Everything about Voyager 1 is remarkable.
posted by matt in Tuesday, April 23, 2024
NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth – Voyager (nasa.gov)
Content about space
There's a library on the moon now. It might last billions of years. (mashable.com)
Humankind now has an off-earth backup of our collective knowledge, culture, and works. This feels weirdly important.
We can now say for the first time in history that civilization will not be lost.
tags: space
posted by matt in Saturday, April 13, 2024
Space Force Is Planning a Military Exercise in Orbit (wired.com)
Maybe Space Force is not a joke after all. And the state of things sort of reminds me of the situation with self-driving cars. It's not really about the technology - that's, strangely enough, the easy part. The mindset and the culture are the things. And those are hard to change.
Tactically responsive space is not about the hardware," Guetlein said. “It's not about the satellite; it's not about the sensor; it's not about the rocket. It's about the mindset. It's about the culture.
tags: space
posted by matt in Saturday, April 13, 2024
Loaf-size mission to improve hurricane forecasting is ready to launch | CNN (cnn.com)
Each CubeSat will orbit at about 340 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and capture hourly observations of the precipitation, temperature and humidity of tropical storms. Current satellites take similar data, but only about every six hours, which makes it more difficult to measure the intensity of storms.
More frequent data can help scientists understand the rapid changes that can occur within a storm, impacting its structure and stability, and help meteorologists improve their prediction and forecasting models.
Looks like hurricane data will grow six-fold this season. Hopefully that finds its way into weather apps for phones and tablets, which, I think, is where most people track storms (true for me).
posted by matt in Sunday, May 7, 2023
If the Webb telescope sunshield doesn't open, here’s what NASA will do (mashable.com)
"Like working on a jammed desk drawer, the ground crew could push or pull harder on devices to try to unstick them. Or imagine gently shaking that drawer to loosen the clutter lodged in it. The crew could also initiate a low-level vibration — a “shimmy” — by firing its rockets in different sequences."
So the ground crew can built in the "push harder" and "shimmy and shake" options, but what if it needs a good, swift kick to get things moving?
posted by matt in Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Watch NASA Crash a Spacecraft Into An Asteroid - Slashdot (slashdot.org)
"...the mission is essentially target practice."
posted by matt in Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Engineers Have Proposed The First Model For a Physically Possible Warp Drive (sciencealert.com)
Turns out we don't need to break the speed of light barrier to become an interstellar species. We just need enormously powerful gravitational fields, like those provided by planets, to bend space time inside a warp drive.
Thinking about riding a warp drive around a planet makes me think of the song #Spacegrass# by Clutch:
Lay low, watch the universe expand.
Skyway, permanent Saturday.
Oh, by the way, Saturn is my rotary.
posted by matt in Thursday, March 4, 2021