Science and Souls (for geeks and spiritual explorers)

grokit

grokit

well-worn member
The Ruins of the Soviet Space Shuttles

The Hangar

Russian photographer, Ralph Mirebs, managed to get inside an abandoned hangar at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where two Buran space shuttles of the Soviet space program have been left to slowly decay. http://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/219949.html

The Orbiters

This is not the Buran itself, but rather the Orbiter K2 Ptichka and a full scale mockup for structural testing purposes. The original Buran, the only shuttle of the program to actually fly in space, was tragically destroyed in 2002 when the roof of its hangar collapsed.









(more...)

http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/39lzex/the_ruins_of_the_soviet_space_shuttles/
 
h3rbalist

h3rbalist

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too
So a massive lump of space rock is set to wizz past our planet tonight.

The asteroid is called 'Icarus' and is going to buzz us at around 1am GMT

You can watch it LIVE here.

They are offering a months free trial this time.

asteroid1.jpg


EDIT

Crap, looks like it was 5pm GMT. :doh:
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
Some of you may remember that I have been following a company called Urthecast which put some very powerful high definition cameras on the ISS. Here are their first videos of Boston, London, and Barcelona. With 1 meter resolution, in color, you can see a lot and it will be available to the public. Makes me wonder what the government has had for years . . .

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http://blog.urthecast.com/updates/l...orlds-first-full-color-hd-videos-earth-space/
 
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h3rbalist

h3rbalist

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too
t-dub said:
Some of you may remember that I have been following a company called Urthecast which put some very powerful high definition cameras on the ISS. Here are their first videos of Boston, London, and Barcelona. With 1 meter resolution, in color, you can see a lot and it will be available to the public. Makes me wonder what the government has had for years . . .

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http://blog.urthecast.com/updates/l...orlds-first-full-color-hd-videos-earth-space/
Click to expand...

To truly see the quality of these images I suggest viewing on a big screen and hit the HD button on the vimeo link.

The 'browned' out section in the London clip is 10 Downing Street.


I'm with you on this @t-dub I think they have had this tech for years.
 
Seren

Seren

Away with the fairies
I'm with you when it comes to mosquitos! @Joel W. :D ...... but I'm not so sure Jains would agree....


.... it's amazing to think how Jain temples have been built so carefully, so as not to even kill an ant in the process - so much time, patience, dedication.....


....& beauty.

More on Ahimsa in Jainism HERE
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
New Horizons zeros in on Pluto . . . details begin to emerge . . .

nh-lorri-pluto-1.jpg


And in other news . . . new images of dwarf planet Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, show the cratered surface of this mysterious world in sharper detail than ever before. These are among the first snapshots from Dawn's second mapping orbit, which is 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above Ceres. Scientists, whoever they are, still don't know what those bright spots are. The little mountain at the bottom of the second image is about 3 miles high.

screenshot_2015_06_23_at_15_34_06.jpg

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PIA19578.jpg
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
Reusable rockets . . . SpaceX just uploaded this tracking cam shot of their last first stage recovery attempt. The detail is excellent showing the stage coming down like a rifle bullet, the engines firing to slow it, the legs deploying, and the oh so close landing attempt with explosion on the autonomous spaceport drone ship. They will try to recover the first stage again this Sunday, June 28th at 1421 GMT (10:21 a.m. EDT) when they launch a falcon 9 rocket with cargo for the ISS.

 
t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
EDIT: LAUNCH VEHICLE FAILURE AND EXPLOSION!!!

Looks like the rocket exploded shortly after passing through maximum dynamic pressure. Data is being collected . . . SpaceX has ended their live feed and a press conference is scheduled for about 1:00 EDT. It will be broadcast on NASA tv . . .

Here is a pic of the beginning of the disintegration:

CImBKUOWIAApw0h.png:large
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
RUDE BOY said:
Oopsy Daisy ! Looked great for a minute there.
Click to expand...
Fuckin' aye @RUDE BOY - that was a spectacular disintegration . . . :o I was watching all that weird exhaust coming off the vehicle and thinking to myself, and said to my wife, "that doesn't look right" and BAM!!! It exploded right after I said that . . . fuck . . . thank goodness there were no people on board.

Spaceflight is a risky business . . .

Edit: Looks like SpaceX and NASA will have a press conference at 1:00 PM EDT

Edit: Elon Musk just tweeted: "Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown. Will provide more info as soon as we review the data."

Edit: Video of the Falcon 9 exploding . . .


Edit: Another view from the ground . . .


Edit: Pics of the explosion . . . more here: http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/06/28/photos-falcon-9-breaks-apart-en-route-to-iss/

EyeTVSnapshot913.jpg

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EyeTVSnapshot914.jpg

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EyeTVSnapshot915.jpg


Edit: An update from Elon Musk via Twitter: There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause... That's all we can say with confidence right now. Will have more to say following a thorough fault tree analysis."
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
Sorry but this new information deserves its own post. A slow motion video of the Falcon 9 explosion came out and my eyes caught something. There is a definite shadow, the shape of the Dragon capsule, moving away from the rocket starting at about 33 or 34 seconds in the video. SpaceX said that they continued to receive telemetry from the Dragon capsule after the disintegration and I think that is exactly what we are seeing here. Amazing . . . Had SpaceX had the SuperDraco thruster abort system in place they might have been able to save the capsule or demonstrate the abort ability during a real failure. Maybe they can recover it, who knows, but it at least shows the capsules strength if that is indeed it.

I grabbed a screen shot and highlighted the capsule at about the 38 second mark.

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screenshot_2015_06_28_at_10_30_56.jpg
 
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h3rbalist

h3rbalist

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too
Due to 'moon drag' we all have an extra 'leap' second tonight.

I will be having an extra long draw on my Daisy to celebrate, or maybe give my tea 3 extra stirs.

What will you guys be doing with your extra second?

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'Midnight will come later tonight as for the first time in three years an extra second is added to the official time set by atomic clocks.

The "leap second" means the last minute of June will have 61 seconds in it.

Leap seconds - and leap years - are added as basic ways to keep the clock in sync with the Earth and its seasons.

However, there are concerns the extra second could cause problems for some computer systems because it has to be added manually.

Timekeepers are divided over whether to keep the additional unit of time - and the issue is set to be debated at a meeting later this year.

Unpredictable rotation
The addition will mean that the last minute of June will have 61 seconds; while 23:59:59 usually becomes 00:00:00, the leap second will ensure the time becomes 23:59:60.

Peter Whibberley, senior research scientist at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL), said: "Because they depend on measurements of the Earth's rotation, which varies unpredictably, leap seconds occur at irregular intervals."

News coverage has focused on the potential for software problems that could affect financial trading and other operations around the world. Mr Whibberley, who works in the time and frequency group at NPL, stressed the need for planning.

"Leap seconds are announced only six months in advance. This means computers and software cannot be supplied with leap seconds programmed in, and they must be inserted manually," he explained.

"Getting leap seconds wrong can cause loss of synchronisation in communication networks, financial systems and many other applications which rely on precise timing.

"Whenever a leap second occurs, some computer systems encounter problems due to glitches in the code written to handle them. The consequences are particularly severe in the Asia-Pacific region, where leap seconds occur during normal working hours."

Because the irregularity of adding leap seconds causes problems for computer networks, several proposals have been put forward to abolish them.

The issue is still being considered by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and is set to be discussed at the World Radiocommunication Conference in Geneva in November this year.

Delegates will aim to reach a decision to either end leap seconds or adopt a technical solution to reduce the problems they cause.'
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
New Horizons makes final course correction for Pluto flyby. It was a 23 second burn that increased the spacecraft's velocity by about 27 centimeters/second or about half a mile/hour. New Horizons is now about 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) from the Pluto system – some 2.95 billion miles (4.75 billion kilometers) from Earth. Here is a new image of Pluto and Charon. Things should get very interesting in about 2 weeks when the probe will get to within 7,750 miles of Pluto's surface.

pluto-charon-june-29.jpg


And in other news . . . using Rosetta’s high resolution camera scientists have located a number of active pits similar to sinkholes on Earth on Comet 67P/C-G.

A source of heat beneath the comet’s surface causes ices (primarily water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide) to sublimate. The voids created by the loss of these ice chunks eventually grow large enough that their ceilings collapse under their own weight, giving rise to the deep, steep-sided circular pits seen on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The collapse exposes comet ices to sunlight for the first time, which causes the ice chunks to begin sublimating immediately. These deeper pits are therefore thought to be relatively young. Their shallower counterparts, on the other hand, are most likely older sinkholes with more thoroughly eroded sidewalls and bottoms that have been filled in by dust and ice chunks.

RosettaPits_4.jpg
 
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t-dub

t-dub

Vapor Sloth
Well the Russians were able to launch a successful Soyuz-U rocket with 3 tons of supplies to the ISS last night. Here is a pic from the roll out at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan . . .

971485936.jpg


And the launch pad . . .

3368539155.jpg


Edit . . . nice video really showing the power of Soyuz lifting off the pad. . . :cool:

 
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