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Topic: Space Thread (Read 512800 times)
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calapine
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Remember the ill-fated Soyuz launch from this November? Here is another lift-off image. Failing with style:
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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calapine
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Just came across a bad surprise: California is still burning. Or again? The new Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite captured the presence of elevated absorbing aerosols – caused by fires – in the atmosphere off the west coast of the US on 12 December 2017.
While hundreds of firefighters battle the fires, more than 200 000 people have been forced to flee their homes. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the 2017 California wildfire season is the worst on record.
The Sentinel-5P satellite is still in its commissioning phase, so its Tropomi instrument is not yet fully calibrated, but images like these give us a preview of the data to come from the atmosphere-monitoring mission for Europe’s Copernicus programme. Interactive image, click to go to website:Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 5 December 2017, this image shows flames and smoke from the fierce blazes devastating northwest Los Angeles in Southern California.
Click on the box in the lower-right corner to view this image at its full 10 m resolution directly in your browser.
While hundreds of firefighters battle the fires, more than 200 000 people have been forced to flee their homes. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the 2017 California wildfire season is the worst on record.
The image shows the extent of the devastation caused by this latest outcrop of wildfires, which are so large that they have been given names. The worst, known as the Thomas Fire, engulfed almost the whole city of Ojai and an area north of Ventura, seen here in the far left of the image. The image also show two other sets of large fires: the Rye Fire near Santa Clarita (the middle fire) and the Creek Fire near Sylmar (right).
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« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 02:23:57 PM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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pxib
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Posts: 4701
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Just came across a bad surprise: California is still burning. Or again?
California is always burning at least a little. It's back to burning significantly.
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if at last you do succeed, never try again
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Surlyboi
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Posts: 10963
eat a bag of dicks
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California's four seasons are Flood, Mud, Fire and Earthquake.
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Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something. We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23617
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Just came across a bad surprise: California is still burning. Or again?
Again. Earlier fires were in Northern California. Current ones are in Southern California.
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calapine
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NASA narrowed down the choices for the mid-2020 robotic mission to two final candiates 1) CAESAR - Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample ReturnA probe designed to land on a comet, take a sample and return it to earth. The missions target might be familar to some: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 2) DragonfyTwo Quadcopter drones landing on Saturn's moon Titan, examining the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of various sites. This would be the first landing since (2005)Huygens, the ESA lander that piggybacked on the NASA Cassini probe. Also of course the first mission to quad-copter around in the solar system. I sort of forgot: Only one mission will ultimately be chosen. The final selection will happen Spring 2019. From a scientific point of view the Titan landing is more rewarding. Ditto for prestige. On the other hand landing on a small body without atmosphere carries far less technical risk.
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« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 01:40:32 PM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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calapine
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Nothing to spectacular: A drone video from Ariane 6's future launchpad.Work on the site is from 06:00 to 22:00 every day, with around 500 personal, and that really shows in the progress. Not shown, but happening as well: In Les Mureux (France) the factory for Ariane 6 is currently under construction. Basically new tooling, new processes (including 3d printing and all that fancy stuff), plus a change to horizontal production (typical for Russians and SpaceX) which allows cheaper production. (Think a car plant with steady tact rythm, all production steps moving in lockstep ) For context, here is the "vertical" Ariane 5 plant Some context, which I mentioned before so this is just a recap: Basically this a return to the Ariane 4 concept, which was technically simple, adaptable and produced at such a high rate that Arianespace could accept short-term contracts for urgent customers. As opposed to "You build a satellite, order a rocket for it, you wait 3 years while it's built and then launch" Ariane 5, while technically a very nice rocket and able to maintain it's market share, was always is a bit comprised as it had to fulfill mutliple design goals. a) be a man-rated, super-save launcher to bring the Hermes shuttle to Low Earth Orbit b) launch satellites to GTO. Hermes got axed half-way, but the design of Ariane 5 still reflects it's requirements. Ariane 6 is itself another comprise, this time due to cost, time-to-fly, technological and political reasons. But more about that another time. Ariane and Hermes:
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« Last Edit: December 21, 2017, 02:25:10 PM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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Shannow
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Someone liked something? Who the fuzzy fuck was this heretic? You don't come to this website and enjoy something. Fuck that. ~ The Walrus
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Chimpy
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A buddy of mine is a pilot for Alaska and he posted a great shot he took from the cockpit of his plane on Facebook this morning.
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'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
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calapine
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I did not, but indeed: ((Also sorry last post was rambly... wine...)
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« Last Edit: December 24, 2017, 05:42:50 AM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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calapine
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A buddy of mine is a pilot for Alaska and he posted a great shot he took from the cockpit of his plane on Facebook this morning. But I'm not posting it here because it would be pearls before swine with you guys.
You are so right, Chimpy. But we must be generous...
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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Chimpy
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I'm not going to mess with cross posting it because it is A not mine and B I am traveling so only have my phone which makes image posting a pain in the ass.
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'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
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Teleku
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https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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When I was attending college in San Diego, I saw a launch out of Vandenburg after sunset like this. Didn't have as impressive of a force field glow, but man, was freaky looking. We were all just standing outside watching it on campus. I knew it had to be a rocket of some sort, but on top of just looking crazy, you also had to be somewhat concerned WW3 hadn't just started.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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calapine
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Yes, WW3 would be so good looking. A small thing, but look how satisfying this silo opening is: Topol LaunchThe phenomen is ASMR I think??
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« Last Edit: December 24, 2017, 06:43:06 AM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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calapine
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Please no comments like "This design gives me eye-cancer". I used a pre-made Word template and I know that it looks crap. February will be more professional.
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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Sir T
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Looks fine to me. Easy to read. YOu could make it a little smaller so I was not sliding it from side to side, but otherise no complants. Anyway, I dunno if Calapine has mentioned this before, but I say this a month ago and I thought this was pretty cool. Basically Voyager 1's main thrusters are failing. so someone came up with the idea of using its small stabilising thrusters to orient the probe. Considering these haven't been used in like 37 years, there was some question if they would work at all, but they did. Really really cool. So its still on its way to help Captain Kirk create the Borg. Or get blown up by Klingons. Whichever. https://www.space.com/38967-voyager-1-fires-backup-thrusters-after-37-years.html NASA's far-flung Voyager 1 spacecraft has taken its backup thrusters out of mothballs.
Voyager 1 hadn't used its four "trajectory correction maneuver" (TCM) thrusters since November 1980, during the spacecraft's last planetary flyby — an epic encounter with Saturn. But mission team members fired them up again Tuesday (Nov. 28), to see whether the TCM thrusters were still ready for primetime.
The little engines passed the test with flying colors, NASA officials said. [Voyager 1's Road to Interstellar Space: A Photo Timeline]
"The Voyager team got more excited each time with each milestone in the thruster test," Todd Barber, a propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "The mood was one of relief, joy and incredulity after witnessing these well-rested thrusters pick up the baton as if no time had passed at all."
As Barber's words suggest, the mission team didn’t do this out of idle curiosity. Voyager 1 — which in August 2012 became the first human-made object ever to enter interstellar space — has long been using its standard attitude-control thrusters to orient itself into the proper position to communicate with Earth. But the performance of these thrusters has been flagging for at least three years, so mission team members wanted to find an alternative option.
A successful test was far from guaranteed. Not only was the long layoff a potential issue, but the TCM thrusters were designed to burn continuously for relatively long stretches; they had never been fired in the very short bursts employed for attitude control, NASA officials said.
"The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data and examined the software that was coded in an outdated assembler language, to make sure we could safely test the thrusters," Chris Jones, chief engineer at JPL, said in the same statement.
The plan is now to press the TCM engines into service in the attitude-control role, beginning in January. This should make a big difference for the mission, team members said.
"With these thrusters that are still functional after 37 years without use, we will be able to extend the life of the Voyager 1 spacecraft by two to three years," Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd, also of JPL, said in the same statement.
But the four TCM thrusters will likely be retired again at some point in the future. Each one requires a heater to operate, which in turn uses power. When Voyager 1's power supply gets too low, the probe's handlers will switch back to the attitude-control thrusters, NASA officials said. (Voyager 1 is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG. RTGs convert to electricity the heat generated by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238.)
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Hic sunt dracones.
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Brolan
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Kudos for doing all the work putting that calendar together and sharing it with us.
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Sir T
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This was last month, but seriously, I hate to laugh at this as I could see myself making this kind of stupid error. [size=150]Russia lost satellites because it used coordinates for wrong launch site [/size]
BY CHRISTOPHER BRENNAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Thursday, December 28, 2017, 7:41 AM
A human error that gave the coordinates for a launch pad more than 4,000 miles away is being blamed for the loss of valuable satellites last month.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told state media Wednesday that problems from the space agency Roskosmos were to blame for the quick disappearance of the Soyuz rocket carrying devices from Russia, Europe and the United States.
It flew off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East, though the coordinates for its takeoff were for Baikonur, the more often-used launch site in Kazakhstan, he said.
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Confusion between Baikonur and Vostochny, which are separated by thousands of miles of Mongolia and Siberia, comes as Russia tries to use the second site to ease pressure on the first. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/russia-lost-rocket-coordinates-wrong-launch-site-article-1.3723747
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Hic sunt dracones.
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calapine
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Kudos for doing all the work putting that calendar together and sharing it with us.
Thanks. I'll work on it more. (*still hasn't made finished part 2 of the first-British-rocket*) SpaceX flights are really providing some nice shots latley. The what and where: The image was shot by Peter Horstink, Dutch pilot of a 747-400 freighter, while flying from Amsterdam to Johannesburg. The city lights below belong to Khartoum, Sudan. The phenomen is the Falcon 9 upper stage venting fuel before re-entry and burn up. This is done to prevent any premature explosions that could create space debris. The pattern is due to the stage spinning, which might (I am guessing here) be an effect caused by the fuel vent itself, or maybe a deliberate spin stabilisation to maintain stage orientation.
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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01101010
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You call it an accident. I call it justice.
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Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
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calapine
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Impossible to say. We know it reached (some) orbit, so it's not a classic launcher failure. The options that are left now are: - Payload was inserted into orbit, but it was the wrong one. Too high or too low.[1]
- Payload was inserted into the correct orbit but was unresponsive.[2]
- Deployment orbit was reached, but separation from the upper stage failed and both burned up in the atmosphere later.[3]
One news item counting against a rocket malfunction is that the Falcon Heavy start preparations are going ahead. IMHO not even SpaceX would conduct a launch weeks after an upper stage failed for an unknown reason. [1] Happend on SpaceX ISS supply mission CRS-1. A Merlin engine failed, leading to underperfomance of the Falcon 9 first stage. The secondary payload, an Orbcomm satellite ended up in too low orbit and was lost. [2] Almost happend two weeks ago with Angosat-1, first Angolan communications satellite. Built by RKK Energia [4] contact was established was established briefly after separation but the satellite went dead soon after. Already feared a loss by then it was possible to restablish contact again three days later. What happend was that the on-board batteries gave out way too early. Luckily the solar panels had already been deployed and the satellite recharged. [3] Happend last year to Indian IRNSS-1H satellite, launched by the local indigenous PSVL (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle). The fairing (heat shield) failed to separate, the satellite - alive and sending signals(!) - was stuck inside the 4rd stage and burned up with with it in the atmosphere, most likely conscious and in incredible pain until the very end. [4] You may remember them from such space block busters as: Sputnik, Progress, Soyuz, Luna, Saljut, Mir and "Zarya - the ISS' first module""
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« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 03:22:31 PM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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Teleku
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Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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Yeah, the whole thing is sort of weird. SpaceX seems to be pretty confident everything worked fine on their end though, so the most likely scenario is that the payload adapter (responsible for separating the satellite from the second stage booster), failed. So when the second stage did its standard burn to take it back down to burn up into the atmosphere, it was still attached. While SpaceX usually also makes the adaptor, Northrop decided to use their own adapter on this mission, so such a scenario would technically put them at fault as it wasn't SpaceX's equipment. If not that, then yeah......
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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Sir T
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Hic sunt dracones.
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01101010
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12003
You call it an accident. I call it justice.
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Yeah, the whole thing is sort of weird. SpaceX seems to be pretty confident everything worked fine on their end though, so the most likely scenario is that the payload adapter (responsible for separating the satellite from the second stage booster), failed. So when the second stage did its standard burn to take it back down to burn up into the atmosphere, it was still attached. While SpaceX usually also makes the adaptor, Northrop decided to use their own adapter on this mission, so such a scenario would technically put them at fault as it wasn't SpaceX's equipment. If not that, then yeah...... Or the top secret military satellite is just fine. Don't want to go all in with the tin foil, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.
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Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
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calapine
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It's officially lost:A highly classified satellite launched by SpaceX this weekend ended up plummeting into the Indian Ocean, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News. I don't think this subterfuge: The public doesn't know what's going on anyway and the Russians have their own means to check whether it's really there or not, they wont be fooled by a press statement. It looks like option 3 was what happend: The options that are left now are: Payload was inserted into orbit, but it was the wrong one. Too high or too low.[1] Payload was inserted into the correct orbit but was unresponsive.[2]
- Deployment orbit was reached, but separation from the upper stage failed and both burned up in the atmosphere later.[3]
[3] Happend last year to Indian IRNSS-1H satellite, launched by the local indigenous PSVL (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle). The fairing (heat shield) failed to separate, the satellite - alive and sending signals(!) - was stuck inside the 4rd stage and burned up with with it in the atmosphere, most likely conscious and in incredible pain until the very end. [/list][/list] Edit: In case of a separation there are three players involved, from top down: - Satellite
- Payload Adapter
- Payload Attach Fitting
The satellite the least likely culprit.
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« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 08:13:38 AM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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Sir T
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Posts: 14223
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Photo of the South Pole of Jupiter, from the Juno Space Probe. There are basically random Cyclones whirling back and forth there, totally not what scientists were expecting.
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Hic sunt dracones.
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calapine
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Posts: 7352
Solely responsible for the thread on "The Condom Wall."
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French magazine malville featured a lengthy interview with the Stéphane Israël [1], CEO of Arianespace. For my Twitter feed I am providing a translation. The article is probably somewhat too dry and indepth for most here, but considering how much time it took me to prepare this, I just cannot not share it here too. [1] He doesn't look half bad either and has a cute French accent. *sigh* Edit: Also to be honest without MS Word Grammar check I would have thrown the towel 1/3 in.
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« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 05:40:08 PM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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calapine
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Posts: 7352
Solely responsible for the thread on "The Condom Wall."
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Also you just NOT missed a launch. A Delta IV with a secret NRO payload was about to liftoff right now. Cancelnd due to fault Ground Service Equipment. Since Delta IV flies ~2 times per year and will be phased out as soon as it's replacement (Vulcan) comes online there won't be too many opportunities to watch a launch anymore. Next launch attempt: 12. January 2018 - 1:00 pm PST - 22:00 UTC Here it sits:
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« Last Edit: January 11, 2018, 05:39:29 PM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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Teleku
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Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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Always was a fan of the orange color scheme of those rockets. Next task for Elon is to get a unique paint job for his rockets instead of the boring white.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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calapine
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Posts: 7352
Solely responsible for the thread on "The Condom Wall."
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There is always the NASA's "flying carrot" to look forward to: Sadly the 80ies-style booster "speed swooshes" didn't make it past CDR. Zuma edit: Totally forgot to mention this: The mission was pushed to January due to an unspecified issue with the payload fairing. And now we seem to have to lost the launch due to a payload separation issue...
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« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 02:24:01 AM by calapine »
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Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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IainC
Developers
Posts: 6538
Wargaming.net
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Always was a fan of the orange color scheme of those rockets. Next task for Elon is to get a unique paint job for his rockets instead of the boring white. They were orange because that's the colour of the spray-on insulation. Painting them white adds weight - for the Shuttle main tank, leaving it unpainted saved almost 300Kg. They used to paint them white for UV protection purposes but, if you keep them under cover until they are needed, then that stops being a problem.
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Teleku
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https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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/the more you know memeI never knew that, so thanks! Still, I wish they would do something a little more iconic with the modern rockets. The orange insulation is interesting, and I've always loved the Saturn V's odd uneven digital checkers paint job on top of its shape: (but its also the most awesome rocket ever) SpaceX needs to work on its branding.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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IainC
Developers
Posts: 6538
Wargaming.net
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Basically we need rockets that have colour schemes like the racers in Wipeout.
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01101010
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12003
You call it an accident. I call it justice.
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Basically we need rockets that have colour schemes like the racers in Wipeout.
OR.. how about sponsor labels like NASCAR?
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Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
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Teleku
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Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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From the soft core porn sci-fi classic, Species 2.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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