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With the near perfect run of the first Falcon heavy launch I figured we needed a dedicated thread on more space stuff that wouldn't ordinarily deserve its own thread.

Astrophysicists discover planets in extragalactic galaxies using microlensing. Blows my mind we have the ability to do that already, one more thing that was just science fiction is now fact.

Thanks Kougar, I'm on-board for a space thread. Emerging technology is ramping up and its cool to see space exploration interest growing again. I've visited NASA's Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in DC. Such a fascinating period in history and I always hope NASA operations will continue with strong support.

I'm interested in the NASA Near Earth Object Search studies because odds are another Tunguska-type event is likely to happen anytime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiXpp-i442s
Not if but when? Luckily it was in a remote area.

The meteor exploding over Chelyabinsk, Russia was a close call about this time 5 years ago (15 Feb 2013) and was unexpected out of the clear blue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpmXyJrs7iU

Personally over the years I've witnessed a few fireball bolides light up the night sky on different occasions as they broke apart on atmospheric entry.
Hopefully pro-active searching, identification and preventive measures will improve with new technological advances.

So this reads like a bad sci-fi novel, but I guess it's another thing Elon Musk made into science fact The US Air Force apparently had to scuttle one of his boosters that wasn't supposed to have survived its re-entry.data gathering mission.

@G8torbyte - Future news story: "Rancher in North Dakota says over 500 cattle killed or injured when SpaceX/Tesla 'asteroid' impacted and exploded. Power company who had installed wind farm on rancher's land also evaluating damage to turbines, with many of them expected to be a total loss."

Kougar wrote:

So this reads like a bad sci-fi novel, but I guess it's another thing Elon Musk made into science fact The US Air Force apparently had to scuttle one of his boosters that wasn't supposed to have survived its re-entry.data gathering mission.

Yep, Air Force will not confirm or deny but it was probably declared an unexploded ordnance (UXO) hazard and were asked to blow it up. I bet the pilot enjoyed the extra practice kind of like how EOD personnel like to eliminate suspicious packages back at home station. On deployments they have more than enough dangerous work to handle. I saw that on active duty at a deployed location with UXOs everywhere.

For other examples of fun bombing, look up the Torrey Canyon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPbufQhJLsY

Asteroid passing about 1/5 of the distance to the moon today:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/aster ... -1.4526964

Whelp, one less place to hunt for life: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrether ... 62c6e56ab7

Kougar wrote:

Whelp, one less place to hunt for life: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrether ... 62c6e56ab7

And Chrome's auto ad-blocking makes another site readable. First time in years I've clicked a Forbes link and didn't have to sit through a full-screen interstitial ad.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Kougar wrote:

Whelp, one less place to hunt for life: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrether ... 62c6e56ab7

And Chrome's auto ad-blocking makes another site readable. First time in years I've clicked a Forbes link and didn't have to sit through a full-screen interstitial ad.

I can finally switch back to chrome on mobile.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Kougar wrote:

Whelp, one less place to hunt for life: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrether ... 62c6e56ab7

And Chrome's auto ad-blocking makes another site readable. First time in years I've clicked a Forbes link and didn't have to sit through a full-screen interstitial ad.

Great isn't it? I actually turned off my ad-blocker, and so far am not regretting it. Still leaving Chrome set to refuse playing vids unless clicked on though.

Sorry guys I didn't mean to pull this thread off-track. I thought it was dymtr for a second when I posted that. Please resume talking about space.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Tesla ... h_999.html

And now NASA's Planetary Protection Office (satellite sterilizers) is complaining about possible bacterial contamination launched along with Starman. Did they check the orbit?

maybe that should be less of a concern. Maybe the least we can do for the future of life is start sending out bacteria loaded landers to every potentially life supporting planet.

Captain Ned wrote:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Tesla_in_space_could_carry_bacteria_from_Earth_999.html

And now NASA's Planetary Protection Office (satellite sterilizers) is complaining about possible bacterial contamination launched along with Starman. Did they check the orbit?

It is an non-issue. Any stowaway microbes on the vehicle would be killed off constant bath of cosmic radiation and solar wind. It is unlikely earth-born aerobic organisms could survive on any of the other terrestrial bodies in the solar system. The odds aren't exactly that much better with anaerobic stuff.

I don't think it's quite that simple. Direct UV exposure is definitely bad news, but not all parts of the spacecraft will be exposed to direct sunlight, and even if 99.9% of bacteria are killed off I don't think that's good enough. Those colonies that survive are going to have increased resistance to sunlight, and from what I've read, the people studying these things don't yet understand completely the changes they've seen in the colonies that do survive.

I'm not qualified to say whether the measures taken for planetary protection are overboard or not, but I know the measures that are taken are pretty severe. If we're having trouble figuring things out with bacteria that evolved here, then playing it safe to protect any potential contact with life that did not evolve on Earth is probably a good idea.

Chances are that car is just going to get smashed to bits once it hits the asteroid belt and that'll be the end of it(edit: maybe, after more reading it seems like that's not as much of a sure thing as I had thought), but the whole point is to prevent having to tell everyone "hey guys, we found life on another planet, but oops, we killed it."

It's my understanding that the plan is to place the Tesla in an eternal orbit between Mars and the asteroid belt, in which case bacteria is a rather moot point. Unless someone in a FTL craft stops by to kick the tires.

It's actually orbiting back and forth between Earth and Mars orbit around the Sun. Initial reports of it going out as far as the asteroid belt were based off of some early observations that didn't have enough accuracy. Once they got a few more observations in, they realised the orbit wasn't going that far out.

It's most likely to hit the Earth, but at something like a 6% chance in the next 1 million years and even then it's not exactly designed to survive reentry. I'm not worried.

Space-related, although it's not that far away.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... orbits.svg

This shows the orbits of lots of man-made objects like the ISS, Hubble, and GPS satellites.

Redocbew wrote:

edit: maybe, after more reading it seems like that's not as much of a sure thing as I had thought

Yeah the "asteroid belt" is completely empty.

It's less than 5% of the mass of the moon spread over 1 AU wide ring around the sun, and over a third of that mass is contained within the two biggest things "in" it (Ceres + Vesta).

Even if they aimed for the biggest thing in it, they'd absolutely miss. You'd need a course correction on the way.The odds of randomly hitting anything non-microscopic are (literally) astronomical.

It's weird given that just about every illustration of the asteroid belt that's readily available makes it look like it's chocked full. It makes sense when you think about it though. Random collisions will work at reducing the size of the average asteroid unless it's big enough to be mostly unaffected by the impact, and those collisions have been happening for a very, very long time.

I have yet to decide if I'm staying up for the launch tonight. I really want to, but it looks like they're not doing the landing any more, which is a bummer. Especially because it has a set of the titanium grid fins on the booster which are quite expensive. A non-landing means no recovery of the grid fins. I haven't seen a $$ on the fins, but supposedly they are one of the largest titanium-casted parts in the world, so I'm sure they are quite pricey. If the core does a soft-water landing, then maybe then can recover them from the floating core before scuttling it.

Sea state forecast was for something like 21ft swell in the landing area. Even if they try and soft land it in the ocean it is unlikely to survive those conditions.

April looks fun with 3 SpaceX launches, and the second Falcon Heavy has been announced as going in June.

As someone who's purchased 20" long titanium ultrasonic welding horns, I can only shudder at the thought of the cost of those fins...

I finally pulled the trigger on trying to see one of these launches in person (I've regretted missing the last shuttle launch ever since). My nephew and I are booked to head south for the TESS flight on April 16th. Here's hoping it all works out. Regardless, the Kennedy Space center will be a fine consolation prize if the launch is delayed.

Speaking of the Kennedy Space Center, one feature of the place that surprised me (but perhaps should not have) was all the alligators in the ditches around the site.

drfish wrote:

My nephew and I are booked to head south for the TESS flight on April 16th. Here's hoping it all works out. Regardless, the Kennedy Space center will be a fine consolation prize if the launch is delayed.

I'd be up for a meetup of some sort if you're interested. I love talking space

just brew it! wrote:

Speaking of the Kennedy Space Center, one feature of the place that surprised me (but perhaps should not have) was all the alligators in the ditches around the site.

KSP sits on the second largest natural preservation in Florida. It no surprise that you should find a number assortment of flora and fauna living there.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I'd be up for a meetup of some sort if you're interested. I love talking space

Totally! We'll be in Titusville on the 15th and I'm renting a car. We can talk details via PM.

I decided to stay up for the launch. My old body is making me regret it.
Apparently Elon’s person jet was circling the “landing” area to collect the telemetry data since there was no barge to do it. Hopefully we see video at some point.

Tiangong Space Station's decaying orbit and uncontrolled re-entry:
http://earthsky.org/space/china-tiangon ... r-apr-2018

And for trying to predict the time:
http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=37820#TOP

Should be quite a fireworks show if anybody is within viewing distance as it burns up on re-entry.
The mention of hydrazine is not a concern. I worked around it during HAZMAT responses to F-16 jet fighter accidents. Yes, it is extremely toxic but has to be under pressurized containment. It is highly unstable/volatile and hydrolizes immediately on exposure to the atmosphere.