’s two male cats fighting for dominance. Logic is a means to an end, and thus bent as needed, rather than making decisions based on logic. Either one day the documents will be declassified and this can become a cool tidbit in history, or the documents will be incinerated in 400 kiloton blasts, along with the rest of us. The former is the only way we will know. Operating based on conjecture and circumstance is very dangerous. I (and probably others) prefer to rely on facts, and there are none to be seen regarding the use of the X-37B to test nuclear weapons. It’s as absurd as the Chinese orbital bombardment stations from the USSF Bezos briefing, insofar as there is no evidence for it.

Yep. It was $27 million. *facepalm*

In Portland, Oregon, a new homeless shelter program is nearly on par with the NASA budget, shy by just $2 billion lol.

1. Russia (State Space Corporation «Roscosmos»)* 2. United States (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) 3. France (National Center for Space Studies) 4. Japan (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) 5. China (China National Space Administration) 6. India (Indian Space Research Organization) 7. Israel (Israeli Space Agency) 8. Iran (Iranian Space Agency) 9. North Korea (National Aerospace Development Administration) 10. South Korea (Korea Aerospace Research Institute) *Only for launches from Plesetsk and Vostochny Source- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_first_orbital_launches_by_country ESA’s space center is in an overseas territory and thus would not count. France and Britain conducted their launches in Algeria and Australia, respectively, and thus these don’t count as “home” launches. Surprisingly, Russia’s launches from Baikonur don’t count because they are in Kazakhstan. Ukraine needed a sea launch platform, and thus this also would not count as “home”. New Zealand is questionable as to whether it has its own launch capability as Rocket Lab is an American company. “Launch capability” in this instance refers to orbital launch capability. EDIT- List updated. France would count but ESA would not, as its spacecraft technically encompass multiple nations yet launch from the Guiana Space Center alone.

https://scitechdaily.com/sofia-finds-no-phosphine-a-potential-sign-of-life-on-venus/amp/ Less phosphine than previously thought, or none at all, based on SOFIA observations.

First strike does not mean initiation of a war, it means the first use of nuclear weapons. If a conflict begins conventionally, first strike could be a viable option to silence the other side if things appear to be getting out of hand. Networking is getting better and better. If attack subs can get into proper position to target SSBNs, ASATs are ready in the predicted orbital paths to launch at their targets, and B-2s have penetrated and are near their command targets, a successful first strike could be viable in theory. That said, I would still be skeptical. If there really was such a program going on, it would have likely been detected by foreign intelligence agencies years ago, and the propaganda departments of those countries would be yelling about it non-stop. The fact that “X-37B is a weapons platform” remains an internet conspiracy theory makes it unlikely it is a reality.

Actually, I think it is safe to assume every country has a space agency nowadays. Having a space agency does not require building your own rockets or even satellites, just doing space science. Here’s the website of the Kenya Space Agency- https://ksa.go.ke/

For a suicide mission with no return it would work. The crews would either be captured or ditch in the Pacific for a submarine. These theories, put forward by American authors, assume Arctic bases were available though. I would assume airfields in places like Anadyr and Tiksi weren’t built until the mid 50s at least.

How hard was it to build a plutonium production reactor circa 1950? The Hanford Site is located in a curious location- it was/is just within range of a one way Tu-4 strike. I am wondering if it would be feasible to knock out American nuclear weapons production in a single blow for a story I am writing. Or would recovery be easy?

Scratch that, I confused ispace with Axelspace for the LEO stuff. ispace also is not involved in LEO debris removal either, I’ll need to go back to the show I was watching and find out who that was. Their website- https://ispace-inc.com/ Instead, ispace is like SpaceX but with the Moon. Their goal is 1000 people living on the Moon by 2040, not unlike Musk’s initial lofty goals of cargo Starship on Mars in 2022 and people on Mars in 2024. They don’t plan to build their own rocket and presumably will leverage SpaceX’s capabilities, as they are the only ones really working on a near term commercial human lunar lander (I would assume Starship HLS will eventually be available for order much in the same way Crew Dragon now is). ispace inc. is not to be confused with i-Space, a Chinese company building the Hyperbola series of small sat launchers. As a sign of how disconnected the Chinese and Japanese aerospace worlds are, ispace received its name in 2013 (it was founded in 2010 as White Label Space), which means i-Space chose their name upon their founding in 2016 with no knowledge of their Japanese companion. Perhaps some day an ispace lunar lander can be launched on an i-Space rocket! The founders of ispace got their start in the Google Lunar X Prize as part of the Europe-based White Label Space team. The company was renamed to ispace when the European portion of the team ceased participation in the project.

ispace is actually a private company with no relation to JAXA. They do commercial stuff in LEO too, and are conducting space debris removal experiments. JAXA has been talking up their SLIM lander (a different mission launching in the future) for so long I didn’t realize this project existed. According to Wikipedia it is carrying a rover from the UAE!

順風満帆 (junpuumanpan) is the equivalent of the latter, literally meaning may your sails be full with tailwind. 晴天 (seiten) literally means fair weather or fair skies, but I don’t know if it alone is used as a message of encouragement in the same way “fair skies” is. What is likely used is less of a phrase and more of a proper sentence, either 晴天になりますように or いい天気になりますように (may you/we have clear skies/good weather).

My grandpa and uncle got off the mountain just a day before it blew, and may have had a view akin to this as IIRC they were still on the road and had not yet returned home to the Seattle area at the time of the eruption.

For context, apparently ninth heaven is a term from literature used to refer to space. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/九天 I had to look this up myself as I did not know and was curious.

Meanwhile in Japan, many Service Areas (equivalent to American rest stops/rest areas) have a variety of amenities, and some of their food vendors are known to be so exquisite the Service Area is a destination in its own right. Which I guess is a fun fact of its own.

On the bright side, it’s not like it will be continuously inhabited. I am skeptical about a cessation to all deep space human spaceflight. Tax payer funded deep space missions might cease, but the private sector is rapidly becoming mature enough to fund expeditions on their own. I think tax payer money would be cut in the event of a death on emotional and moral grounds, but I can’t see the private sector being forced to stop. There have been numerous incidents of private sailors going missing while navigating the oceans. While I myself would probably not be able to support NASA human deep space exploration in the event of such a disaster, so long as private companies and individuals are completely willing to go up there despite the risks, I don’t think anyone has a right to stop them, just as the government doesn’t have a right to stop people from trying to solo navigate the oceans (and has not at all).

They will die. Same thing on the Moon, although the Early Lunar Shelter had a few ideas for makeshift radiation protection with few resources. https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/the-early-lunar-shelter-stay-a-just-a-little-bit-longer/ “The other major danger entertained was radiation, and the aluminum walls couldn’t be made thick enough to sustain 500 rads (a hypothetical solar flare) without weight close to a half ton more than was otherwise necessary. Accordingly the study suggested putting the necessarily numerous PLSS recharging canisters (for the life-support backpack worn while on the surface) stored in water filled sleeves around the bunk area located at the opposite end from the airlock. Altogether, they, the walls, and the bunk material made an acceptable, if awfully cramped, radiation refuge for everyone on-board.“

It’s about time! Jim Free got the memo. Orion does indeed hold the record for farthest distance traveled by a mission with a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth.

How dependent was the development of spaceflight on German research? I assume Von Braun and Co. themselves weren’t really necessary because Atlas the ICBM was developed without them. I ask as I am writing an alternate history where the US does not participate directly in WWII, and thus all of Germany comes under Soviet control as the war ends with the capture of a redoubt in western Germany rather than Berlin. That’s not to say the Soviets get Von Braun instead- he might still escape to France and his documents were well hidden- but none of the western Allies are getting his documents either. So how would that affect postwar US rocket development?

I am curious about the status of the Next Gen Crewed Spacecraft. I feel like I can sense how long it might take for the lunar lander, but it seems puzzling we don’t see more about the other element of the crewed lunar flight. I imagine we will continue to hear only whispers and tidbits and then things will move fast all of a sudden. Reminds me of the 1993 International Lunar Resources Exploration Concept. I think building a separate lander and rover would be better though. Even if the engines can be covered to protect them from dust being kicked up, that amount of vibration would be bad for them.

Emordnilap/semordnilap. I’m not even kidding https://savvy-writer.com/words-spelled-backwards-to-form-other-words/

“Have fun playing with weird trajectories around the Earth-Moon Lagrange points” is the best description for a mission I have ever seen. Also, camera go click click!