SunlitZelkova

Because China is doing LEO long duration flight too That science actually seems pretty useful.

What are the best Twitter accounts for debris tracking? Or from any online resource, for that matter.

Yes. Even if they had been able to walk they would have been in the hospital/quarantined anyways. This actually makes determining their physical condition more difficult.

Yikes. That’s bad. This kind of makes me call into question his work as a whole. Looking at Asif Siddiqi’s Challenge to Apollo… which I own but did not think to check *facepalm*… it does mention them being in a rather poor state, but nothing of contracted hearts. Apparently both cosmonauts had to be carried- in contrast, the Gemini 7 crews both got themselves into the hoist to be lifted to the helicopter and walked across the carrier deck on their own- but it doesn’t make clear if this was required or if it was a precaution. On the other hand though, the astronauts were unable to get out of their suits on their own and did require assistance. Here is a description of the state of the Gemini 7 astronauts from MSC Medical Director Charles Berry, extracted from the official NASA account of the Gemini program- "The most miraculous thing was when they could get out of the spacecraft and not flop on their faces; and they could go up into the helicopter and get out on the carrier deck and walk pretty well. They were in better physiologic shape than the V crew. Initially, their tilt-table responses were not as bad and did not last as long. It looked more like four-day responses, by far, than eight-day. The calcium loss was the same way. Amazingly, they maintained their total blood volume. They didn't get any decrease, but they did it in a peculiar way. They lost the red-cell mass still, but they replaced the plasma - they put more fluid in. Apparently, there had been enough time for an adaptive phenomenon to take place." Now, here is the state of the Soyuz 9 crew from “one [Soviet] journalist”- “They were pale, and their faces furrowed with wrinkles. They tried to carry on a lively conversation and even make jokes; but they tired rapidly, and there were frequent lapses.” Source cited is Riabchikov, Russians in Space, page 282. It took roughly 12 days for the cosmonaut’s heath problems to completely subside. I haven’t found anything about the state of the astronauts past the immediate days after the landing. I was thinking this position was a thing

And another one- do we have any idea why the crew of Soyuz 9 came back with contracted hearts and were hospitalized, while the crew of Gemini 7 was somewhat fine? Does +3 days make that much of a difference?

Interesting. I didn’t know there were Space Tug competitors, I thought only Boeing proposed one.

Let the calm tracking and preparation begin! Although, my neighborhood is near a grain field, if the orbit is just right, may I could see debris without damage lol.

I have made a thread for sharing updates on the reentry of the LM-5B core stage. Please use it, so it will be easier to find updates on Wentian in this thread

This is a thread to share updates on the status of the core stage of the Long March 5B LV that launched the Wentian module on July 24th, 2022. This has been created because sharing of news has picked up quite a bit on the CNSA thread compared to when Tianhe was launched, and therefore the core stage merits a separate thread to avoid losing Wentian and other CNSA related news in the flood of core stage updates- it took 10~ days or so for the core stage to reenter last time and attracted quite a bit of discussion. EDIT- I’ll go first

I should have been more clear. I meant tactical aircraft. Indeed, the fate of bomber development was decided even before Gary Powers got shot down- arguably from the moment the first intelligence document containing a briefing on the S-25 and S-75 showed up on a variety of desks in various Air Force facilities across the country.

This is fake. https://smhoaxslayer.com/is-the-viral-astronaut-selfie-from-space-original-no-its-an-edited-one/

Makes me wonder whether the Soviets themselves felt the arguments in defense of their tanks were valid, because while the main battle tanks didn't change, the design of the BMP-2 was influenced by the performance of the BMP-1 during those conflicts, and went on to become a much better performing IFV (relative to the BMP-1, that is. In contrast to how the T-72 still retains weaknesses of the T-62).

Some questions- 1. How would military aircraft design look if the Vietnam War didn’t occur? It’s said that the Teen Series were greatly influenced by its events, but at the same time, while the Su-27 and MiG-29 came about in response to the Teen Series, the Soviets did not copy anything from the Americans and came up with their designs pretty hassle free, which suggests lots of what went into 4th gen fighters came from aerodynamic studies that had nothing to do with Vietnam. 2. Do all spacecraft need to do a “barbecue roll” in deep space? Animations often depict them as static in flight. I suppose those with proper thermal control wouldn’t need to but what about Starship and Orion? 3. Would it be possible to modify the ISS into an MTV? It would require extensive modification and be dangerous but the basis for a Mars spacecraft is basically there. In regards to No. 3, a lot of 60s and 70s Mars spacecraft designs were either closely related to space stations or literally just modified space station modules.

This is not how “all-up” missions work. They just take all of the fuel they need. It depends on the mission type. For scientific expeditions, I don’t think you really need depots. Early Mars mission proposals had all-up missions, the idea of sending ISRU equipment or fuel itself ahead only got developed because it was thought to be cheaper, not any particular mission requirement. For sustained transport though, whether that be a base or some sort of early colony, refueling at a depot or using ISRU makes more sense. ISRU would never be done without a good sense of what is going to happen on the ground. Basically every single real life spaceflight concept does not work in such a manner anyways. It’s not like ships where you can veer off course, find an island, and then go about doing whatever you need there- you go to one place period. Everything is planned for that place so there is no particular major danger. With soft sci-fi engines, it can really just be adjusted as needed for the plot. I may be wrong but I don’t think any of these “acts like a car trying to get from Portland to Chicago” type engines exist in real life, even as far future concepts. They either can’t get there at all, are just right to get where they need to go with residuals for an emergency, or don’t get there at all. I.e., every single engine is constrained by orbital mechanics to a certain extent so it just goes where it was intended to or doesn’t at all (fails), while the only “point and click go there” type concept- the Alcubierre drive- is so powerful it would likely never run into such a situation. No “my (sea) ship got blown off course and now I’m faced with this dangerous unknown environment” type things. With 99% of real life concepts, you would require so much energy to end up in such a situation that you would have to be trying to veer off course for it to occur. Star Trek/Star Wars/soft sci-fi in general type engines that do have such adventures can really just be adjusted for the plot as needed, without real life rhyme or reason, because they aren’t realistic in the first place.

Launch is in 11-12~ hours. CGTN started a stream 17 hours ago for some reason lol, but then ended it 8 ago. It was just a shot of the VAB/ready building basically.

This “contribution to the world/humanity” thing in the English speaking world is a mere optional rating of what countries contribute to the global community, not a debt or demand. Example- Switzerland “contributes to the world” by hosting the LHC, but that’s just a compliment, not a debt Switzerland owes. The Ars commenter added sarcasm to… do what he did.

Yes. It can go back to the station and dock for repairs though.

Unfortunately, from what I can gather very few in Japan seem to be able to grasp the fact that it was a poor design issue, not an inherent problem with nuclear power itself, that caused the 2011 disaster. Even plans to activate nuclear power plants again in response to the current state of the energy economy are extremely controversial, although they may have their own fair share of technical issues too. How did the USSR/Russia overcome PR issues after Chernobyl? Or did it just not? The US hasn’t done anything and many seem to have forgotten about Three Mile Island, although at the same time, very few new reactors have been built.

Using the dark side of the force relying on innate behaviors of Homo sapiens to pit them against each other, impeding upon their development and damaging their ability to solve problems. They continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere (the geoengineering part) and based on pure profit related reasons destroy farmland and dry up aquifers. Several decades later, a massive famine occurs as a result of climate change, poor agricultural practices, and ocean acidification. Alongside this will be general ecological collapse on certain fronts. It won’t be enough to send Homo sapiens to extinction, but this will kick off a cascading series of problems that should doom them within 10,000 years to go extinct as a result of an inbreeding depression. The inevitable conflict and slaughter that follows the famine will only ensure this. The climate will continue to grow hotter as trapped methane is released. The survivors fill the tens of thousands of now emptied ecological niches. The objective of all of this? The return of megafauna. Crows will evolve into new terror birds and rodents will become the size of cows. We will see both herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous variations. The Revenge of the Pleistocene Megafauna shall be complete, and the new post-Holocene fauna will rule the Earth for 10 million years. With the intelligence of rats and crows eventually evolving to work together and master technology, the First Terran Empire will expand into the cosmos, mercilessly annihilating any other life forms and transforming other worlds into Earth copies. The Empire will expand to the edges of the universe, develop interuniversal travel, and then proceed to conquer all of existence. With unlimited worlds to inhabit, the First Terran Empire will exist infinitely. You didn’t say what goal the geoengineering had to have, after all

Nice. It’s pretty cool how they are directly challenging SpaceX in more areas. They are basically low key claiming Terran R will get a commercial payload to Mars prior to Starship.

One is for the Moon and one is for Mars, each respectively named Luna Glass and Mars Glass. They want to land “something” related to the project on the Moon by 2050, perhaps a subscale demonstrator? It has a height of 400 meters and a diameter of 100 meters. Lunar Beagle is the name of the monorail that runs around it (although Gizmodo claims it is called the Hexatrack), while the hexagonal Earth-Moon transport is called the Space Express. They want to avoid using nuclear power for it. In the past, a Japanese construction company proposed building a space elevator by 2050, and many apparently got hyped until they realized it was just a concept for promotional purposes. It is different this time, they actually intend to do this although in kerbiloid’s video one of the guys states they recognize there are many problems to be solved. They think putting the idea out there is an important thing.

I think all LM-3 and LM-4 launches now use the parafoil recovery system, which significantly reduces the area in which the boosters fall. Unlike, say, the early 2000s, it is also possible CNSA is now putting beacons on their boosters, so they can be found and secured faster. LM-2 for Shenzhou doesn’t use the parafoil recovery system but it’s boosters may drop in a different area, out of view of most civilians.

@Spacescifi I recommend following @sevenperforce’s advice regarding design. If your story is not intended for public consumption, I suppose it wouldn’t matter, but in general it is better to say “I just want it this way for the story” or “I just want it this way because it looks cool” than coming up with some sort of detailed engineering reason. I haven’t looked into the details, but from what I can tell Christopher Nolan claimed that Interstellar was going to be a hyper realistic movie. Despite being a great work of art in its own right, IIRC it is/was the bane of this forum because of that claim. The same thing happens with me with alternate histories. There are people out there who write great alt-hist stories but then they claim it is “historically accurate [as to what would have happened]” and they destroy themselves and their work because there is always a hole that someone will find, and the work will be thrown into jeopardy by it.

Usually Lagrange points have a name identifier before the number. Example: Earth-Sun L2 and Earth-Moon L2. I have only seen that drop when it is obvious, like an Artemis focused presentation or something.

In April 1978, a Tu-95KM of the 1226th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment was tasked with reconning the weather along a route the entire regiment would fly later during an exercise. It proved worse than expected, so the aerial refueling tanker the Tu-95 needed to meet was unable to take off. Airfields along the route were shut down for the same reason. The aircraft would not be able to make it to its destination. Even that air base was covered in a bad thunderstorm. So the crew lowered their Kh-20 cruise missile into the firing position, and started up the engine without releasing it. Miraculously, it worked, and the thunderstorm dissipated just as the aircraft arrived. The aircraft landed with just 2% fuel remaining. The recoil was presumably Kerbal too. It entered mass production just three months from when the order calling for the design was given, making it purportedly one of the fastest designed vehicles ever, although it is more of a modification than a proper new vehicle.