Threaaaaads in spaaaace (Space Thread 2012)

Mutherfuckin' Sky Crane, yo! We can now 'softly' land big things on the surface of other planets. That's pretty awesome tech.

And the curiosity has a chemistry lab on it to look for organic compounds in rock, which previous rovers couldn't do.

Next, we'll deploy semi-autonomous dwarven colonists to dig mines, extract water to mix with crushed soil, make adobe brick castles in space, and wrestle giant undead acid-breathing ferrets!

They were a pretty big deal then, but yeah, social media was limited and news at your fingertips wasn't as mainstream as it is now. Part of why this so interesting for me is that the technology is so much better. I mean, look at this thing:



And then there's the badass landing method:



Which let them target a much smaller landing area than past rovers:



Plus, it's another planet, man. How is that not cool?

Well I would say that the previous rover were a big deal. It's just a more distant memory. In terms of the rovers themselves, the first Sojourner (deployed by Pathfinder) was little more than an engineering test though. Spirit and Opportunity were a big success, but done on the cheap. It's those rovers that proved a mission like MSL/Curiosity is worth the expense. Opportunity is still running and recently discovered zinc on Mars, but it just isn't capable of making any definitive analysis of what it's looking at. Curiosity is a lot more like sending a scientist to Mars rather than an explorer. I think the hope is that Curiosity will supply a wealth of science data in the coming years and also give us a high definition view of Mars, including video, that might inspire more momentum for a manned Mars mission.

This should be cool to watch when we get it. - Here's the hard to see thumbnail version

Someone HAS to set up a Hispster Curiosity account on Twitter!

Just incredible. There should be a high-resolution video of the descent, of which this shot of the heat shield is a frame:

Whole bunch of high-res images:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?s=3

Are those color corrected? I vaguely recall it being really dark there at high noon.

Wow, seems even more impressive in HiRes. I know that makes no sense. More like just being there. Brings home the distance and achievement some how.

Can someone confirm (I think it was in the Qt3 thread) that the expected daily communication limit to be relayed was 30mb? As in, presumably, 30 megabytes of data rather than, I dunno, a 30mb connection, which seems just as improbable as in the other direction? I hate to be another one of these Curiosity downers, and I know about all of the crazy constraints and all, it's just 30 megabytes seems like too small a number to exist in 2012, or even back when the thing was launched. I'm confident I'm wrong in some way.

That's correct, the daily bandwidth available for UHF relay through MRO and Odyssey works out to about 30 megabytes. It can talk directly from earth via X band, but at a greatly reduced data rate. Also costs more money for use of the receiving assets. From the wiki:

NASA could have upgraded their bandwidth, but Comcast said the next-tier plan would have been an additional $2.5 million/month.

Here's the high res video


overcranked embedded version-

Here's a cool 20-minute video describing the various parts of Curiosity in detail.

Postcard from Mount Sharp on Mars:



Still looks like Iceland.

The name is too pronounceable to be Iceland.

Amateur astronomer reports that something crashed into Jupiter and done blowed up.



Because everything related to Jupiter seems to be measured in how many Earths big it is, I believe this explosion is supposed to have been about the size of one whole Earth. Still not sure if this one will be big enough to leave a mark though.

No wonder the Martian civilization collapsed. They used cheap concrete.

So warp drives? Yeah, totally possible*

*ok.. so I don't know how realistic this is, but that someone is even trying experiments is awesome.

I was able to watch the space shuttle circle around Pasadena a few minutes ago. There were a couple of fighter escorts flying in formation with it which looked like little mosquitos next to the shuttle and it's carrier.

Pretty damn unique way to start my lunch!

Video of Endeavour doing a flyby just south of LAX.

And the actual landing:

Videos make me sad. :(

making sand castles

Half an hour to the first launch attempt of the SpaceX CRS1 cargo mission to the ISS, livestreams are up at:

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv
http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

A little late on this meme APOD!

So this is happening now?

curiosity photobomb

Duckface. On. Mars.

http://www.space.com/18380-nasa-moon-missions-obama-election.html

And to complement caesarbear's Suomi image, here's one showing Europe, Africa and Asia:



Note: click the image for a super high-resolution version (8192x8192px).

ooh, shiny!



is that Omar Sharif?

http://mars-one.com/en/

So this seems to be progressing fairly well. They released the qualities a potential astronaut/colonist needs in order to be selected for their first mission to Mars. A one way ticket, since the colonists will live there permanently.

What nonsense. Such a scam.

But they have a WEBSITE!

The upside is the colonists will find their celebrity status cemented by becoming reality TV stars. The downside is they'll have to submit routine reports on an array of byzantine subjects.

This link apparently details the qualifications.

I am totally sending in a resume. I will accept applications for sponsors shortly.

Here's a Q: I need new eyeglasses, and in considering frames I am, for the first time, conemplating the - and I don't know what the term is - the black thicker hipster type frames. Previously I thought they looked ridiculous on me (shaved head), but since I've grown my hair out they don't look as silly. The only person in front of whom I've tried them on is my mother - it was seriously a big spur of the moment thing - and her response was they made me look "studious," which I guess is kind of a mixed thing though not negative (I'm an aspiring ec PHd candidate; studious is basically what I am). ARe there any general prohibitions against them I need to be aware of?

Only if you wear them as an accessory and not for actual vision correction. Otherwise, those types of frames are great.