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Space: The Final Frontier

Pretty cool. Lunar Rover owner's manual. 38MB PDF!

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/LRV_OpsNAS8-25145.pdf

You deserve a cookie for this.

cookies-01.jpg
 
I know much of the focus right now is on the new mars project but I've found something cool.

Someone on youtube mashed up all the shuttle launches with a Carl Sagan monolouge. It's beautiful.

The video.
 
Can you imagine how bad ass it would be if a rover caught a pic of that tornado from the ground?

Video from the surface of Mars is one of the things I really want to see.
 

owlbeak

Member
And HiRISE is going to attempt to capture Curiosity at its parachute descent stage.

Imagine the logistics involved in doing something like that.
Yeah. I still can't believe they managed to get MRO to snap a picture of Phoenix during EDL. Things like that make me sad to realize I'll probably never have the skillset required to work for NASA or JPL. :'(
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
And HiRISE is going to attempt to capture Curiosity at its parachute descent stage.

Imagine the logistics involved in doing something like that.

Phoenix-descent_.jpg

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Phoenix hanging from its parachute as it descended to the Martian surface. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/#ixzz22Y9W7HRt
 
I'm disappointed I won't be able to be up for the landing of curiosity. Hopefully the scientists aren't using slugs in their calculations this time around.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Agreed. It's going to be surreal in another decade (or several) or so, when we have enough assets out there so we can monitor new assets as they move into place. Seriously freaking cool.

Did I ever tell you about my "strap a satellite to an asteroid with a camera pointed outward" idea? The idea is to basically use a really big asteroid's orbit and momentum as a free ride for a really big camera that travels around the solar system (and comes back) for free!
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
62 miles is the distance to the Kármán line, Space, and I've personally behind the wheel for over 200,000 miles in my life.

That quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson in the press conference video makes me think.

"If the Earth had no Atmosphere we'd be standing in "space"."

We dream about going into "space" but it's really such a small accomplishment right now. Public tourism will happen soon.

You always see pictures of the moon unrealistically close to Earth. Here's a true representation.
R8IRT.gif

About 30 Earth's could fit in-between us and the Moon, and man has done it round trip.

Nothing new, but yeah, just thinking about it.

And the distance to Mars is about 300x the distance to the moon.
 
Today's apod pic of the day:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1208/IC1396_demartin_1324.jpg

Stunning emission nebula IC 1396 mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust clouds in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Energized by the bright, bluish central star seen here, this star forming region sprawls across hundreds of light-years -- spanning over three degrees on the sky while nearly 3,000 light-years from planet Earth. Among the intriguing dark shapes within IC 1396, the winding Elephant's Trunk nebula lies just below cente

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

simply amazing!
 
If this works tonight, which I'm almost certain it will, NASA's engineers need to be recognized for this. This whole delivery system is stuff of science fiction becoming science fact.

Can 2014 and 2018 come any sooner? I want to see what exciting prospects Orion and The Space Launch System will give us.
 

owlbeak

Member
If this works tonight, which I'm almost certain it will, NASA's engineers need to be recognized for this. This whole delivery system is stuff of science fiction becoming science fact.

Can 2014 and 2018 come any sooner? I want to see what exciting prospects Orion and The Space Launch System will give us.
Don't forget 2015, when New Horizons swings by Pluto and we get our first non-blurry pictures of the
dwarf
planet.
 

Forsete

Member
Don't forget 2015, when New Horizons swings by Pluto and we get our first non-blurry pictures of the
dwarf
planet.

Its still a planet to me god-darn-it! :mad:

Yeah, so looking forward to tomorrow. :D
I'm going to set-up my own com-centre here. NASA broadcast on my TV, and the NASA Space Simulator program on my laptop to watch the landing.
 
Even though I have to wake up at 5am for work tomorrow I'm thinking about setting my alarm so I can get up at 1:30 tonight to see the landing. Where's the best place to watch? (other than Xbox)
 

Sirius

Member
From the MSL Thread:

tLJNR.jpg


Jet Propulsion Laboratory said:
PASADENA, Calif. - About two hours after landing on Mars and beaming back its first image, NASA's Curiosity rover transmitted a higher-resolution image of its new Martian home, Gale Crater. Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., received the image, taken by one of the vehicle's lower-fidelity, black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras - or Hazcams.

The black-and-white, 512 by 512 pixel image, taken by Curiosity's rear-left Hazcam, can be found at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/msl5.html .

"Curiosity's landing site is beginning to come into focus," said John Grotzinger, project manager of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "In the image, we are looking to the northwest. What you see on the horizon is the rim of Gale Crater. In the foreground, you can see a gravel field. The question is, where does this gravel come from? It is the first of what will be many scientific questions to come from our new home on Mars."

While the image is twice as big in pixel size as the first images beamed down from the rover, they are only half the size of full-resolution Hazcam images. During future mission operations, these images will be used by the mission's navigators and rover drivers to help plan the vehicle's next drive. Other cameras aboard Curiosity, with color capability and much higher resolution, are expected to be sent back to Earth over the next several days.

Picture was taken with B&W cam, Hi-Res Color photos inbound.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
I just find fascinating we sent a large mass of atoms to another planet, which will travel around, emitting radiation towards earth communicating information. And to think, parts of this vehicle may have been recycled from other metal objects...perhaps there is an indescribably small chance that a tiny fraction of my old car is waltzing around mars :)
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
I just find fascinating we sent a large mass of atoms to another planet, which will travel around, emitting radiation towards earth communicating information. And to think, parts of this vehicle may have been recycled from other metal objects...perhaps there is an indescribably small chance that a tiny fraction of my old car is waltzing around mars :)

What will really blow your mind is that it's just as likely (in astronomical chances, anyway) that both the rover and your car and the springs in your keyboard all have metal that came from the same exploding supernova some 4 billion years ago.
 
What will really blow your mind is that it's just as likely (in astronomical chances, anyway) that both the rover and your car and the springs in your keyboard all have metal that came from the same exploding supernova some 4 billion years ago.

Damn I was going to say something similiar. It's all star stuff!
 
Richard-Fleet-rf20120805sun_1344202722_lg.jpg

Richard-Fleet-rf20120805filament_1344202722_lg.jpg


From Spaceweather.com :

Amateur astronomers around the world are monitoring a gigantic filament of magnetism on the sun. If one end of the filament were on Earth, the other end would reach all the way to the Moon. The dimensions of the structure make it an easy target for amateur solar telescopes.

This filament is filled with billions of tons of plasma, yet it has remained suspended above the surface of the sun for days. Such a massive structure, buffeted as it is by winds and currents in the sun's atmosphere, is unlikely to remain stable much longer. If the filament collapses, it could crash into the surface of the sun and spark a powerful type of explosion called a Hyder flare. Amateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor developments.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
This filament is filled with billions of tons of plasma, yet it has remained suspended above the surface of the sun for days. Such a massive structure, buffeted as it is by winds and currents in the sun's atmosphere, is unlikely to remain stable much longer. If the filament collapses, it could crash into the surface of the sun and spark a powerful type of explosion called a Hyder flare. Amateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor developments.


Knowing. We all know how that ended...
 
Thought you guys would like this. Shots from the NightPod:

Osaka
281825442.jpg


Seoul
3115751028.jpg


Los Angeles
3030840325.jpg


The colors are real btw. More shots at the link:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/iss-nachtaufnahmen-leuchtende-staedte-11781494.html

The NightPod is a camera designed for night-photography of the Earth from the ISS. Pretty nice quality considering these were made from 500 km up and at a relative speed of 7km/sec (in low-light conditions of course).

Incredible.




Beat me to it.
 
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