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Space and Astronomy Thread
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HenryGarten
20-03-2011
Originally Posted by Gneiss:
“That's quite neat )”

Indeed. It is great to be able to investigate sunrise times in western China. Scottish farmers would feel quite good that they do not have to put up with that situation.
squack
23-03-2011
This looks like a great way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first man in space: http://www.firstorbit.org/

It is a film using modern footage from the ISS to 'recreate' what Gagarin would have seen on his flight as the first man in space.

Nice idea.
Darthchaffinch
23-03-2011
Originally Posted by Tissy:
“I think it`s great !!

Too cloud here grrrr and the night before was so clear ”

Thank you!

Originally Posted by HenryGarten:
“I discivered this little tool last night. I have not come across anything quite like it before. See http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1451015”

I find this is better, especially when planning a photo!
http://photoephemeris.com/
TelevisionUser
26-03-2011
...was featured on a BBC radio documentary earlier on in the week and the relevant links are here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nycw3
http://herschel.cf.ac.uk/results/whirlpool-galaxy

The Hershel telescope is dedicated to infrared astronomy and its mirror is 3.5 metres in diameter and that is 1.5x the Hubble Space Telescope's mirror. However, the more you go into the infrared, the longer the wavelength is and the poorer the resolution is so scroll down on that first link and looking at the Whirlpool Galaxy in the different infrared wavelengths show this.

Even the best infrared picture is still worse than the best optical picture from Hubble here:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/arc...mat/large_web/
http://herschel.cf.ac.uk/files/M51_H...S_3colours.jpg
balthasar
27-03-2011
Is there a confirmed replacement for the space shuttle .
The fellow I heard from got a little bit Dan Dare on the subject..
geordiejackie
28-03-2011
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

A really beautiful time lapse from Norway of the aurora stunning work by the cameraman
Assa2
28-03-2011
Originally Posted by balthasar:
“Is there a confirmed replacement for the space shuttle .
The fellow I heard from got a little bit Dan Dare on the subject..”

No. There was the Constellation project which included Orion as the next manned spaceship for NASA but nthat has largely been cancelled and NASA are now looking to private ventures to come up with replacements. In the mean time the US & ESA will use Russia's Soyuz to get to and from the ISS.
balthasar
01-04-2011
Originally Posted by Assa2:
“No. There was the Constellation project which included Orion as the next manned spaceship for NASA but nthat has largely been cancelled and NASA are now looking to private ventures to come up with replacements. In the mean time the US & ESA will use Russia's Soyuz to get to and from the ISS.”

Once the shuttle is retired, Nasa will have a lot of attention focused
on what comes next, In terms of manned space flight.
tiger2000
02-04-2011
From National Geographic...

Quote:
“NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has been orbiting Earth since February 2010, watching the sun with a suite of instruments designed to monitor the evolution of solar activity. But twice a year the spacecraft's orbit brings it into an "eclipse" season, when SDO slips behind Earth for up to 72 minutes a day.

During these short periods, the craft sees the sun partly in Earth's shadow. But unlike the solar eclipses seen from Earth—which appear crisp due to the airlessness of moon—SDO's eclipses are filtered through Earth's atmosphere. This creates an uneven edge to the shadow cast on the sun, as seen in the picture, captured March 29.”


http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...59951_huge.jpg

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...14_600x450.jpg
J6ngo1977
02-04-2011
I love space and cosmology. Dr Brian Cox is my hero
BeethovensPiano
02-04-2011
Originally Posted by tiger2000:
“From National Geographic...




http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...59951_huge.jpg

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...14_600x450.jpg”

Real time images from SDO

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/
tiger2000
02-04-2011
Great news for British astronomy...

Jodrell Bank chosen as base for largest radio telescope

Quote:
“Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire has been selected as the headquarters for a £1.3bn project to build the world's biggest radio telescope. An agreement to run the Square Kilometre Array from Jodrell Bank was signed in Rome by Australia, China, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. SKA is designed to answer some key questions about the Universe. Its location is undecided but could be built in Australia or Southern Africa.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12947435
Hotelier
02-04-2011
How much would you weigh on other stellar objects?.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/weight/

Apparently I'd weigh 1,680,000,000,000 stones on a neutron star, that's about 10,500,000,000 tons!! (For a merest fraction of a second before I got squished into sub atomic particles.)

Mind boggling.! literally
TelevisionUser
03-04-2011
Originally Posted by balthasar:
“Is there a confirmed replacement for the space shuttle .
The fellow I heard from got a little bit Dan Dare on the subject..”

Originally Posted by Assa2:
“No. There was the Constellation project which included Orion as the next manned spaceship for NASA but nthat has largely been cancelled and NASA are now looking to private ventures to come up with replacements. In the mean time the US & ESA will use Russia's Soyuz to get to and from the ISS.”

As Assa2 has pointed out, the USA will be dependent on Russia's Soyuz rocket http://www.google.co.uk/images?um=1&...&aqi=&aql=&oq= for the immediate future once all the shuttles have been taken out of service.

In the medium term, the likely replacements for the shuttle originate from the private sector and what they are basically doing is reinventing the Saturn 1 rocket http://www.google.co.uk/images?um=1&...&aqi=&aql=&oq= which will take astronauts into Earth orbit and to the ISS but they're not powerful enough to go to the Moon.

The two private sector contenders are Space X's Dragon capsule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon to be launched atop the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 rocket and Orbital Science's Prometheus lifting body http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HL20_mockup.jpeg to be launched atop an Atlas V rocket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_V. At the time of writing, Space X's proposals seem to be closer to practical realisation.

Space News Update


Earth is a gravity potato...

...and there's more here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12911806. The mass of the Earth is not uniformly spread and that means that parts of the planet contain more mass than other parts. That produces a variation in the Earth's gravitational field and that very variation has now been mapped by the GOCE satellite to produce a rather unusual gravity strength map.

The launch of the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA)...

...is covered in this article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12924060. This new body will be responsible for devising and implementing British space policy and there's more at UKSA's website here http://www.bis.gov.uk/ukspaceagency. This new agency will have a budget of some £220 million a year and space science recently received a boost in the last budget of £10 million http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12833654.

Whilst this is good news, UK funding for space is way behind other states such as France. The best that can be said is that UK space science is at least going in the right direction now.
Assa2
05-04-2011
Originally Posted by TelevisionUser:
“The launch of the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA)...

...is covered in this article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12924060. This new body will be responsible for devising and implementing British space policy and there's more at UKSA's website here http://www.bis.gov.uk/ukspaceagency. This new agency will have a budget of some £220 million a year and space science recently received a boost in the last budget of £10 million http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12833654.

Whilst this is good news, UK funding for space is way behind other states such as France. The best that can be said is that UK space science is at least going in the right direction now.”

Slightly ironically other countries, especially the USA, are moving away from centralised funding of space programmes and towards more commerciallise projects. The UK space industry is one of the world leaders so we've had that sort of model for a long time. However it's concentrated where the money is i.e. commercial satellites and Defence applications. There's not much money to be made out of science or manned space flight at the moment. The minute that chages (especially manned space flight) I imagine the private sector in this country will be in the vanguard. I'm sure I've seen some proposals from BAe for SpaceShip2-like sub-orbital craft recently.

I'm not convinced the UKSA is a worthwhile move in the long run unless it gets some sort of regulatory role to 'manage' a burgeoning manned space flight industry in this country much like the CAA does for civil aviation.
TelevisionUser
05-04-2011
Originally Posted by Assa2:
“Slightly ironically other countries, especially the USA, are moving away from centralised funding of space programmes and towards more commerciallise projects. The UK space industry is one of the world leaders so we've had that sort of model for a long time. However it's concentrated where the money is i.e. commercial satellites and Defence applications. There's not much money to be made out of science or manned space flight at the moment. The minute that chages (especially manned space flight) I imagine the private sector in this country will be in the vanguard. I'm sure I've seen some proposals from BAe for SpaceShip2-like sub-orbital craft recently.

I'm not convinced the UKSA is a worthwhile move in the long run unless it gets some sort of regulatory role to 'manage' a burgeoning manned space flight industry in this country much like the CAA does for civil aviation.”

The UK is a world leader in terms of commercial satellites and their components and specialist instruments for scientific satellites and deep space probes.

I suspect, Assa2, that a good part of UKSA's work will involve the funding and coordination of funding for space science work that won't get funded by the private sector, e.g. remote sensing for environmental purposes in Earth orbit, exploration of the Earth's electromagnetic environment, space probes to study the Sun and planets, etc. and that's no bad thing. Such funding should result in high-tech jobs staying in the UK so that the economy benefits too.
Assa2
06-04-2011
Referring back to the discussion a few posts ago about the future of the US's manned space program, SpaceX has announced plans to launch the largest rocket since the Saturn V in 2 years time:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12975872

This heavy-lift rocket could put into LEO
Quote:
“more than a fully loaded Boeing 737 with 136 passengers, luggage and fuel”

Wow!
TelevisionUser
06-04-2011
Originally Posted by Assa2:
“Referring back to the discussion a few posts ago about the future of the US's manned space program, SpaceX has announced plans to launch the largest rocket since the Saturn V in 2 years time:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12975872

This heavy-lift rocket could put into LEO

Wow!”

That's the type of vehicle that could be converted to take crews after thorough testing which will take some time. That means that the USA will be completely dependent upon Russia's Soyuz to get their astronauts into orbit for the next few years - how embarassing for them!

With hindsight, the USA might have better to go down the road of keeping the Saturn 1 assembly line going and putting Apollo capsules or lifting bodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_body on top of them to carry astronauts into space and back again. That way they'd still have a viable launch capability today.

As an aside, SpaceX's co-founder is one Elon Musk who made his billions from being involved in Paypal! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
HenryGarten
07-04-2011
Nice link here. What does it take to make an astronaut?
Mallaha
07-04-2011
Originally Posted by TelevisionUser:
“As an aside, SpaceX's co-founder is one Elon Musk who made his billions from being involved in Paypal! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk”

Ex-NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman is also now a senior engineer at SpaceX.
Mandark
07-04-2011
Originally Posted by Television User:
“That's the type of vehicle that could be converted to take crews after thorough testing which will take some time. That means that the USA will be completely dependent upon Russia's Soyuz to get their astronauts into orbit for the next few years - how embarassing for them! ”

Yeah, we moan at the mess we got into with our defence budget but America's made an even bigger mess of its manned space programme. It soon won't have one!!

You tend to suspect that NASA has suffered at the expense of the US defence budget. That could backfire, especially on the Air Force, as NASA did a lot of research which was then used for military purposes.
Assa2
08-04-2011
With the construction of the ISS virtually complete the role of the space shuttle has ended. Given the rate of crew rotation on the ISS you would only need 4 missions or so a year. According to NASA each shuttle launch costs $450m although I'm sure I saw a figure of over $1billion before. Certainly there are other high costs involved in maintaining the fleet when not in flight prep. In other words the shuttle would be a very expensive and infrequent bus service.

NASA bought 15 seats on future Soyuz missions at $48m per seat back in 2007 but that also included several 'Progress' cargo launches for supplies so the actual cost of a Soyuz seat is rather less (Russia make a nice profit). Current rate for a space tourist flight in Soyuz to the ISS is $35m. So Soyuz is a very cheap and reliable alternative to the Space Shuttle so purely on ecenomic grounds it makes sense for NASA mto retire the fleet and divert the funding in other directions.
Assa2
08-04-2011
Originally Posted by TelevisionUser:
“That's the type of vehicle that could be converted to take crews after thorough testing which will take some time. That means that the USA will be completely dependent upon Russia's Soyuz to get their astronauts into orbit for the next few years - how embarassing for them!

With hindsight, the USA might have better to go down the road of keeping the Saturn 1 assembly line going and putting Apollo capsules or lifting bodies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_body on top of them to carry astronauts into space and back again. That way they'd still have a viable launch capability today.

As an aside, SpaceX's co-founder is one Elon Musk who made his billions from being involved in Paypal! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk”

Interesting point about the Saturn 1 system.

That is a fundemental flaw in the way NASA has developed / procured systems over it's history. There has been very little if any natural evolution of the designs. Each time they've moved on to a new programme they've effectivley asked for and bought a completely different design for the launch system. Each one has lasted less than a decade with the exception of the Shuttle, but even thene there's hardly ever been a major redesign with the exception of the SRBs after Challenger.

Contrast that with Soyuz which itself was a development of older Russian systems. It's been around in one form or another for 45 years but has kept on being updated and improved so that today as a manned launch system it is cheap, reliable and effective.
tiger2000
10-04-2011
TV Alert

Space Night on BBC FOUR today from 7pm. Look like a couple of interesting programmes I'll save to my HD.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/program...1/4/10#evening
emails
10-04-2011
Originally Posted by tiger2000:
“TV Alert

Space Night on BBC FOUR today from 7pm. Look like a couple of interesting programmes I'll save to my HD.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/program...1/4/10#evening”

yes only 2 programmes i can see might be worth watching
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