Space In General

For those unaware:


Watching this reminds me all that '70s sci-fi where they would have a scene of a spaceship landing, and it was very obviously the scene of it taking off but played in reverse. Except the exhaust isn't being sucked back up into the rocket on this one. 😆
 
SHATBLAST!




Edit: Wow, Shatner's trying to tell Bezos something profound and Bezos just ignores him for champagne spraying on a flight he wasn't even on...
 
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The fact that a 90 year old man was able to make the trip, however brief, and return safely certainly gives me hope for the future.

Namely, the hope that I can still escape this filthy mudball before entropy finally catches up to me.
Edit: Wow, Shatner's trying to tell Bezos something profound and Bezos just ignores him for champagne spraying on a flight he wasn't even on...
I'm just impressed Bezos had the restraint to not yell "SUCK ON THAT, BRANSON!" while the cameras were still on.
 
SHATBLAST!
Can he do it?

Yes, he

star trek spock GIF
 
They're not being any less strict, not sure where that comes from. If they were any less strict than normal, this rocket would have flown by now.
I don't know, it just seems to me the FAA seem to be quite the pushover (as illustrated in the vid below), when it comes to Musk and SpaceX.



Personally i hope the open letter vid above, can help people become aware at least to the potential environmental impacts faced to the surrounding areas.

[Edit]:

For those who don't have the time to watch the 27 minute vid, it details all the times Musk has lied to the FAA about his intentions regarding SpaceX, and how easily the FAA just lets him walk over them.
 
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Personally i hope the open letter vid above, can help people become aware at least to the potential environmental impacts faced to the surrounding areas.
The environmental assessment has been finished, they saw no issues with what is going on at Starbase, and it has been opened up to public comment (and extended) until November 1st.
 
Tunnel-like magnetic filamentary galactic structures are increasingly being observed with modern radio telescopes, and our solar system is inside one of them, according to new research.

 
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I was using a facility today where another group were looking at what looked like a sample of rock, though I could just about make out what they were saying and it sounded like it was a meteorite of some description.

It turns out it was fragments of the Winchcombe meteorite, the first meteorite to be found in the UK in 30 years, and a rare object as the meteor was actually observed in the sky and the remnants were located very soon after it hit the Earth, making it a near-perfect sample which is of comparable quality to samples taken from asteroids that are still in space.


So although it has nothing to do with my work at all, I can at least say I've been in the same room as it and even seen some electron microscopy images of it as they were being collected.
 
This is interesting, but Boeing can't seem to get the Starliner into orbit, and Blue Origin's orbital rocket is vaporware at this point. So I'll believe it when I see it.

 
This is interesting, but Boeing can't seem to get the Starliner into orbit, and Blue Origin's orbital rocket is vaporware at this point. So I'll believe it when I see it.


That looks distinctly like a big hook dangling in the water, waiting for an investor whale to chomp onto it in the hopes of being on the ground floor of the next big thing.
 
Major X-class solar flare reported by Spaceweather.com:

MAJOR X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Earth orbiting satellites have just detected a major X-class solar flare from sunspot AR2887 (following two lesser M-flares described below. The blast at 1535 UT on Oct. 28th created a massive tsunami of plasma in the sun's atmosphere and almost certainly hurled a CME toward Earth. Stay tuned for images and updates about this event. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

EARTH-DIRECTED SOLAR FLARES: Sunspot AR2887 is facing Earth and flaring. So far today, Oct. 28th, the active region has produced two M-class solar flares (M1.4 @ 0740 UT; M2.2 @ 10:28 UT). At the Givatayim Observatory in Israel, astronomer Ofer Gabzo happened to be looking when the stronger of the two occurred:


"Conditions were horrible (lots of clouds and haze), but luckily I captured a video right at the peak of an M2-class flare in AR2887," says Gabzo.

Pulses of extreme ultraviolet radiation from the flares ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing brief shortwave radio blackouts centered on the Indian Ocean and, a little later, Africa. Blackout maps: M1.4, M2.2. Mariners, aviators and ham radio operators in the area may have noticed unusual propagation effects at frequencies below 20 MHz.

We don't yet know if these explosions hurled CMEs toward Earth; tentatively, we'd say not. Confirmation awaits fresh coronagraph data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.

More data and nifty video;
 
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Below, Spaceweather.com provides additional information on the X1-class flare and subsequent CME. It is thought that about once a century a flare will come along strong enough to knock out the electrical grid of one or more continents on Earth. That didn't matter much in the 19th Century Carrington Event, but if it happened today that could be a real problem, as it could take years to fully repair the damage.


GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: A strong G3-class geomagnetic storm is possible on Oct. 30th when the CME from yesterday's X1-flare is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. Such storms can spark naked-eye auroras as far south as Illinois and Oregon (typically 50° geomagnetic latitude) and photographic auroras at even lower latitudes. Lesser G1 and G2-class storms could persist through Halloween as Earth passes through the CME's wake. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

THE CORONAL MASS EJECTION: Here it comes. A coronal mass ejection (CME) launched into space on Oct. 28th by exploding sunspot AR2887 is heading almost directly for Earth. SOHO coronagraphs recorded the CME racing away from the sun faster than 1260 km/s (2.8 million mph):


The movie is full of "snow"--speckles caused by solar protons striking the coronagraph's CCD camera. These particles were accelerated toward the spacecraft (and toward Earth) by shock waves in the leading edge of the CME. Traveling at relativistic speeds, the protons reached us in less than an hour. The CME itself will take more than two days to cross the sun-Earth divide. ETA: Oct. 30th. Aurora alerts:SMS Text.

THE SOLAR FLARE: Yesterday, Oct. 28th, the sun experienced a global eruption. It began at 1535 UT when sunspot AR2887 unleashed an X1-class solar flare. The blast created a massive tsunami of plasma that rippled across the entire solar disk:


The plasma wave was about 100,000 km tall and moved through the sun's atmosphere faster than 700 km/s (1.6 million mph). These are also called "Moreton waves," named after American astronomer Gail Moreton who discovered them in 1959. Moreton waves often herald the launch of a CME.

Is sunspot AR2887 finished? Probably not. NOAA forecasters estimate a 60% chance of M-class flares and a 25% chance of another X-flare in the next 24 hours. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids edition of 10/29/21
 
NASA announced it's DART technology today

 
Amazon intends to more than double the amount of internet satellites they plan to launch by 2029, from 3,236 to 7,774. That's on top of the SpaceX network of thouands of satellites that's currently going up, as well as various other startups who are making plans to send up their own huge satellite networks too.

If any aliens plan to invade earth, they're going to have a heck of a time getting through the junk shield we're building in low earth orbit.
 
SpaceX Starlink sats are actually designed to de-orbit themselves at the end of their life. I don't know if that is the same for anyone else.
 
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