Some good news amongst the current unpleasantness. IF the schedule holds, astronauts will be launched from Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station in late May. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...-time-in-a-decade/ar-BB12MG6S?ocid=spartandhp Looking forward to this, and hoping for live TV coverage.
I figured I would have to pull my kids out of school for this, now that they are home I guess I don’t need to. I can’t wait to watch this with them, I remember vividly watching the first launch of the Space Shuttle. I hope it’s as memorable for them.
We so very need this. I miss the shuttle. In some ways, the 1990’s was the best decade since Apollo: great comets, storm chasing when roads were not crowded—there was a spirit of the age. Now it feels as if internal combustion engines will not work—and horse drawn carriages filled with lye/lime are to take the place of cars
This may also be another nail in the coffin of SLS. While I cannot stand Musk, SpaceX is going the right way with TSTOs and VTVLs, and maybe one day we'll see proper SSTOs again. NASA has rebuffed them every time - the late 60s, the 90s, but with the SLS being a technological and political zombie, it may very well fall under the Ares I curse or Administration-Change curse. While their official policy is that commercial vehicles are for LEO/Station cargo and passengers, when the Commercials can reach the Moon or Mars, they suddenly get a vastly expanded mission envelope, or, at least, provide a hard truth versus the SLS, and NASA may very well produce their own variant (my preferred outcome).
Or electric vehicles. Oil will always be necessary for some things, and electric's only drawback are net distance, lithium as a power retention source, and upfront cost, right now. Unless lithium can be renewed or what are called "supercapacitors" can provide enough power without being too bulky, or some new energy-dense storage technology... but 200 miles on one charge is adequate for many, but ideally 400 or more would be absolutely fantastic. Not to mention, the shuttle uses hydrogen and not oil... The only problems with that are capturing it (we just can't make a collector in space beyond Earth's orbit to collect it) and that other itty bitty issue, the explosive nature of it when it's combined with oxygen.
That was indeed good news from SpaceX. I hope to see further progress on that front, and that my country's space agency can get some use out of that.
It's not over until the fat lady sings, and this human spaceflight gap (in the US) won't be over until a Crew Dragon leaves the pad. They've still got a few risks that need to be retired this month before they get the ok to launch.
It was going to be a race to see if Boeing or SpaceX would put crew up there first. It leans heavily to SpaceX now. Someone will get to bring the flag back down.
I heard a really funny radio spot about how moon landers were being narrowed down to three entries—SpaceX, Blue Origin, and *Dynetics* (their lander had vertical solar panels that would look great in the end zone). Here is the problem—the announcer pronounced it as “dianetics.” For ten minutes I turned blue I tells ya... So that explains Tom Cruise jumping up and down like Gramatica—he hit it between the uprights. Then he got on the cell phone and said “Hello, Suri—I mean Siri?” Great now he goes to ISS Of course L. Ron told us the Xenusians all flew 707s...
SpaceX had had a successful static fire test of the Starship One engine. https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn4-engine-static-fire-test.html
SpaceX has released an online Dragon- ISS docking simulator..take lots of time to dock..I haven't got it right yet...even simulated Space is hard.. https://iss-sim.spacex.com/
That was brutal............. 1.5 from the station and I missed the circle. You have to be super, super gentle with the controls
Pretty nerve-wrecking, I first flew through the solar panels and to the other side, then managed to return, but got too far away then XD Second attempt now... Got it! Use translation first, then get the angles right, then approach the target. Adjust as necessary on the way. You could also do the angles first, and then translate to the right position, but it helps a lot to do these things separately before flying towards it.
It's nerve wrecking indeed took me 3 attempts. Just have to be ever so gentle when you are closer to the station. Someone needs to make a proper game of this where you can have sound and disaster.... This would test everyone's nerves.
That would be torture.......And just as you get within feet of the docking ring your ship is hit and explodes