Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brilliant synopsis. Kudos!
It's a famous quote from John Wheeler.
Ah. TIL.
NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
51–60 of 104 posts
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was not built to retrieve Soviet satellites, despite an uncited claim in Wikipedia to the contrary. In fact, it probably couldn't. If nothing else, it'd be hard to fit a satellite designed for a different launch fairing into the payload bay of the shuttle and secure it well enough to be able to land with it. The shuttle was designed to bring cargo back, but only satellites that were specifically designed for this…
Is the X-37b's orbit known? I dimly recall articles about observers catching glimpses of it places away from its predicted trajectory. Could it maybe be placing/observing/servicing satellites? Why's it a shuttle-style design? I feel like it's not too outlandish to suspect that some military satellites might have a way to hide themselves from instruments, as well.
Known to the Russians and Chinese? Almost certainly.
The X-37B is a shuttle-like design because it was designed for NASA to be a crew escape vehicle for the ISS. The Air Force only took over the project when NASA cancelled it.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or 19:48 for those of us in the UK. NASA/SpaceX really should start using UTC for their timestamps.
I feel like it's not at all weird to say that something is arriving somewhere in that somewhere's local time zone.
But, NASA has a global audience. At least have UTC as a secondary time.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#54Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh interesting. Do you have sources for that information?
The idea that you could capture a satellite and return it was part of the mission requirements for the original shuttle design. If it was a 'friendly' or 'unfriendly' satellite was left unspecified. It was also limited by the Shuttle's OMS in terms of delta-v so the orbits from which a satellite could be retrieved was constrained.
Unfriendly satellite can blow up or cause fire inside of shuttle, so it's bad idea to capture enemy satellites. It's like sending billion-worth mine capturer behind enemy lines, which can be destroyed with AK.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
But, NASA has a global audience. At least have UTC as a secondary time.
Plus, the ISS' timezone is also UTC.
ISS circles Earth every ~1.5 hours, which is ~16 times per day, so it does makes sense to have UTC. Land however is fixed, with its own timezone. I second another answer, local timezone primary and UTC secondary is best.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus, the ISS' timezone is also UTC.
ISS circles Earth every ~1.5 hours, which is ~16 times per day, so it does makes sense to have UTC. Land however is fixed, with its own timezone. I second another answer, local timezone primary and UTC secondary is best.
I agree with local and UTC, as long as both are there. Local is useful for locals, but the audience of a landing is pretty much global.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#58I can't easily link to it because it's still live streaming but at 4:10 in they seem to be debugging a local internet/HTML error on their iPads. Next level debugging in production.
Related, I wonder if there's going to be a postmortem on this mission on the UI, because from the brief scenes when its shown updating or being clicked on, it looks to have a responsiveness on the order of half a second.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#59Really glad I got to drive out and watch this launch. It was fantastic seeing us send people back into space again.
1) The ISS is in LEO. Calling it space is absurd.
2) The ISS should have been deorbited years ago.
3) NASA is not for your personal entertainment. Go watch NASCAR if you need a thrill.
Re: NASA Astronauts Return Home in SpaceX's Crew Dragon Spacecraft [video]
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh interesting. Do you have sources for that information?
I don't have access to classified military secrets, but you don't think they would build a vehicle that could return 15 tons of payload to earth to retrieve US satellites? US could just build and launch a new satellite easier and cheaper than bring one down to fix only to launch it again. Obviously there is the movie about Salyut 7 that depicts the shuttle trying to capture the station. Salyut 3 had a machine gun att…
Back in the 70s spy satellites used film cameras and used to return the film in re-entry capsules. There’s a _really_ good (fictional) move called Ice Station Zebra about a retrieval mission in the arctic that goes wrong.
Retrieving the satellite allows you to safely recover the film, and re-equip the satellite with new film and propellant. The latter is important because it’s useful for spy satellites to be able to change their orbits frequently to observe new targets or evade tracking.
Also bear in mind some spy satellites are huge and incredibly costly. The Hubble Space Telescope is based on a spy satellite series.