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On 8/4/2021 at 10:52 AM, BansheeOne said:

Damn little green men. 

Very interesting, armies of amateurs monitoring the ISS and more vigorously the space communications, and there were only one man who knew it was more than 45 degrees ...

What is the final verdict? The engines worked for 15 minutes, or 44 minutes, stopped suddenly, or burned all fuel? I have heard all these versions, but then silence.

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Turns out it wasn't one sticky valve in the propulsion system that delayed Starliner's launch, but THIRTEEN.

Boeing Advances Starliner Solutions in the Vertical Integration Facility

 

 

That's an awful lot of malfunctioning hardware for a vehicle that was supposedly ready to launch. 

No wonder their chief astronaut, who was scheduled to fly this craft, suddenly retired earlier this year, citing "personal reasons." I'm guessing those personal reasons could have included that he didn't want to done get blowed up.

 

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On 8/9/2021 at 10:28 PM, Adam Peter said:

Very interesting, armies of amateurs monitoring the ISS and more vigorously the space communications, and there were only one man who knew it was more than 45 degrees ...

What is the final verdict? The engines worked for 15 minutes, or 44 minutes, stopped suddenly, or burned all fuel? I have heard all these versions, but then silence.

Scott Manley is my go-to for this type of thing. I think he explains how misinterpretation of data caused confusion adequately - it's all about why quaternions should be used for looking at rotations rather than x-, y- and z-axis angles.

 

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On 8/10/2021 at 12:38 PM, DKTanker said:

Meanwhile SpaceX and their Starship program is moving forward at warp 9.  Here they're test stacking the world's largest rocket even as the launch facility is still under construction.

 

 

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10 hours ago, DB said:

Scott Manley is my go-to for this type of thing. I think he explains how misinterpretation of data caused confusion adequately - it's all about why quaternions should be used for looking at rotations rather than x-, y- and z-axis angles.

Thanks, this was interesting. Am I correct assuming then that a single thruster turned on, and the rotation was around one axis?

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20 hours ago, Adam Peter said:

Thanks, this was interesting. Am I correct assuming then that a single thruster turned on, and the rotation was around one axis?

It's difficult to be sure, but if a single thruster was involved, however activated, then the rotation axis would have been perpendicular to the plane that includes the line between the centre of thrust of the thruster and the ISS centre of mass, and the line along the thrust vector of the thruster. Given that these may not necessarily be unvarying, for reasons various, the motion could get quite complex.

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And, per the usual cast of characters:

 

Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft must return to factory, causing more delays

 

Quote

“It’s a disappointing day,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s head of human spaceflight, during a press call Friday afternoon. “We are committed to continue working with Boeing on bringing on their crew transportation…and we will go fly when we’re ready.”

Be that this decade or the next.

 

And, from our friends and partners in space:

 

Russia’s space program just threw a NASA astronaut under the bus

 

Quote

Russia's state-owned news service, TASS, has published an extraordinarily defamatory article about NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor. The publication claims that Auñón-Chancellor had an emotional breakdown in space, then damaged a Russian spacecraft in order to return early. 

 

After its initial weak response, NASA subsequently showed more support for its unfairly accused astronaut. 

I can't imagine the astronaut corps was pleased with NASA's initial lack of support:

 

NASA stands by its astronaut after incendiary Russian claims

 

 

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1 hour ago, John Nelson said:

Boeing is being saved by the suit.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/10/22618275/nasa-spacesuits-delay-inspector-general-report-2024-artemis

Quote

NASA’s development of new astronaut space suits will be nearly two years late and nix its effort to land humans on the Moon by 2024, an inspector general report released on Tuesday found....

The program was hit with another delay when NASA halted testing for the suit’s assembly process. The team caused an unspecified “component failure” after “staff used the wrong specifications to build a complicated” life support system interface. When auditors interviewed NASA personnel about this flub, they blamed schedule pressure, among other issues. Additional factors included “a communication breakdown among the team” and the team’s rapid growth, “including the addition of inexperienced personnel.” An “unreleased drawing” and old hardware used during tests were also to blame, personnel told auditors.

Currently, 27 different entities are pitching in to build different parts of the space suit, the report notes. NASA previously contracted with just two companies, Hamilton Standard and ILC Dover, to build the space suits it currently uses on the ISS.

SpaceX to the rescue?

 

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  • 1 month later...
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SpaceX blasts off for world's first tourist trip into orbit

10h ago

Four civilians have blasted off into space on the first ever trip into orbit by amateur space travelers.

A group of civilian space travelers has made history by becoming the first set of non-professional travelers to orbit the Earth.

Although amateurs have gone into space before, trained astronauts or cosmonauts have always been on board.

The SpaceX Dragon carrying four amateurs separated from the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket 12 minutes after liftoff, according to a live video feed.

As of 00:50 UTC, the capsule was "officially in space," according to SpaceX. 

"Dragon will conduct two phasing burns to reach its cruising orbit of 575 km (357 miles) where the crew will spend the next three days orbiting planet Earth," the company wrote on Twitter.

Who is on board for the trip?

Among the passengers is Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payment processing company Shift4 Payments.

The 38-year-old high school dropout is funding the entire trip — named Inspiration4.

"A few have gone before and many are about to follow," said Isaacman.

He will be joined by Hayley Arceneaux, a nurse who beat bone cancer as a child. Arceneaux was treated at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where she now works.

She was chosen for the trip after Isaacman donated a ticket to the hospital for a guest.

Arceneaux is the youngest American to go into space, and the first with a prosthesis — on part of her femur.

The two other seats were sold in a fundraising raffle for St. Jude.

They went to Chris Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer; and the geoscientist Sian Proctor.

Proctor is a geology professor who was almost selected to be an astronaut for NASA in 2009. She is set to become only the fourth African American woman to go to space.

[...] 

While the flight should be fully automated, the crew has been trained to take control in the event of an emergency.

Both Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson and Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos also blasted off from the Earth earlier this year as amateurs. However, their flights in July only briefly skimmed space rather than going into orbit, with Branson reaching 86 kilometers and Bezos 106 kilometers.

https://m.dw.com/en/spacex-blasts-off-for-worlds-first-tourist-trip-into-orbit/a-59188427

IOW, "Did I hear someone debate whether space starts at 80 or 100 kilometers? Suck it, Branzos." 

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46 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

https://m.dw.com/en/spacex-blasts-off-for-worlds-first-tourist-trip-into-orbit/a-59188427

IOW, "Did I hear someone debate whether space starts at 80 or 100 kilometers? Suck it, Branzos." 

Word has it that Jeff Bezos requested a seat on Inspiration.  Elon Musk told him he couldn't afford it.

 

Okay, so I hope that was a true story and not just my fantasy.

Edited by DKTanker
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Quote

Date 18.09.2021

SpaceX: First tourist mission to orbit Earth splashes down

The all-civilian crew aboard the SpaceX Inspiration4 flight mission returned safely to Earth. Their return comes after spending three days in Earth's orbit, in a pioneering mission for space tourism.

After orbiting the planet, the first all civilian space flight crew aboard SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission landed in the Atlantic on its return to the atmosphere on Saturday. 

They're the first people to orbit the Earth without a professional astronaut — with their trip marking a new chapter in space tourism.

What happened on their mission?

The successful return completes a three-day flight for the four amateur astronauts on board.

The crew blasted off into space Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The shuttle reached a cruising orbital altitude of just over 363 miles (585 kilometers) within three hours of takeoff, which is higher than the International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope.

It is the farthest any human has flown from Earth since NASA's Apollo moon program ended in 1972.

On Saturday, the four citizen astronauts donned their helmeted flight suits and made final cabin preparations before the spacecraft continued autonomously to chart the return path back to Earth's atmosphere.

How did the crew react?

Their safe return to Earth was met with cheers from those watching from SpaceX Mission Control.

"Your mission has shown the world that space is for all of us," mission control told the crew.

"It was a heck of a ride for us ... just getting started,'' replied trip sponsor Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who paid an undisclosed sum for the trip.

[...]

SpaceX, founded by Tesla electric vehicle manufacturer CEO Elon Musk, is looking to expand its number of private flights to space — aiming for up to six per year.

Musk also sent his congratulations to the crew upon their safe return to Earth.

https://www.dw.com/en/spacex-first-tourist-mission-to-orbit-earth-splashes-down/a-59228235

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Mercury looks stunning in this 1st flyby photo from Europe and Japan's BepiColombo mission

By Tariq Malik about 19 hours ago

It's the first of six Mercury flybys before BepiColombo enters orbit in 2025.

Two spacecraft built by Europe and Japan captured their first up-close look at the planet Mercury in a weekend flyby, revealing a rocky world covered with craters. 

The two linked probes, known together as BepiColombo, snapped their first image of Mercury late Friday (Oct. 1) during a flyby that sent them zooming around the planet. The encounter marked the first of six Mercury flybys for BepiColombo, a joint effort by the space agencies of Europe and Japan, to slow itself enough to enter orbit around the planet in 2025.

BepiColombo took its first official photo of Mercury at 7:44 p.m. EDT (2344 GMT) with its Mercury Transfer Module Monitoring Camera 2, a black-and-white navigation camera, as the probe was about 1,502 miles (2,418 kilometers) away from the planet, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). Just 10 minutes earlier, at 7:34 p.m. EDT, BepiColombo made its closest approach to Mercury, passing within 124 miles (200 km) of the planet.

Dozens of craters are visible on the surface of Mercury in BepiColombo's photo, as are a boom, thruster and other parts of the spacecraft's structure. 

"The region shown is part of Mercury's northern hemisphere including Sihtu Planitia that has been flooded by lavas. A round area smoother and brighter than its surroundings characterizes the plains around the Calvino crater, which are called the Rudaki Plains," ESA officials wrote in a photo description. "The 166 km-wide Lermontov crater is also seen, which looks bright because it contains features unique to Mercury called 'hollows' where volatile elements are escaping to space. It also contains a vent where volcanic explosions have occurred."

ESA also released an annotated image identifying the major Mercury craters in BepiColombo's image alongside the raw photo. More photos are expected to be released in coming days as they are processed by BepiColombo's science team.

[...]

5qWbUrr3M8G9ce3inXcymE.jpg

https://www.space.com/mercury-bepicolombo-first-flyby-photos

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, DKTanker said:

I think it sad, really, using a 90 year old man in publicity stunt.  On the other hand, after experiencing an exodus of senior engineers to SpaceX they did get a Captain Kirk.

As far as I know, Bill Shatner is still very much his own man. Before Nimoy died, he pulled string strings to Get Nimoy to show, more or less calling him directly saying "Come to Dragon Con, it'll be fun." The fan base was ecstatic. This was not the case with Stan Lee who was more or less a milk cow for his handlers and whom ever was managing his affairs for him. This became an open secret in the con scene as he was barely there and was just running on autopilot. 

I expect this is a joy ride for him and he's getting as much out of it as the operators are. Seriously, he's been an actor his whole career. Putting on a show is what he does. This is as much putting on a show, but the ride is going to be wild like any good ride. 

Edited by rmgill
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What's the worst that can happen to him on that trip?

Shatner dies at age 90, in space.

 

Clearly, the risk/reward ratio is heavily imbalanced in his favor.

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it's a massive egoboo for the man, and it's clear he courts the publicity, given his Twitter profile.

it also looks like he's lost a lot of weight in the last ten years or so.

It's also a plus for the company, because the kind of people who can drop the money needed may not be in astronaut shape. if he dies, maybe that's a different story.

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18 minutes ago, DB said:

it's a massive egoboo for the man, and it's clear he courts the publicity, given his Twitter profile.

it also looks like he's lost a lot of weight in the last ten years or so.

It's also a plus for the company, because the kind of people who can drop the money needed may not be in astronaut shape. if he dies, maybe that's a different story.

He didn't die, all landed safely almost about an hour ago.  Reportedly his thrill ride cost him $250,000.  Undoubtedly he received a Captain Kirk discount.

Good for William Shatner, but I still think it rather sad that Blue Origin has relegated itself to law suits and three minute publicity stunt thrill rides.

 

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43 minutes ago, DB said:

it's a massive egoboo for the man, and it's clear he courts the publicity, given his Twitter profile.

My Wife is a bigger Trekkie than I am by far. She's talked at length with several of the cast from The Enterprise show. Based on what she's noted. Dominic Keating (Malcom Reed) has faired poorly in the time since the series where as Anthony Montgomery (Travis the engineer) has done fine. The latter has been on a number of shows and has a good head for what's going on at the Cons and has fun with it. Keating is mostly a hot mess at the cons sad to say. 

Different actors handle the fame and feast/famine problems differently. 

Billingsley bounced around a bunch between SG1 and other shows. He seems to have fun with it. 

Shatner has an ego, yeah. But he WAS and IS James Kirk. He's kinda set a role model for a lot of folks and he blazed that path. He's been able to keep at it over the years and do new material and I think live well on it. HE's not been an outright ass as far as I know. Though some folks in the con-celebrity handling realm have issues, we've seen far worse at cons and usually it's stuff for stories. 

One friend had a great story about Ernest Borgnine at the last Dragon Con he was at. He was being escorted through the back halls/entertainment support spaces and stopped and chatted with the kitchen staff who were stunned at this celebrity actor stopping to chat with them in Spanish. Then he grabbed a dessert off a plate and carried on with the escort to the next panel while he ate and walked. My friend who was one of the escorts was absolutely gleeful at how fun and random it was. 

 

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1 hour ago, rmgill said:

Shatner has an ego, yeah. But he WAS and IS James Kirk. He's kinda set a role model for a lot of folks and he blazed that path.

No wonder he has an ego!

Edited by sunday
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