Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 221 posts

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#101

Post by tombert »

gorgoiler wrote: post #81
SoftTalker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason for humans to ever return to the moon. The cost and risks are not justified. Drones and robots can do anything that needs to be done. They don’t need to breathe, they don’t need to sleep, or eat.

Not that anyone’s offering me the choice of course but I’m happy to leave it to the robots. Lunar dust gives me the creeps. Imagine stepping outside into a world where absolutely everything is coated in dark gray copy toner that gets ingrained into all that touches it. I don’t think I could do it due to the anxiety.

I'm too tall and I don't have twenty PhDs so I don't think "astronaut" is really on the table for me, but I would absolutely go to the moon if I had the opportunity.

The dust would give me some anxiety too but I think it would be worth it.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#102

Post by hello12343214 »

sfjailbird wrote: post #12

Here are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.

this is awesome, look at all those craters!

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#103

Post by sen »

sva_ wrote: post #34
sfjailbird wrote: post #12

Here are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.

Flickr? Moon landing? What year is it?

Flickr has had a resurgence of popularity among photographers since yahoo sold it. It’s easily the best “professional” photo hosting site currently.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#104

Post by Panoramix »

somenameforme wrote: post #96
agentkilo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's true, but I haven't really experienced the Apollo era personally. After the "gap" between the old space race, and the new race inspired by private space agencies, I do feel we are getting closer, to the moon at least.

Something most people don't appreciate is that, outside of the distance, Mars is super easy mode compared to the Moon. The Moon has 2 week long nights cycling between highs and lows in the range of -130C to +120C, inhospitable terrain, constantly getting pounded by meteorites, no atmosphere whatsoever, much higher radiation, much less gravity, and so on. Mars, by contrast, is oddly similar to Earth - similar day/nigh…

Well, Mars is so much farther away and much more massive so you need a lot of fuel if you want to come back. This is much more difficult than the extra fuel needed for the moon landing due to lack of atmosphere. Speaking of which, Mars having an atmosphere means you need complex heat shields for the landing. Furthermore it's so far that unlike the case of the moon you can't make real time adjustments from earth, there's a delay of several minutes. Then again you have dust storms...

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#105

Post by skhr0680 »

decimalenough wrote: post #53
sfjailbird wrote: post #12

Here are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.

It's fascinating how the pictures have that "Apollo moon landing" look. I'd always assumed that a huge part of this was just 1960s technology (film not digital etc), but apparently it's actually coming from the literally unearthly lighting conditions of being on the Moon.

> 1960s technology

Still photography has gotten more convenient since then, but in the agreeable lighting and atmospheric conditions one would encounter while taking a vacation snap outside at noon Cynthian time, image quality now isn't better than then*

*Unless you're willing to spend $10,000+

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#106

Post by alfanick »

sfjailbird wrote: post #12

Here are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.

These pictures are great - maybe it's time for me to get a new desktop background.

Kinda related: some years ago NASA published all the Apollo missions pictures. I downloaded all of them (hundreds, maybe bit more), acting as a photo editor then I selected "good ones", cropped them to 16:10 format and made a background picture pack - I'm using it on all my devices since then. If someone is interested, they're published at [0] - feel free to use.

[0]: https://share.icloud.com/photos/0577bWqlyiqqaz9zeI0cEcE7Q

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#107

Post by dguest »

zingerlio wrote: post #92
sfjailbird wrote: post #12

Here are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.

How are the videos captured or processed? The solar lens flares are smoothly interpolated but the moon surface shows lower FPS, almost feels like the flares were on a separate layer.

My guess: they are the same update rate. The lens flares have blurrier edges and move less across the screen. This makes the jumps less obvious.

CGI animations also add blurring, and even your eyes have an integration time that will make fast moving objects blurry. So your brain good at interpolating blurry edges.

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#108

Post by nymiro »

alfanick wrote: post #106
sfjailbird wrote: post #12

Here are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.

These pictures are great - maybe it's time for me to get a new desktop background. Kinda related: some years ago NASA published all the Apollo missions pictures. I downloaded all of them (hundreds, maybe bit more), acting as a photo editor then I selected "good ones", cropped them to 16:10 format and made a background picture pack - I'm using it on all my devices since then. If someone is interested, they're publishe…

Thank you for sharing this!

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#109

Post by somenameforme »

Panoramix wrote: post #104
somenameforme wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something most people don't appreciate is that, outside of the distance, Mars is super easy mode compared to the Moon. The Moon has 2 week long nights cycling between highs and lows in the range of -130C to +120C, inhospitable terrain, constantly getting pounded by meteorites, no atmosphere whatsoever, much higher radiation, much less gravity, and so on. Mars, by contrast, is oddly similar to Earth - similar day/nigh…

Well, Mars is so much farther away and much more massive so you need a lot of fuel if you want to come back. This is much more difficult than the extra fuel needed for the moon landing due to lack of atmosphere. Speaking of which, Mars having an atmosphere means you need complex heat shields for the landing. Furthermore it's so far that unlike the case of the moon you can't make real time adjustments from earth, ther…

Atmospheres make landing easier and require less fuel! A big problem with landing is losing your speed which is going to be extremely high to begin with. On the Moon you can only do this by basically turning around in the opposite direction of your velocity and thrusting an equal but opposite amount. It's not only quite complex but also substantially complicates landing.

This is made even true on the Moon because its low gravity means that even a hair of velocity is going to make you 'bounce' after landing. This is why things like probes and rovers landing (or at least ending up) on their side or even upside down on the Moon is a fairly frequent affair. On Mars (and other places with an atmosphere) you can use atmospheric braking which is essentially just slowing down by bumping into the atmosphere in a controlled fashion. You can even get things like parachutes involved in the process.

The dust storms in Mars are also 'fake' at least as presented in movies/books like "The Martian." Mars has an extremely low atmospheric pressure (relative to Earth) so fiercest dust storm imaginable would feel like nothing more than a slight breeze. The only issue they pose is visibility, and dust accumulating on solar panels. Andy Weir, by the way, was well aware of this when writing "The Martian" which is otherwise a phenomenally well researched hard sci-fi book. I think it's highly telling that he had to intentionally fudge reality to create a crisis on Mars!

Re: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon

#110

Post by Mountain_Skies »

markdown wrote: post #15

Anyone know if they flew over the site of the Apollo 11 lunar module landing? Surely they'd do it just for the publicity and ability to shut up Joe Rogan and the other nutjobs that consider that landing fake.

Rogan hasn't believed that for nearly a decade because he learned more about the physics of the Moon and the engineering of the time. Since you have an interest in truth and honesty, I'm sure now that you've been informed you won't spread this misinformation anymore and will do some reflection on how you ended up holding this view for so long past when it no longer was true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k

Post reply on HN