Hooked Noses, Flat Noses, Big Noses, And Nose Bumps Are Cute Society Just Has Bland Taste And A Preference

Buzz Aldrin’s space selfie from the Gemini 12 mission and Andy Saunders’s remastered version of the same image.

Hmm...

1989: ‘Shuttle Evolution “Block II”’

(sorry for low resolution, I cannot find a higher-res version anywhere)

1989: A concept drawing for a never-realised next-generation Space Shuttle, capable of carrying 8 astronauts and possibly over 30 tonnes to low-Earth orbit. The most noteworthy feature is the detachable cockpit with engines which could serve as a launch escape-system or a lifeboat during an incident in-orbit. It was to use its lifting body, wings, and body flap to glide to a runway and presumably land on skids. The escape system would enable a crew's escape at any point during launch or orbital flight.

Comments and observations

The inclusion of this escape-system in the orbiter would necessitate a gap in the heatshield at the nose, one of the hottest parts of the vehicle during re-entry. That's obviously a big problem. Further, a pad-abort would seem to be very impractical. 3 seconds at 8 Gs would only send the capsule about 2 km high, probably not high enough to glide towards the nearest runway, especially with those stubby wings. Perhaps an emergency parachute system and a splashdown of the capsule would have been more sensible?

Other changes to the orbiter seem to be in the interest of improving gliding performance, such as two wing-tip vertical stabilisers instead of one tail-mounted one (to eliminate wing-tip vortices), shrinkage of the orbital manœuvring system pods by relocation of the OMS's propellant-tanks into the wings, and the addition of canards which would probably yield greater pitch-authority during landing.

The system also proposes replacement of the solid rocket boosters with liquid-hydrogen–fuelled boosters. These could provide a greater payload capacity, as well as greater control of thrust during ascent, and the possibility of an emergency engine shutdown, improving the crew's safety. The biggest and most obvious downside would be increased cost. The drawing doesn't specify whether the LFBs are intended to recover themselves by deploying parachutes, but what's certain is that saltwater generally damages delicate chemical rocket engines, so they probably couldn't just plop into the ocean like the real Shuttle's SRBs did.

Being autistic and also a Hyperpop/breakcore/ect enjoyer is really funny bc the sounds of being outside in the real world are often so tiring to me but if I wanna unwind and have a good time I will listen to the the most unnatural noises conjured up by evil computers and specifically designed to make your head explode. awesome

A solar cycle: a montage of 10 years worth of x-ray images taken by the ようこう (Yōkō 'sunbeam') sun-observation satellite.

The Sun undergoes a cycle of magnetic activity with a period of about 11 years. At solar maximum, solar observatories see more sunspots on the Sun's surface. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are bigger and more frequent, triggering auroræ in Earth's skies, interfering with some types of radio communication, and irradiating deep space hardware. The Sun's magnetic field also undergoes a polarity inversion during solar maximum, when the north and south magnetic poles on the Sun swap (this happens again 11 years later in the next maximum). By contrast, the solar minimum has very few or no sunspots and the Sun is generally calm; a good time for deep space missions.

The last solar maximum was in February 2014. The last minimum was December 2019, marking the transition from cycle 24 to 25 (records began in 1755). The next maximum is predicted for the second half of 2025.

Melba Roy, NASA Mathmetician, at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in 1964. Ms. Roy, a 1950 graduate of Howard University, led a group of NASA mathmeticians known as “computers” who tracked the Echo satellites. The first time I shared Ms. Roy on VBG, my friend Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a former postdoc in astrophysics at NASA, helpfully explained what Ms. Roy did in the comment section. I am sharing Chanda’s comment again here: “By the way, since I am a physicist, I might as well explain a little bit about what she did: when we launch satellites into orbit, there are a lot of things to keep track of. We have to ensure that gravitational pull from other bodies, such as other satellites, the moon, etc. don’t perturb and destabilize the orbit. These are extremely hard calculations to do even today, even with a machine-computer. So, what she did was extremely intense, difficult work. The goal of the work, in addition to ensuring satellites remained in a stable orbit, was to know where everything was at all times. So they had to be able to calculate with a high level of accuracy. Anyway, that’s the story behind orbital element timetables”. Photo: NASA/Corbis.

Mars, from pole to pole (ESA’s Mars Express Mission)

Orbiter Columbia OV-102 had a unique external feature the “SILTS” pod (Shuttle Infrared Leeside Temperature Sensing), it was located on the top of her vertical stabilizer. It was installed after STS-9 (1984) to acquire infrared and other thermal data on the vehicle’s environment. The instruments were removed after several missions but the pod remained.