honest question - why any talented people would still work for NASA when real projects are from companies like spacex?
Lunar Flyby
201–210 of 262 posts
Re: Lunar Flyby
#202Are full size/larger images available somewhere? 1920x1280px seems low. Edit: Found 'em: https://images.nasa.gov/search?page=1&media=image&yearStart=...
Should eventually be on pds atlas I hope. https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/
Re: Lunar Flyby
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also have a 46 megapixel Nikon Z9 which they don't appear to have used for some odd reason...
I found one taken with Z9: https://images.nasa.gov/details/art002e009301 There are some very bright noise pixels on the dark area, which is different from the noise in similar photos taken with D5 (much darker and uniform).
A common error made with "pixel peeping" is to zoom to 1:1, which shows a smaller physical sensor area with higher megapixel cameras.
The trick is to zoom to the same percentage zoom and compare side-by-side.
I did spot a few "hot" pixels visible on the Moon, but those are easily fixed in post.
Re: Lunar Flyby
#204Some of these photos look so "fake". Maybe because of how they are lit or the lack of atmospheric distortion, they don't quite looks real (I'm not disputing that they are authentic, they just look a bit weird)
Its a classic feeling when seeing things there one not normally see. There's a whole conspiracy that the war in Ukraine is fake, because video of combat looks weird compared to movies and video games.
Re: Lunar Flyby
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compared to the absolute baffling amount of money spent for military purposes, knowing more about the moon is well worth it.
No no no no, I can't let that go. Sending astronauts around the moon has nothing to do with "knowing more about the moon". We don't need people up there to observe the moon. In fact, it's a lot easier and better to have sensors go there and automatically make measurements (e.g. pictures). Now thinking about Mars, sending astronauts there is actually a net negative for science because it risks contaminating Mars. We s…
This FAQ from the NASA website seemed particularly intellectually dishonest:
>Why do we need astronauts to view the Moon when we have robotic observers? Human eyes and brains are highly sensitive to subtle changes in color, texture, and other surface characteristics. Having astronaut eyes observe the lunar surface directly, in combination with the context of all the advances that scientists have made about the Moon over the last several decades, may uncover new discoveries and a more nuanced appreciation for the features on the surface of the Moon.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/nasa-answers-your-most-pressin...
Re: Lunar Flyby
#206Was there any writeup on the actual goals and accomplishments of this mission. I'm sure there is some very valuable scientif8c data and observations done, but what exactly are those (other than 'wow' media)?
Getting the public excited also has its place. Also sending humans so far from earth has enough challenges to make it worthwile. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II ) has the experiments listed.
> sending humans so far ...
I see that they travelled 1.6% more distance compared to a tech that was used 56 years ago. If NASA is really excited about this, I think they are having a low news day. I'm sure they must be other goals.
Re: Lunar Flyby
#207Amazing ! looks cool!
Re: Lunar Flyby
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a lot of potential in the announced changes and what SLS/Artemis might be able to become. This shouldn't prevent us from being critical of what SLS/Artemis most definitely has been for the previous 10-15 years. And don't be fooled about the SLS launch cadence. As recently as summer 2025, Artemis III was still a nominally a 2027 manned lunar landing ( https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2025/08/18/nasa-begins-…
> then SLS would represent a ~17 year long program that cost at least 41 billion dollars that netted 5 mission launches SLS will never be worth it. But I'd discount from that price tag the continuity benefits of keeping the Shuttle folks around, and aerospace engineers employed, across the chasm years of the 2010s.
Yeah, it’d be really nice if we could somehow express the strategic capabilities maintained in these discussions. Because on the face of it, SLS looks terrible, but paying that much to maintain the national capability to make something like the shuttle and SRBs feels reasonable.
Kind of similar to farm subsidies and the strategic implications there.
Re: Lunar Flyby
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note there would be no veterans benefits and services without a military, so effectively the total for defense is 412 PLUS 184 = $596B, more than anything except SS. Also note that most people consider social security to be an entirely different kind of government spending than anything else in that list.
No, if the US had no military the majority of veterans benefits and services money would still need to be spent (its mostly healthcare) it would just be bucketed under SS and Medicare/Medicaid then. Also, without a military the US would not be even 1/3rd as wealthy as it is today, given its military created the global order that secured the last 80 years of the global economic system, shipping lanes and USD dominance…
I avoided commenting on the ROI associated with defense spending, deliberately.
Veterans get SS too, so no, costs associated with veterans wouldn't shift to SS. It is fair to suggest that the health care costs of uninjured, untraumatized veterans would just show up under Medicaid/Medicare. I don't know what percentage of veterans health care costs (not health care visits) fit in that category, versus "stuff that wouldn't be an issue if they hadn't been in the military".
Re: Lunar Flyby
#210Gorgeous, awe-inspiring photos. Tangentially, did the NASA website move to WordPress? I thought it was Drupal, the Drupal official website even had a case study about nasa.gov. I see wp-content links on the site and there is no Drupal behaviors in JavaScript and I didn't notice any of the usual drupal classes in the source
NASA migrated thousands(!) of their sites to WordPress back in 2023. I think it had to do with user-friendliness of the Gutenberg editor.