SunlitZelkova

Deceased Apollo LM engineers must be rolling in their graves. They could at least say capsule. Instead they have gone from “spacecraft” to “spacecraft designed for humans”, which ironically makes it explicitly include the LM ascent stage. At least “spacecraft” could be passed off as a categorization mistake! This is the equivalent of me being an aviation engineer, building the world’s highest flying crewed aircraft, and saying the people in it “will fly higher than any human ever before”. I’ll add it either means NASA PR people and the engineers who go along with this don’t know much about Apollo, or they are deliberately ignoring facts for PR purposes. Makes sense given SLS’ justification (and to a certain extent Orion’s too) is based on ignoring the existence of Commercial Crew vehicles and Starship.

“Solar radiation management (SRM), also referred to as solar climate engineering and albedo modification, seeks to offset GHG-induced warming by either increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back to space or preventing radiation from reaching the earth’s surface in the first place. A number of different technologies fall within this category, as depicted in the figure above. Compared to CDR, SRM is thought to be a quick fix because it masks warming rather than actually removing the buildup of GHG emissions. If SRM is not accompanied by effective mitigation efforts to simultaneously cut emissions, when it is curtailed, it can cause precipitous warming. The perpetual need for SRM is called “lock in,” which means once SRM is deployed, it may be difficult to safely stop. SRM feasibility differs by technology. Energy inputs can be large and variable. It can be difficult to accurately track injected particles and anticipate dynamic atmospheric conditions. It may also be impossible to predict changes from place to place and season to season, avoid ozone depletion, and prevent disruptions to local weather patterns. There are numerous unanswered technical and environmental questions that require further investigation and vetting. Limiting the consequences will depend on developing a better understanding of related natural processes, chemical interactions, and physical alterations. Second-order impacts revolve around the scale and distribution of effects. Even if SRM succeeds on a planetary scale, it may invoke local and regional conflicts due to real or perceived relative harms caused or relative benefits bestowed. For example, if regional water (or rainfall) quantity shifts or water quality varies within a region, cross-border tensions could rise.“ https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/08/21/understanding-climate-engineering-pub-72846 If anyone is interested, I recommend reading this whole thing. It is a pretty neutral/fair summary of the whole deal, going beyond SRM including carbon capture and beyond. It does not sound like great news to me. Because this study would be done unilaterally by the US, it is bound to draw concerns regarding the weaponization of such a technology (this could be hyper Strangeloveian in an instant), and obviously the US alone won’t have the right to alter other countries’ climate conditions without their approval. That said, I think it is good to study it so we know more about it. The only reason there is such a stigma around it is because we don’t know that much. But the US should make it clear that this is only a study and not a plan of action. Obviously, other countries that undertake such studies should do the same too. I caution against studying it with the anticipation it is going to work though. If one looks for something specific they tend to find it, and it would be disastrous for research on this subject to fall into that trap.

I wonder if we will see more past concepts/proposals revived in the future. Anything y’all think is possible or would like to see revived and succeed?

Not yet. They are still working on reviving it so they can use the instruments aboard to study deep space. It can still fulfill some of its intended technical demonstration role without landing on the Moon too.

The flyby is part of how they enter (distant retrograde) lunar orbit.

They have until midnight JST to reestablish contact or they will not be able to land. As of this post, it is 11:23 AM JST. They are still working hard continuing preparations for the landing despite the situation.

Yes. South African MILANs would get their wires torn/caught in the bush which lead to the development of the indigenous ZT3 laser guided ATGM.

OMOTENASHI could revive itself. It is indeed dead for now though.

Here’s what happened with OMOTENASHI. After separation the signal was unstable, and they had trouble getting telemetry. When they finally did start getting information they found out the spacecraft was tumbling and the solar cells were not facing the sun. First they tried to stop the rotation, but then they realized the batteries were low and tried to orient the solar cells to face the sun. But by then the battery was low and then the transmitter turned off. If the solar cells happen to end up in the direction of the sun, it could be saved as the transmitter will automatically turn on once the battery has enough charge. They are still hopeful and working on how to stop the rotation. On the other hand, EQUULEUS is fine!

I wanted to reply but at that point it was becoming OT so I made this thread. Posts from the SLS thread can also be moved here since it looks like it is getting OT over there as well @adsii1970 I'm sure many a president, senator, and representative has had passion regarding spaceflight in their personal life. That doesn't automatically translate to policy action though. That's not to say Kennedy would have somehow been worse. I just think it would have been similar to what Johnson did. Perhaps if JFK was more of a space advocate for personal reasons, it could be said Johnson was motivated by the economic benefits it brought to the south (including to Texas). By the way, I'll bet Johnson would be on the side of SLS and against Commercial Crew if he were alive today lol. The issue with that theory is the assumption that the cancellation of Apollo 15, 19, and 20 was related to who was president in 64-68. It had to do with Congress' attitude after the Apollo 1 fire and who was president in 69-72. Apollo abruptly ended long after he would have had influence in decisions of the government. I don't think Kennedy would have been any more enthusiastic for post-Apollo plans than Johnson was. Johnson still pushed for full funding of Apollo Applications even after the Apollo 1 fire made it untenable, and it still didn't get through beyond Skylab. I think it could be said other factors played a role in NASA's existence and the path it took in the late 60s, but the factors at play in Apollo mainly related to JFK's memory, insofar as it was he who said the US would be the first to the Moon and do it before '69. If say, Johnson had made that declaration instead of him, no one would care about that goal when things started getting rough in the mid 60s. LBJ was not "anti-NASA" at all. As mentioned earlier, he requested quadruple what Congress ultimately gave AAP in FY 1968. I don't think this really amounted to either anti-NASA sentiment or actions "to cut back its budget". NASA themselves chose to cancel Apollo 20 in favor of using the Saturn V to launch Skylab. Congress did cut the budget, but they didn't play much of a role in what NASA decided to do. The responsibility for those decisions fell on the Nixon administration. ------ Sources- https://www.whitehousehistory.org/lyndon-b-johnson-forgotten-champion-of-the-space-race https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/why-apollo-11-wouldnt-have-happened-without-lyndon-johnson/ ------ I think Apollo could not have been saved. It was just too expensive for the government to be doing. At best, maybe Skylab could have survived into the Shuttle era by ordering a second batch of Saturn IBs and more CSMs. Of course, the only other way might have been had the Soviets landed first. The US might have continued Apollo just to match them. But an expansive lunar program wasn't feasible for them either for their own allotted, far more political (and thus OT) reasons.

Not to go out on an OT tangent, but JFK didn’t really believe in space exploration beyond any other politician. Apollo was very much a one and done thing even before he was assassinated. I have seen one speculation that the program may have even been cancelled sometime during his second term (prior to ‘68) had he lived. Doing it to honor his memory was a big reason why it was able to survive in Congress as long as it did, as well as why the goal of landing prior to ‘70 was achieved.

I like to think I keep up to date on my internet memes, but until 2 weeks ago I never heard of this Mr Beast. When I did and had a look at a few of his videos, I wondered the same thing I always wonder about 'personality' centered YT channels. But hey if he gets the good message out there, he's got my blessing It’s speculated he has a seat on DearMoon. He posted a cryptic video wearing a SpaceX shirt or something a year or so ago.

I think you have to be able to appreciate and support human spaceflight to be in awe of it. Unlike on Mars or the outer planets where a human presence would contribute scientifically, most of the science that can be done by humans on the Moon that relates to the Moon can be done by robots. The Moon is really only useful for studying how humans do on the Moon. Humans will be deployed to the Moon in such a capacity* over this decade and the next that we probably could have done the lunar science in a series of robotic missions funded with the same amount of money used for Artemis, except on a slightly better timeline. *That is, barely

As the tweet says, SLS launched 27 minutes after a Ceres-1 from Jiuquan! Makes me wonder what the record minimum time between launches in two different countries is. Also, some giggles . Appears to be fake though. EDIT- Ninja’d? I assumed it would make sense to post it here too though.

820th Main Center for Missile Attack Warning just got the false contact of their lives.

GMT is five hours ahead of EST. So 1:37 EST. 10:37 for me.

Isn’t that outside the 2 hour window? Or are you in a different time zone?

The lady doing the narration on the NASA stream just skipped the word “first”, describing Artemis I as a mission that will return us to the Moon in 50 years. Could have been my speaker cutting out, but quite an ironic mistake

Well, at the very least I suppose the Constellation rover has made headlines in the Desert RATS 2022, so it’s more acceptable. I’m surprised they don’t do outsourcing for animations, I’m sure there a number of people out there who would love to give us a video of the real Artemis architecture (with Starship HLS) for little to no cost, and it would be high quality too.

Not just random landers, I swear I just saw Altair in an animation in one of their intermission videos just now.

Well, either the aggressor or both (if both are the instigators) would probably be dismissed. Such a scenario is nigh impossible, however. Astronauts specifically train to work coherently together. Think the level of professionalism *cough cough* seen on nuclear powered submarines. That's how disciplined astronauts are*. I coughed because an extremely disturbing article emerged not too long ago regarding the behavior of seamen on British submarines. That's a discussion for another forum though. *Are supposed to be.

Failure modes of wind turbines is something I didn’t realize I needed. A disaster might kill SLS but I’m a little skeptical about Orion. Also, thinking about it more, this is a really weird statement. Even if NASA switches wholly to contracted launches, there is no way they are “getting out of the spaceflight business”. There is no way the private industry will be able to fund what NASA does now. Even if Axiom might be able to take over some research conducted by astronauts in the future, I don’t think we will really see a private astronaut corps on the scale of NASA’s for a long time. I assumed you did not include probes, but ironically I think probes are actually easier to “commercialize” than human spaceflight, because Starship will allow larger “dumb” probes to be built using more off the shelf materials. EDIT- What I mean is SLS alone does not represent NASA’s involvement in “spaceflight”.

Thanks! ‘‘Twas interesting indeed. Makes me wonder what the possibilities of non-nuclear EMP based terrorism are.

Heated conversations about peak oil won’t end well? I see what you did there! (I of course understand you were being serious too lol)