All Autistic People Are Important And They Matter, Regardless Of What They Can And Can’t Do.

Did you know Orion spacecraft has an incredible 11 parachutes?

by @ChutesNL

Space looks very different to how film and television might show. Lots of sci-fi shows or movies portray the stars and galaxy behind a planet, and while it can look pretty, it also is very unrealistic. Stars are very dim. The galaxy is even dimmer. Anybody that lives in a light-pollluted area knows these things. Sunlight, and the light from it that shines onto the planets, is very very bright. This is why you can’t see stars during the day time. You can turn the exposure of your camera up to see both the planet and the stars, but then the planet becomes blindingly bright, and you get lots of camera glare.

Images taken using Space Engine 0.990.37.1720

Unrelated spiritual stuff below

This post probably sounds like nitpicking, and I guess it is. I’m not sure if I like the spirit of space being tampered with just to make things look better in a blockbuster movie. I believe the darkness and quietness is what contains the energy of space, and that feature of it is sacred. Space to me is an ocean, and filling space with clouds/nebulae and planets in a fictional setting feels a lot like completely filling the oceans with seaweed and sand. Planets are extremely far apart, and that is a blessing, as otherwise they would collide with each other. I don’t really have any personal grudges on people that exaggerate space for visual or story related reasons, I think it’s more of a cultural issue, and one that will be resolved over enough time as life on Earth begins to wander into space.

Hmm...

Columbia STS-1 landing at Edwards AFB

STS-1 was the first orbital spaceflight of NASA’s Space Shuttle program. The first orbiter, Columbia, launched on April 12, 1981 and returned on April 14, 1981, 54.5 hours later, having orbited the Earth 36 times. Columbia carried a crew of two – mission commander John W. Young and pilot Robert L. Crippen.

Apollo X - Thomas Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young

 May 18 - 26, 1969

Tiny Shuttle inspects the engines of a huge Soyuz

Space Shuttle Atlantis payload bay backdropped by the ISS, STS129E November 2009. 🌎🚀

The first all-woman spacewalk

Today the first ever spacewalk consisting of entirely women occured!

Here are the two women who were a part of this EVA.

Christina Koch

Age 40

Two Bachelor of Science degrees, Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering

Jessica Meir

Age 42

PhD in Marine Biology, Master of Space Studies

It is standard procedure for spacewalks to consist of more than one person. That way if something bad happens to one astronaut, the other can be there to help immediately.

Previous spacewalks were either a single male in the early days, multiple males, or a mix of men and women. Today the first ever all-woman spacewalk took place with two women going outside the International Space Station.

NASA has stated "The all-woman spacewalk wasn't something we purposefully planned, though. It was bound to happen eventually because of the increasing number of female astronauts. Koch's and Meir's 2013 class of astronaut candidates was 50 percent women.

"Spacewalk assignments are always made on the basis of which astronauts are best prepared to accomplish the tasks at hand under the conditions at the time. Spacewalks are not easy; astronauts typically describe them as the most physically challenging thing they do."

The mission lasted about 6 hours and was to replace a battery on the exterior of the station that failed to activate after prior testing (most spacewalks have objectives this boring).

Tracy Caldwell Dyson, another female NASA astronaut, remarked "Hopefully this will now be considered normal"

This is a good day for women I think :>

Holding out for the first all non-binary spacewalk

My thoughts on the upcoming IFT-3 flight of Starship-Super Heavy

As of writing (12th of February), IFT-3 is currently scheduled to occur later this month, but it could still easily get delayed.

My prediction is that IFT-3 will probably achieve orbit and will probably conduct an internal propellant-transfer, but that the upper stage (SN28) will probably suffer a failure of some kind during reëntry, either being destroyed or deviating far from its targetted splashdown-zone.

It's safe to say that successful reëntry is unlikely on IFT-3. Here's why:

The Starship upper stage will be the largest reëntry-vehicle ever built.

This reëntry profile (a belly-first reëntry with four fins used for stability) is unique and has never been done before. Starship's belly-first orientation is inherently ærodynamically unstable, which is why it needs constant corrections from the four fins. It could get trapped in a nose-first or tail-first orientation, both of which might be more stable. Else, a loss of control would just result in endless tumbling.

We've already seen heatshield-tiles falling off during IFT-1 and IFT-2. In fact, more fell off the latter than the former due to higher ærodynamic pressures and engine vibrations.

A failure during reëntry would be consistent with the general pattern of testflight-failures established so far. Essentially, each flight is a failure, but less of a failure than the previous one.

Honestly, I don't know what could happen to the first stage booster (B10). SpaceX knows how to do boostback-burns and propulsive landings. It's seemingly just a matter of preventing the vehicle from blowing itself up. Engine reliability will probably determine the booster's success.

It'll be interesting to watch nonetheless.

The fate of the Artemis Programme now depends on the success of these test flights and in SpaceX rapidly developing and utilising this reüsable launch-system. Development has been ongoing for over five years now, and the vehicle has yet to reach orbit. The landing of astronauts on the Moon is scheduled for September 2026. How likely is it that SpaceX will have humans on the Moon in just two and a half years from now?