Page 10 of 19

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2015 10:28 pm
by Endovelico
Magellan super-scope gets green light for construction
By Jonathan Amos
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32984957

Construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope has been given the go-ahead.

One of the largest optical observing systems ever conceived, the GMT will sit atop Cerro Las Campanas in Chile.

With its 24.5m-wide primary mirror system, astronomers should be able to see the first objects to emit light in the Universe, investigate dark energy and dark matter, and identify potentially habitable planets.

The GMT's international partners have all approved the $500m assembly phase.

Contracts against this money can now be awarded to suppliers.
Flattened mountain

The mountain ridge of Las Campanas itself, which is in the Atacama Desert, is ready to receive the observatory's components.

Two-and-a-half-thousand cubic metres of rock have been removed from its southern end to create a flat surface the size of four football fields. A road is in place to take all the elements to the summit when they become available.

Chief among these, of course, will be the seven 8.4m mirrors that comprise the GMT's primary reflecting surface.

Three are already at various stages of production (one is actually finished); the other four will begin their manufacture very soon.

"We expect in late 2021, possibly in early 2022, we will put three or four primary mirrors in the telescope, start doing some engineering, start doing some astronomy, and by that point we will have the largest (optical) telescope on the planet by a good margin," said GMT director, Pat McCarthy.

"We'll then slowly integrate the rest of the mirrors as they come along so that by 2024 or 2025, we should have all seven mirrors in the telescope," he told BBC News.

The GMT is one of three ground-based optical super-scopes planned for the next decade.

The other two are the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), also in Chile, and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), to be sited in Hawaii.

Construction of the latter has been in the news of late because of a dispute with Native Hawaiian activists, who say the installation on Mauna Kea volcano is a desecration of sacred land.

With primary diameters of 39m and 30m respectively, the E-ELT and the TMT will be bigger than the GMT at completion. They will also have a very different architecture in that their big reflecting surfaces will be made up of many hundreds of smaller mirror segments.

The designers of the GMT, on the other hand, think their decision to go for just seven large units will pay dividends in certain types of observations.
Sharper than Hubble

"We think there is great advantage in having as much of your collecting area as possible in a contiguous, uninterrupted optical surface," explained Dr McCarthy, a researcher from Carnegie Observatories.

"This will limit the number of phase jumps that you have. So, for high-contrast applications, where you're using adaptive optics, imaging planets around nearby stars - we feel that having this much of the telescope's aperture as coherent pieces of glass will help us when we try to achieve that very high contrast."

The "adaptive optics" of which Dr McCarthy speaks is really now a must-have in modern astronomy.

Such systems counter the "twinkling" of stars and other astrophysical phenomena caused by their light passing through Earth's turbulent atmosphere.

By manipulating flexible secondary mirrors, it is possible to subtract this effect based on information gleaned from artificial stars projected on to the sky by lasers.

This approach, together with its great aperture size, should enable the GMT to capture images that are 10 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Eventually we will be able to see little green teenage girls doing topless on the beaches of Proxima Centauris... :D

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:38 am
by noddy
in soviet russia space shuttle something something you.

http://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/219949.html

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:46 pm
by Simple Minded
noddy wrote:in soviet russia space shuttle something something you.

http://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/219949.html
fascinating! Thanks noddy!

and people wonder why no one is capable of comprehending the eventual costs of these programs..... or why costs explode out of control. Looking at these pictures it is no wonder that costs are often 100's of time greater than initially thought.

During the initial estimating phase, very few can imagine the costs associated with painting, welding, design and manufacture of fixturing, lifting rigs, load testing, employee training, procedure creation/writing, running electric and air lines, concrete (how many feet thick are the floor and footings for that building?), etc.

How many painters/floor sweepers would you need on a full time basis just to maintain that place?

No wonder these programs often become giant make work, or money laundering schemes. A friend sent me a group of photos from the Tesla plant, very similar. Pursuit of high tech is very different from efficient manufacture.

Why money is unlimited, thinking is often very limited. Very different mindset when spending one's own money.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 3:23 am
by Typhoon
hmYX4Muf9Tw

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 5:18 am
by Azrael
Endovelico wrote:
Magellan super-scope gets green light for construction
By Jonathan Amos
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32984957

Construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope has been given the go-ahead.

One of the largest optical observing systems ever conceived, the GMT will sit atop Cerro Las Campanas in Chile.

With its 24.5m-wide primary mirror system, astronomers should be able to see the first objects to emit light in the Universe, investigate dark energy and dark matter, and identify potentially habitable planets.

The GMT's international partners have all approved the $500m assembly phase.

Contracts against this money can now be awarded to suppliers.
Flattened mountain

The mountain ridge of Las Campanas itself, which is in the Atacama Desert, is ready to receive the observatory's components.

Two-and-a-half-thousand cubic metres of rock have been removed from its southern end to create a flat surface the size of four football fields. A road is in place to take all the elements to the summit when they become available.

Chief among these, of course, will be the seven 8.4m mirrors that comprise the GMT's primary reflecting surface.

Three are already at various stages of production (one is actually finished); the other four will begin their manufacture very soon.

"We expect in late 2021, possibly in early 2022, we will put three or four primary mirrors in the telescope, start doing some engineering, start doing some astronomy, and by that point we will have the largest (optical) telescope on the planet by a good margin," said GMT director, Pat McCarthy.

"We'll then slowly integrate the rest of the mirrors as they come along so that by 2024 or 2025, we should have all seven mirrors in the telescope," he told BBC News.

The GMT is one of three ground-based optical super-scopes planned for the next decade.

The other two are the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), also in Chile, and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), to be sited in Hawaii.

Construction of the latter has been in the news of late because of a dispute with Native Hawaiian activists, who say the installation on Mauna Kea volcano is a desecration of sacred land.

With primary diameters of 39m and 30m respectively, the E-ELT and the TMT will be bigger than the GMT at completion. They will also have a very different architecture in that their big reflecting surfaces will be made up of many hundreds of smaller mirror segments.

The designers of the GMT, on the other hand, think their decision to go for just seven large units will pay dividends in certain types of observations.
Sharper than Hubble

"We think there is great advantage in having as much of your collecting area as possible in a contiguous, uninterrupted optical surface," explained Dr McCarthy, a researcher from Carnegie Observatories.

"This will limit the number of phase jumps that you have. So, for high-contrast applications, where you're using adaptive optics, imaging planets around nearby stars - we feel that having this much of the telescope's aperture as coherent pieces of glass will help us when we try to achieve that very high contrast."

The "adaptive optics" of which Dr McCarthy speaks is really now a must-have in modern astronomy.

Such systems counter the "twinkling" of stars and other astrophysical phenomena caused by their light passing through Earth's turbulent atmosphere.

By manipulating flexible secondary mirrors, it is possible to subtract this effect based on information gleaned from artificial stars projected on to the sky by lasers.

This approach, together with its great aperture size, should enable the GMT to capture images that are 10 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Eventually we will be able to see little green teenage girls doing topless on the beaches of Proxima Centauris... :D
That might increase public support for the space program ;-)

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 1:28 pm
by Endovelico
Philae comet lander wakes up
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33126885

The European Space Agency (Esa) says its comet lander, Philae, has woken up and contacted Earth.

Philae, the first spacecraft to land on a comet, was dropped on to the surface of Comet 67P by its mothership, Rosetta, last November.

It worked for 60 hours before its solar-powered battery ran flat.

The comet has since moved nearer to the sun and Philae has enough power to work again, says the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos.

The probe tweeted the message, "Hello Earth! Can you hear me?"

Image

On its blog, Esa said that Philae contacted Earth, via Rosetta, for 85 seconds in the first contact since going into hibernation in November.

"Philae is doing very well. It has an operating temperature of -35C and has 24 watts available," said Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec.

Scientists say they now waiting for the next contact.

When Philae first sent back images of its landing location, researchers could see it was in a dark ditch. The Sun was obscured by a high wall, limiting the amount of light that could reach the robot's solar panels. Scientists knew they only had a limited amount of time - about 60 hours - to gather data before the robot's battery ran flat.

But the calculations also indicated that Philae's mission might not be over for good when the juice did eventually run dry. The comet is currently moving in towards the Sun, and the intensity of light falling on Philae, engineers suggested, could be sufficient in time to re-boot the machine.

And so it has proved. There is some relief also, because the very low temperatures endured by the lander in recent months could have done irreparable damage to some of the circuitry. The fact that both the computer and transmitter have fired up indicate that the engineering has stood up remarkably well to what must have been really quite extreme conditions. Scientists must now hope they can get enough power into Philae to carry out a full range of experiments.

One ambition not fulfilled before the robot went to sleep was to try to drill into the comet, to examine its chemical make-up. This will become a priority,

Philae is designed to analyse ice and rock on the comet.

The Rosetta probe took 10 years to reach the comet, and the lander - about the size of a washing-machine - bounced at least a kilometre when it touched down.

Before it lost power, Philae sent images of its surroundings which showed it was in a type of ditch with high walls blocking sunlight from its solar panels.

Its exact location on the comet has since been a mystery.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:12 am
by Doc
Saw this earlier today. Amazing to see the world's biggest land based mobile object move. Too bad though you can't get within a mile of it with a digital camera. (This is from a mile away). The telescope is as big as a football stadium. The dish 100 meters by 110 meters and 485 feet high.

Image

Better picture here:
https://public.nrao.edu/explorer/gbt/Th ... ap=GBE_GBT

You can click on the various play buttons in the picture to see some pretty good videos about it.

Come January they are planning to put all the data from the Great Big Telescope online for anyone to access. Today while I was there they were looking for gravity waves. Beautiful area BTW Only 9,000 people in the entire county. That is supposedly the lowest population density of any county East of the Mississippi

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:58 am
by Simple Minded
Dc

I worked for a small company that designed and fabricated some manipulators for NRAO that were eventually going to a high plateau in Chile.

Interestingly enough, the astronomers I talked to said the one subject they were forbidden from discussing from ET life. To discuss such matters was a threat to project funding and credibility.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:56 pm
by Doc
Simple Minded wrote:Dc

I worked for a small company that designed and fabricated some manipulators for NRAO that were eventually going to a high plateau in Chile.

Interestingly enough, the astronomers I talked to said the one subject they were forbidden from discussing from ET life. To discuss such matters was a threat to project funding and credibility.
Someone better tell that to the tour guide I was listening to yesterday. He said the sky survey from 1960 to 1964 was pretty conclusive that there were no signals present to indicate intelligent life outside of earth.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:59 pm
by Simple Minded
Doc wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:Dc

I worked for a small company that designed and fabricated some manipulators for NRAO that were eventually going to a high plateau in Chile.

Interestingly enough, the astronomers I talked to said the one subject they were forbidden from discussing from ET life. To discuss such matters was a threat to project funding and credibility.
Someone better tell that to the tour guide I was listening to yesterday. He said the sky survey from 1960 to 1964 was pretty conclusive that there were no signals present to indicate intelligent life outside of earth.
1960 thru 1964, really? These conversations I had were in the early 2000's. These guys were thrilled to death to talk about their multiple PHd's, but I suspected that if they mentioned intelligent ET life, they would immediately get themselves classified as religious fanatics or ostracized as nutcases depending upon which camp was hurling the poo-poo.

Not as cool as conspiracy theories, but I got the distinct impression that scientists who work on projects funded by grants find that avoiding subjects like politics or religion is considered wise.

I was hoping for more open mindedness, but understood their position. I think the SETI program was eventually killed due to the appearance of being staffed by fruit cakes/True Believers.

The guy you listened to was probably either a Zionist or tool of the oligarchs....... ;)

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:36 am
by Doc
Simple Minded wrote:
Doc wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:Dc

I worked for a small company that designed and fabricated some manipulators for NRAO that were eventually going to a high plateau in Chile.

Interestingly enough, the astronomers I talked to said the one subject they were forbidden from discussing from ET life. To discuss such matters was a threat to project funding and credibility.
Someone better tell that to the tour guide I was listening to yesterday. He said the sky survey from 1960 to 1964 was pretty conclusive that there were no signals present to indicate intelligent life outside of earth.
1960 thru 1964, really? These conversations I had were in the early 2000's. These guys were thrilled to death to talk about their multiple PHd's, but I suspected that if they mentioned intelligent ET life, they would immediately get themselves classified as religious fanatics or ostracized as nutcases depending upon which camp was hurling the poo-poo.

Not as cool as conspiracy theories, but I got the distinct impression that scientists who work on projects funded by grants find that avoiding subjects like politics or religion is considered wise.

I was hoping for more open mindedness, but understood their position. I think the SETI program was eventually killed due to the appearance of being staffed by fruit cakes/True Believers.

The guy you listened to was probably either a Zionist or tool of the oligarchs....... ;)
Actually he kind of reminded me of "Sheldon" of the big bag theory.

BTW they covered the Chilean RA site in the film at the science center. The Green Bank site was the original test bed for movable radio telescope Interferometer arrays
https://public.nrao.edu/explorer/videos ... GBE022.mp4

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 1:59 am
by Simple Minded
Cool to see it up and running. When we were working on it, it was just their dream. They said nothing was there, no roads, no electricity, nothing. Atmosphere was considered too thin for long term habitation.

We installed the prototype in Charlottesville, VA. I think there was also a German team and a Japanese team working on the same thing. Interesting dudes, knowledge that was a mile deep and an inch wide. The practical ones knew when they were outside their element. The others were like OTNOT posters..... :o

I suspect being in any group associated with space exploration other than SETI, and discussing ET life, is like being a Catholic priest and mentioning that you are a homosexual. It wouldn't matter what you did, just the conversation is evidence of guilt itself.

http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/home

http://www.space.com/20196-giant-alma-r ... scope.html

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:59 pm
by Doc
It is pretty amazing. Visiting the Alma site is something I would like to do sometime.

Here is a video about Green banks NSA sister site. Mostly BS so take it with a grain of salt.

The big circle here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.5150634 ... !1e3?hl=en

was built for a 180 meter antenna that was never finished.

This is what it would have looked like:

https://books.google.com/books?id=wyoDA ... e&q&f=true

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:48 pm
by Heracleum Persicum
.


NASA Data Reveals Another Earth-Like Planet
NASA astronomers announced the discovery of Kepler 452b,
which is 1,400 light-years away and orbits a sunlike star every 385 days.




Let's assume there is LIFE on "Kepler 452b" .. any form of life you can imagine of

Is that worth anything considering "Kepler 452b" is 1,400 light-yrs away ? ?

any signal we would send, answer would come back in 2800 yrs

Worth ZERO

.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 3:27 am
by Nonc Hilaire
Heracleum Persicum wrote:.


NASA Data Reveals Another Earth-Like Planet
NASA astronomers announced the discovery of Kepler 452b,
which is 1,400 light-years away and orbits a sunlike star every 385 days.




Let's assume there is LIFE on "Kepler 452b" .. any form of life you can imagine of

Is that worth anything considering "Kepler 452b" is 1,400 light-yrs away ? ?

any signal we would send, answer would come back in 2800 yrs

Worth ZERO

.
Maybe they have voicemail?

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 10:41 am
by Simple Minded
Heracleum Persicum wrote:.


NASA Data Reveals Another Earth-Like Planet
NASA astronomers announced the discovery of Kepler 452b,
which is 1,400 light-years away and orbits a sunlike star every 385 days.




Let's assume there is LIFE on "Kepler 452b" .. any form of life you can imagine of

Is that worth anything considering "Kepler 452b" is 1,400 light-yrs away ? ?

any signal we would send, answer would come back in 2800 yrs

Worth ZERO

.
I'm of two minds on this (both simple):

1. HP is wrong, and we should do it for posterity (and they'll end up paying for it anyway). :)

2. HP is right, cause in 2800 years, due to AGW, the Earth will be 14 degrees warmer, and we will probably all be dead. :(

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:02 am
by Heracleum Persicum
.


Life on other planets, IMVHO, interesting only if we could communicate with them, round trip, within, say,
round trip 100 yrs .. that means, 50 light years away

Signal would travel speed of light .. communicate in form of signal .. not travel (IMVHO, for travel, we can not travel distances farther than 1 light yrs)

We could send them signal asking questions, answer would come, if they "advanced" LIFE, say, in 200 yrs

This still "within" interesting period .. maybe they millions of yrs ahead in development as we, in that case, they could tell us things still interesting for us after 200 yrs.

But, 1400 light yrs ? ? traveling with the speed of "New-Horizons-craft", would take 28'950'000'000 yrs to get there.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:47 pm
by Endovelico
Image

The new gigantic radio telescope being built in China...

http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl ... sUCh2Eig6L

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:44 pm
by Alexis
Heracleum Persicum wrote:Let's assume there is LIFE on "Kepler 452b" .. any form of life you can imagine of

Is that worth anything considering "Kepler 452b" is 1,400 light-yrs away ? ?

any signal we would send, answer would come back in 2800 yrs

Worth ZERO
I disagree. Understanding planets around other stars helps us understand what in Earth' case is unique or specific, what is commonplace. It could give us more information so as to better understand whether our planet is most probably the unique abode of life in the Galaxy, or not so specific as abode of life but specific as home to a technological species (I mean, not just beavers), or if we can expect technological species to be quite common.

Generally, it's difficult to tell in advance which discoveries will be fruitful and which won't. You can be surprised either way, or look for something and then discover another seemingly totally unrelated - more precisely you hadn't understood there was a relationship before you made the discovery.


Or another possibility: imagine you detect strange artificial signals that can only be interpreted as acceleration of large very high energy quasi-light speed ships... departing in our general direction. Then, at least you will know of their arrival a couple years in advance ;)
Heracleum Persicum wrote:.. any form of life you can imagine of
...Any?

Image

H.E.L.L.O.W.E.A.R.E.Y.O.U.R.F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 6:44 pm
by Heracleum Persicum
.

Any information we would get from "Kepler 452b" would be 1400 yrs old .. we see a picture how things were 1400 yrs ago.

In a sense that could be valuable, depending in which stage LIFE on "Kepler 452b" is.

If "Kepler 452b" is 10 million yrs "ahead" of EARTH in evolution of LIFE, looking @ "Kepler 452b" (as was 1400 yrs ago) could result in very valuable knowledge, as they still would be 10 million yrs (minus 1400 yrs) ahead of us.

But

There is no value to "communicate" with "Kepler 452b" as response would come back in 2800 yrs

.

EM Drive

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:33 pm
by Endovelico
Independent expert confirms that the "impossible" EM Drive actually works
FIONA MACDONALD - 28 JUL 2015

Over the past year, there's been a whole lot of excitement about the electromagnetic propulsion drive, or EM Drive - a scientifically impossible engine that's defied pretty much everyone's expectations by continuing to stand up to experimental scrutiny.

The drive is so exciting because it produces huge amounts of propulsion that could theoretically blast us to Mars in just 70 days, without the need for heavy and expensive rocket fuel. Instead, it's apparently propelled forward by microwaves bouncing back and forth inside an enclosed chamber, and this is what makes the drive so powerful, and at the same time so controversial.

As efficient as this type of propulsion may sound, it defies one of the fundamental concepts of physics - the conservation of momentum, which states that for something to be propelled forward, some kind of propellant needs to be pushed out in the opposite direction.

For that reason, the drive was widely laughed at and ignored when it was invented by English researcher Roger Shawyer in the early 2000s. But a few years later, a team of Chinese scientists decided to build their own version, and to everyone's surprise, it actually worked. Then an American inventor did the same, and convinced NASA's Eagleworks Laboratories, headed up by Harold 'Sonny' White, to test it.

The real excitement began when those Eagleworks researchers admitted back in March that, despite more than a year of trying to poke holes in the EM Drive, it just kept on working - even inside a vacuum. This debunked some of their most common theories about what might be causing the anomaly.

Now Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at Dresden University of Technology in Germany, has played around with his own EM Drive, and has once again shown that it produces thrust - albeit for reasons he can't explain.

Tajmar presented his results at the 2015 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum and Exposition in Florida on 27 July, and you can read his paper here. He has a long history of experimentally testing (and debunking) breakthrough propulsion systems, so his results are a pretty big deal for those looking for outside verification of the EM Drive.

To top it off, his system produced a similar amount of thrust as was originally predicted by Shawyer, which is several thousand times greater than a standard photon rocket.

"Our test campaign cannot confirm or refute the claims of the EM Drive but intends to independently assess possible side-effects in the measurements [sic] methods used so far," Tajmar and graduate student Georg Fiedler write in their conference abstract. "Nevertheless, we do observe thrust close to the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena."

So where does all of this leave us with the EM Drive? While it's fun to speculate about just how revolutionary it could be for humanity, what we really need now are results published in a peer-reviewed journal - which is something that Shawyer claims he is just a few months away from doing, as David Hambling reports for Wired.

But even then, until we can figure out exactly how the EM Drive works, it's unlikely that the idea is going to be taken seriously by the scientific community. For now, all scientists can do is keep testing the system in a range of different environments and try to work out what's causing this "impossible" thrust.

It might turn out that we need to rewrite some of our laws of physics in order to explain how the drive works. But if that opens up the possibility of human travel throughout the Solar System - and, more importantly, beyond - then it's a sacrifice we're definitely willing to make. Bring on the next set of tests.

Update 29 June 2015: As predicted, a lot of experts in the field have responded to Tajmar's independent confirmation with skepticism over the past 24 hours. Their concerns centre on the problems flagged in our original story - the fact that no one can explain exactly how the EM Drive works, and that there's still no peer-reviewed research showing that the thrust production isn't an artefact of some other experimental variable. But Eric W. Davis, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, pointed out to io9's George Dvorsky that there also appear to be flaws in Tajmar’s experiment.

"I noted in [the study’s] conclusion paragraphs that [Tajmar’s] apparatus was producing hundreds of micro-Newtons of thrust when it got very hot and that his measuring instrumentation is not very accurate when the apparatus becomes hot," Davis told io9. "He also stated that he was still recording thrust signals even after the electrical power was turned off which is a huge key clue that his thrust measurements are all systematic artifact false positive thrust signals."

"The experiment is quite detailed but no theoretical account for momentum violation is given by him, which will cause peer reviews and technical journal editors to reject his paper should it be submitted to any of the peer-review physics and aerospace journals," he added.

http://www.sciencealert.com/independent ... ces-thrust
Could it actually work?...

Also worth reading:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/ ... -em-drive/

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 7:56 am
by Heracleum Persicum
.


NASA will pay an additional $490mn to Roscosmos to secure seats in Soyuz spacecraft,
the only means of delivering US astronauts to the ISS.



For five years now, the Congress, while incrementally increasing annual funding, has not adequately funded the Commercial Crew Program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned. This has resulted in continued sole reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our crew transport vehicle for American and international partner crews to the ISS,”

.

The Final Frontier

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2015 9:35 pm
by Doc
First test of Orion rocket for manned deep space exploration. Scheduled for 5 pm US eastern time Aug 12, 2015

http://www.popsci.com/nasas-about-test- ... SOC&dom=tw

Re: The Final Frontier

Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2015 4:06 am
by Typhoon
Doc wrote:First test of Orion rocket for manned deep space exploration. Scheduled for 5 pm US eastern time Aug 12, 2015

http://www.popsci.com/nasas-about-test- ... SOC&dom=tw
Against reason, I'm a big fan of the manned space program.

However, we are going have to move beyond chemical reaction rockets if we are to go anywhere beyond the moon and possibly Mars.

Re: Astronomy and Space

Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:45 pm
by Typhoon
fKCI7K2-NEE