211–220 of 350 posts
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The space shuttle blows my mind every time I see one. It's huge - the size of an airliner - and would glide back at Mach 25. It's a humbling level of accomplishment.
You can actually go see Endeavor in real life at the L.A. Science Center. Admission is like $2. Regardless of the size, the spectacle is breathtaking.
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Mirror deployment was done before insertion, moving the 18 mirrors up from their locked position by 12.5 mm. Now, 3 months of mirror alignment will follow. They will align with a reference star having to first move one mirror a little bit to identify how the mirror affects the alignment, then calculate the alignment and move the mirror. Each mirror's position can be controlled at 10 nm resolution.
It's not only position, also deformation by pulling or pushing on the center of the mirror changing it's curvature.
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I've heard the (probably unfounded) story that the Soviets saw the Space Shuttle, couldn't figure out why the Americans would build it but figured there surely must be a good reason; so they copied it to also have whatever capability the Americans were after.
It's not unfounded, and they knew about it before it ever flew once. A family member was in the CIA at the time (later at NSA and RAND) and played a role after they were sent to the USSR after graduating college to study Russian (paid for by CIA, they know 8 languages). They translated the technical Russian Buran plans/documents and decoded them for our scientists to compare to their own, as well as help slip design…
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What was the intended mission? I’ve read about the classified missions that went ahead, iirc one of them did use the full capacity.
The one that had the biggest influence on the design of the shuttle was probably the plan to launch into a polar orbit, rendezvous with a satellite, capture it, and land as it swung around for the next orbit. This require massive cross-range capability, in order to be able to glide back to a suitable landing site in the US, putting lower limits on the size of the wings.
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If I remember right, his dad was/is very involved in the JWST.
It's really amusing contrasting the brains going around in that family with them both goofing off with a lawn mower carburetor in the garage.
No offence to anyone involved in this genuinely exciting and humbling project: Please stop putting me on the edge of my seat until we’re just about to get our first images (many months from now) I was excited about the launch, and happy to know it went better than expected so that there is extra fuel, but each milestone is burning me out. Let me know when the tests are done and we can view the images of distant objec…
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Just out of curiosity, is it considered best practice these days to use the gender-neutral "their" even with a specific subject (Obama) who is known to use masculine pronouns for himself?
I think it would be nice if English evolved to only ungendered pronouns. Eliminates accidental offense while also reducing everyone's cognitive load. Also, you reminded me of a quote from yesterday: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
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If I remember right, his dad was/is very involved in the JWST.
It's really amusing contrasting the brains going around in that family with them both goofing off with a lawn mower carburetor in the garage.
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What was the intended mission? I’ve read about the classified missions that went ahead, iirc one of them did use the full capacity.
> What was the intended mission? There were several. A couple of examples: the shuttle could delay release of a payload, maneuver while in orbit, release the payload, then maneuver again. So conceptually, you just put a satellite into an orbit and your enemy doesn't know exactly what orbit its in. I'm sure eventually they would find it, but the military still wants stuff like that. Another example is the ability to g…
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As A German this really bugs me. Von Braun and friends knew exactly what was going on in their production facilities, didn't care and never had to confront their role in this.
"Once the rockets are up who cares where they come down, that's not my department" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro