did somebody pop its balloon?
nasa running low on helium?
End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
21–30 of 55 posts
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#22It seems like a lot of these government-owned space things last a lot longer than they're made for. There's Landsat, Spirit, Opportunity, Hubble, the Voyagers, et cetera. It seems to be a pretty steep curve - either they fail on launch or landing or very early, or they far outlast expectations. There seems to be little that meets expectations. I can see lots of failures - space stuff is hard - but why so many things…
Lindy effect?
If something is built to last 10 years, it makes it likelier that it can survive another 10.
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#23History of Landsat is very interesting https://www.space.com/19665-landsat.html
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#24In the Las Vegas slider, the Lake Mead before/after difference is startling.
you can also see a massive solar plant in red in the bottom right
(and maybe also wind - although why they would both be red is beyond me)
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#25It seems like a lot of these government-owned space things last a lot longer than they're made for. There's Landsat, Spirit, Opportunity, Hubble, the Voyagers, et cetera. It seems to be a pretty steep curve - either they fail on launch or landing or very early, or they far outlast expectations. There seems to be little that meets expectations. I can see lots of failures - space stuff is hard - but why so many things…
Space is still a relative unknown, so overbuilding and conservative estimates are far preferred to aggressive cost-cutting and thin margins. You see the same thing with other technologies like cars and appliances -- early versions were mostly very overbuilt.
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#26In the Las Vegas slider, the Lake Mead before/after difference is startling.
The after photo is actually _up_ substantially from 2022.
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more intrigued at the increased green of the landscape at large, did the water supply actually improve to encourage more plant growth?
The photo from '99 was taken in May. The recent one was in July.
Other way 'round. That's why the after photo is so green, May is much greener than July.
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#28Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#29Dang, hits home. When I was a senior in high school, I was lucky to able to volunteer under Dr. Eric Brown De Colstoun at NASA Goddard, checking error rates for tree cover estimates using Landsat data^. Many hours that fall spent trudging around parks and forests, looking at the sky through a PVC pipe. It still kind of blows my mind at how much is able to be gained from images where each pixel is 15mx15m of ground-le…
What did you do with the pvc pipe?
Re: End of an era: Landsat 7 mission takes final images
#30Frightening how much smaller Lake Mead is now.
> How long does Lake Mead have left? Lake Mead has been facing a water crisis for many years. The water level in the lake has been dropping due to the increasing demand for water and the decreasing supply. If the trend continues, the lake could run out of water in the next 10 to 15 years.
Great…I was in Vegas last weekend, I guess they’ll just run it until it’s dry. Humans are ridiculous.