Space Stuff

Remastered images reveal how far Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the Moon​

50 years ago, the Apollo 14 astronaut hit a golf ball that traveled roughly 40 yards.​

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So he paid a pro named Jack Harden at the River Oaks Country Club in Houston to adapt a Wilson Staff 6-iron head so that it could be attached to a collapsible aluminum and Teflon sample collector. Once NASA's Technical Services division added some finishing touches, Shepard practiced his golf swing at a course in Houston while wearing his 200-plus-pound spacesuit to prepare.
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Mapping the ice on Mars that could support future missions​

It's not great to land near Mars' poles, and accessing water will be key.​

JOHN TIMMER - Yesterday at undefined

Image of two slopes with steep faces.

Enlarge / While we know of locations with ice on Mars, not all of them are in places we'd want to land.

Over the past couple decades, plans to go to Mars or return to the Moon for longer stays have gradually moved away from sci-fi tinged "what if" scenarios and shifted to something that resembles actual planning. And those plans invariably include extracting water from local ice deposits. This water would help support any astronauts during their stay, cutting down on the weight we'd have to shift out of Earth orbit. But it could also be a source of hydrogen that helps power the astronaut's return trip to Earth.
 
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Report: NASA’s only realistic path for humans on Mars is nuclear propulsion​

"It's the kind of technology challenge that NASA was built for."​

NASA originally studied nuclear thermal propulsion in the 1960s. Here is concept art for the Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Applications (NERVA) program.

Getting humans to Mars and back is rather hard. Insanely difficult, in fact. Many challenges confront NASA and other would-be Mars pioneers when planning missions to the red planet, but chief among them is the amount of propellant needed.
During the Apollo program 50 years ago, humans went to the Moon using chemical propulsion, which is to say rocket engines that burned liquid oxygen and hydrogen in a combustion chamber. This has its advantages, such as giving NASA the ability to start and stop an engine quickly, and the technology was then the most mature one for space travel. Since then, a few new in-space propulsion techniques have been devised. But none are better or faster for humans than chemical propulsion.

That's a problem. NASA has a couple of baseline missions for sending four or more astronauts to Mars, but relying on chemical propulsion to venture beyond the Moon probably won't cut it. The main reason is that it takes a whole lot of rocket fuel to send supplies and astronauts to Mars. Even in favorable scenarios where Earth and Mars line up every 26 months, a humans-to-Mars mission still requires 1,000 to 4,000 metric tons of propellant.

If that’s difficult to visualize, consider this. When upgraded to its Block 1B configuration, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket will have a carrying capacity of 105 tons to low-Earth orbit. NASA expects to launch this rocket once a year, and its cost will likely be around $2 billion for flight. So to get enough fuel into orbit for a Mars mission would require at least 10 launches of the SLS rocket, or about a decade and $20 billion. Just for the fuel.
The bottom line: if we’re going to Mars, we probably need to think about other ways of doing it.

Starship​

And what of the Starship concept that SpaceX is building to send humans to Mars? The project seeks to address the problem of needing a lot of chemical propellant by developing a low-cost, reusable launch system. SpaceX engineers know it will take a lot of fuel to reach Mars, but they believe the problem is solvable if Starship can be built to fly often and for relatively little money. The basic concept is to launch a Starship to orbit with empty tanks and transfer fuel launched by other Starships in low-Earth orbit before a single vehicle flies to Mars.
 
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A comet fragment, not an asteroid, killed off the dinosaurs​

Jupiter's gravity pushed comet toward Sun; comet was ripped apart by tidal forces.​

 
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cecilia said:
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NASA's Perseverance is exploring Mars! Come watch updates with us!

April 20th, 2021: Don't mind us, we're all just obsessing over Ingenuity's historic accomplishment. For anyone who hasn't seen footage of this amazing feat of engineering, check out the video below. And for everyone else who's already seen it, rewatch and obsess with us! View...
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My favourite fitbaw team are playing tonight and the landing is due to begin just after half time and done, then dusted just as the 2nd half kicks off. If things go as scheduled, this could be a lovely evening. I've got plenty beer in the fridge either way. :pint:

-EDIT-
The 11 minute time delay might knock my half time plans out a little but still pretty close.

-EDIT 2-
8 minutes injury time in the match meant I caught the whole thing - perfect. :D

-EDIT 3-
And my team, who were losing 2-1 at half time, came back to win it 4-3 at the death - even perfecter! :D :pint:
 
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