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Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

theguardian.com

211–220 of 360 posts

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#211
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit, NASA does space stuff, it fails sometimes! Do we want to only fund things we know to be 100% easy to do? And don't fucking tell me, "we already landed on the moon once, how hard can it be?" because this shit is really fucking hard and takes lots of cash and a lot of what apppears to be "waste" or "failure" on a first order approximation, but in reality is actually "learned knowledge". I can't believe people thi…

Worse, it’s richest country on earth complaining about being too poor and having to enact austerity measures — implemented by the richest person on the planet who’s personal pay is much, much higher than any of the savings he’s found so far. I’ve seen many occasions in my career when some manager had flown across the country with a business class ticket, stayed in a fancy hotel, rented a luxury car, and turned up to…

Well, basically, that sums it all up.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Presumably it's that shape to fit in the fairing of a Falcon 9?

No, that's not why. I found dimensions and a picture of IM-1 here: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id... The IM-1 lander was 1.57 meters wide and 4m tall, but based on the picture I think the width doesn't include the legs. The Blue Ghost lander also launched on an F9; it's 2m high and 3.5m wide, and it landed without falling over. (dimensions from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ghost_Mi…

Absolutely no substitute for research and the facts. Thanks for the research.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say entirely. Starship isn't going to be involved in Artemis II, but Artemis III supposed to take humans to the moon in December 2025. Nobody's on schedule.

That artemis III date is very old. Artimis II is now scheduled to take place no earlier than April 2026 [1]. III is scheduled for mid 2027, and will be delayed further as time passes [2]. 1. https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/ 2. https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/

Am I crazy or is the SLS system is actually the most timely component?

Edit: Yeah, I'm crazy. SLS might be ready now, but it was delayed about 6 years. Starship and Orion both have a bit to catch up.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#214
post #158

Good advice: 1. Never invade Russia in winter. 2. Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity.

For (1): except, of course, if you’re the Mongol army. They preferred attacking in the winter (swamps and rivers are frozen so easily passable). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Kievan_Ru...

I think the fact that they were coming out of rather than heading into the steppe was a major factor.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#215
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t make comments based on what I want to happen An entire federal agency was deleted and thousands of non profits and other organizations were using the funding source as their only client and are also deleted now Just because this one is publicly traded we should expect a different outcome? I love prediction markets because now there is another outlet for perceiving politics than just debating. I take your mone…

[flagged]

Thats an odd response to me, I had look up the definition of the word ideologue to see if it was unintentionally a pejorative, and it isn’t. You had an uncompromising viewpoint despite being based on the same information that I have. Shrug.

So what is your thought on the rest of the comment

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#217

Now, stuff like that spoon-feed with honey every conspiracy theorist that says/writes that we (humans) never actually went to the moon blah blah blah. My thoughts about it is that.. 'hey we got tech to stream live the whole thing... from lift off to landing, with 10 cameras to each direction. I remember watching live the "Red Bull Stratos" and it was soooooooooo cool!!!!!! Why not to the moon??? How come we went to t…

The Apollo program had a wartime budget and a wartime risk tolerance.

The US and Russia were at war, though they did not directly engage with each other due to the threat of mutual nuclear destruction. Along with various proxy wars, technological dominance in space was a key factor in this war. If one side gained enough advantage, they could potentially leverage it into using it to win a direct war. Another factor is that Kennedy's assassination protected the program from political pressure within the US.

Since then, other factors have turned the attention of the space program: The USSR fell apart and didn't pose much of a threat, reducing the budget to a fraction of the size. The Space Shuttle was designed to be the next big thing in space, as a reusable launch vehicle; it could only do low earth orbit and fell short of its goals. Focus shifted to science, and a lot of good science could be performed in low earth orbit; This has lead to, for example, the significant achievement of a continuous human presence in space since the year 2000. Finally, the accepted risk for Apollo was several times what is acceptable today. Even if we had all of the old hardware on the launchpad ready to go for another mission, NASA would never put an astronaut on it.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#218
post #143
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a native English speaker (or English native speaker, ;)), but I've been using it forever...but didn't know there was an official adjective ordering.

The order of adjectives was never taught in K-12. It seems to be followed naturally by native English speakers without much thought until the order isn't followed. Then it sounds weird but most native speakers wouldn't be able to tell you why.

It was not. It woke me up in English 1A in college. Almost all native English speakers it comes naturally because it sounds right, and you can hear it in non-native speakers. Fresh in college I went to another non-native county. I was not facile.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CGEL gives this order: Evaluative > general property > age > color > provenance > manufacture > type [There's plenty of elaboration on what kinds of descriptors fit into each category. For example, artisanally handcrafted goes in the "manufacture" category, and the label "manufacture" makes sense for it, but the label "material" doesn't.] CGEL also correctly notes that this order only applies when all descriptors are…

> CGEL Is probably either Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language from 1985 or The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language from 2002. I have no idea which.

Cambridge. The abbreviation is conventional. Does it matter to you?

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#220
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a native English speaker (or English native speaker, ;)), but I've been using it forever...but didn't know there was an official adjective ordering.

Native speaker. I don't think it's truly "official" and it's not typically formally taught. "Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth is frequently cited as an early source of the "rule". IMHO It seems to be more of an organic property of the language. there's lots of articles on it. like this one https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/597981/adjective-order-g... and it's true that most of the time it just sounds odd or i…

I think it's taught to non-native english speakers, but seldomly to native speakers who are largely unaware about what they treat as natural
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