Community > Watto's Junk Yard
The Official Space Exploration Thread
DSJ™:
SpaceX does it again! Bulls Eye! 8)
Spacex lands again first stage on droneship despite extreme velocities
Dave:
I don't know where I read it, but Elon Musk is the real Tony Stark. That guy can do some amazing things.
He is hoping to land stuff on Mars every two years starting in 2018.
I think he should get half of NASA's budget. He should be responsible for rockets/space exploration and NASA can do the probes and science stuff.
With his team dreaming big and working fast we could do some amazing things. NASA is too tied to politics and academia to do anything efficiently.
Rob:
I don't know if I buy that... NASA does some amazing things, and yes this reusable rocket is particularly flashy and all - but JPL has a lot on tap and NASA is also developing a new heavy lift launch vehicle, there's the Orion spacecraft... missions aiming to put astronauts on an asteroid, on Mars, etc...
Yes, there's more bureaucracy and they're slower, but that doesn't mean they're not doing amazing things.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/?type=future
Nicklab:
My job often requires me to get up for work VERY early. And quite often that means leaving the house for work an hour or two before sunrise.
This morning I went outside to see some amazing stars since it was a totally cloudless sky. Mars was in full view and on the verge of setting. But then I caught sight of something moving overhead from the Southwest. While I do regularly see air traffic on approach to Newark airport and some of the private aviation fields, there's not too much traffic at 4 AM. Plus, there were no blinking lights.
That's when I remembered seeing something about NASA's Spot The Station page which they provide if you want to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station. You enter your basic geographic location and the app will let you know when you might be able to see the ISS passing overhead. I put in my own information, and sure enough the ISS was passing overhead at my location at 4:16 AM. I was genuinely surprised by how bright it was in the night sky. I had seen a satellite pass overhead once before at night over the east coast of Florida, but the ISS was far brighter and bigger than that previous sighting.
Phrubruh:
It's pretty cool watching satellites pass over head. They get brighter and darker depending on how the sun is reflecting off them. ISS is pretty big. What you got to worry about is those satellites that move in one direction and then suddenly change direction.
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