Tag: space

Well, [NONE of] the stranded astronauts are back safely.

Via Facebook. As you can see, they’re readapting to regular gravity. Which is a problem that we will need to fix in the long term, so at least we’ve gotten some observational data out of the whole sorry mess.

[UPDATE: I am reminded that the stranded astronauts are coming back down next year. This is just regular service on the ISS. We still need to work out a long-term solution, though.]

Moe Lane

PS: I love what SpaceX is doing, but the company really needs about three or four competent competitors.

Violin performances… INNNNN SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

Saw this on Facebook originally, only I can’t find it now because Facebook has these very strange ideas about why people use Facebook. But this is cool. Mildly put together, but still extremely cool. And they did it just to say that they could*.

*And to sell Starlink subscriptions, obviously. To which I say: God Bless America, and All that the traffic will bear.

SpaceX testing for metahuman genes via historic space mission later this month.

Dear Lord. This is absolutely correct: the article reads like a superhero team’s origin story. Or villain teams’.

When billionaire Jared Isaacman self-funded a mission to orbit Earth in 2021, the project was billed as a childhood cancer fundraiser — and made for an eye-popping entrance into the private space tourism world. The four-person crew of people from various backgrounds with no prior spaceflight experience spent three days orbiting Earth together in a 13-foot-wide SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

[snip]

On Monday, Isaacman and three crewmates — including his close friend and former Air Force pilot, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, as well as two SpaceX engineers, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis — will arrive at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for the launch of a far grander, more dangerous, and experimental trip to space.

Continue reading SpaceX testing for metahuman genes via historic space mission later this month.

NASA revives Voyager-1.

Very cool: “For the first time in five months, NASA engineers have received decipherable data from Voyager 1 after crafting a creative solution to fix a communication problem aboard humanity’s most distant spacecraft in the cosmos.” Read the article for details, but the gist is that they were able to troubleshoot a bum chip, then work around it. From what I can tell from the article, ’twas very cleverly done. The programming seems extra-cool somehow when you’re dealing with a significant light speed delay…

Via Facebook.

Awesome: India lands Chandrayaan-3 on moon.

They get to rack up a first:

Never mind the obvious artist’s rendition in the second image: there’s a real one at the link here. My congratulations to the engineers and scientists on the project. This was not easy to do. I personally can’t do it, but they can, and did. Very, very cool.

Via @IMAO_.

The H.P. Lovecraft: Maker of Modern Horror SPACE Module is confirmed!

I’m looking forward to attending this, next month:

H.P. Lovecraft: Maker of Modern Horror

H.P. Lovecraft revolutionized horror, modernized the Gothic, and created a 20th-century mythology explored by authors from Jorge Luis Borges to Stephen King. This module provides an overview of Lovecraft’s fiction, from his early “Dunsanian” fantasies to his later science fiction masterpieces. Along the way, it touches on Lovecraft’s life and times, his letters and criticism, and other aspects of his thought, but keeps the stories themselves central. We explore Lovecraft’s uses of settings such as “witch-haunted Arkham,” techniques including the near-hoax and “adventurous expectancy,” and his great theme of “cosmic indifference.”

…especially since Ken Hite’s going to be teaching it. There’s still space available: it’ll be on Thursdays in July, from 5-7 PM Eastern Time. It should be a blast and a half.

Tweet of the Day, Just Waiting For The Lift edition.

This is an interesting point from Karl…

…with the caveat that we don’t actually have the super cheap per-pound lifting capacity yet. When we do, there’s going to be one hell of a disruption in the bespoke satellite industry. Some of the companies doing perfectly fine work now are not going to be able to transition, so keep an eye on that.