Cozy-airlessness - Cozy Airlessness

Christmas Hanukkah in Space: Day 12

Jeff Hoffman of STS-61 demonstrates how a dreidel works in zero gravity and displays his traveling menorah on the first day of Hanukkah, December 1993. Hoffman was the second Jewish American astronaut and the first to spend the holiday in space.

Pathfinder (OV-201) launching from its Lockheed C-5 carrier and accelerating to the moon during her maiden voyage, September 1983.

Clips from Episode 9, Season 2 Triage "For all Mankind"

Selene Goddess of the Moon by Susan Lyon

An Astronaut’s Tips For Living in Confined Spaces

One thing astronauts have to be good at: living in confined spaces for long periods of time. 

Nearly 20 years successfully living on the International Space Station and more than 50 flying in space did not happen by accident. Our astronauts and psychologists have examined what human behaviors create a healthy culture for living and working remotely in small groups. They narrowed it to five general skills and defined the associated behaviors for each skill. 

For many of us in a similar scenario, here are the skills as shared by astronaut Anne McClain: 

Skill 1, Communication

Share information and feelings freely. 

Talk about your intentions before taking action. 

Discuss when your or others’ actions were not as expected. 

Take time to debrief after success or conflict. 

Admit when you are wrong.

Skill 2, Self-Care

Balance work, rest, and personal time. Be organized.

Realistically assess your own strengths and weaknesses, and their influence on the group.

Identify personal tendencies and their influence on your success or failure. Learn from mistakes. 

Be open about your weaknesses and feelings. 

Take action to mitigate your own stress or negativity (don’t pass it on to the group). 

Skill 3, Team Care

Demonstrate patience and respect. Encourage others. 

Monitor your team (or friends and family) for signs of stress or fatigue. 

Encourage participation in team (or virtual) activities. 

Volunteer for the unpleasant tasks. Offer and accept help. 

Share credit; take the blame.

Skill 4, Group Living

Cooperate rather than compete. 

Actively cultivate group culture (use each individual’s culture to build the whole). 

Respect roles, responsibilities and workload. 

Take accountability; give praise freely. Then work to ensure a positive team attitude. 

Keep calm in conflict.

Skill 5, Leadership/Followership

Accept responsibility.

Adjust your style to your environment.

Assign tasks and set goals.

Lead by example. Give direction, information, feedback, coaching and encouragement.

Talk when something isn’t right. Ask questions.

We are all in this together on this spaceship we call Earth! These five skills are just reminders to help cultivate good mental and physical health while we all adjust to being indoors. Take care of yourself and dive deeper into these skills HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Blue Moon really should go first. It's a more practical, less ambitious design, with better inherent safety. We shouldn't splash out on the towering ambitious megarocket just because we can. That stuff should come later, once we've gained confidence and experience. That should be obvious.

NASA does not need a lander with a dry mass of 100+ tonnes to put 2–8 astronauts on the Moon. The lander's excessive size and mass actually make several problems, such as the hatch being 30 m above the ground and there needing to be a crew elevator system with no current plan for a backup if it fails.

Big spaceship does not equal good spaceship. Don't be fooled by spectacle and awe. Starship HLS is ill-suited to taking humans to the surface of the Moon. The best case for it is as a heavy cargo vehicle, perhaps in service of a Moonbase. Again, that comes later. Skylab after Mercury-Redstone, not before.

It's genuinely possible that Starship HLS might not be ready before Blue Moon MK 2 is.

Selene

Albert Aublet / Jules Louis Machard

Part 2! 🤩 BepiColombo’s last close-ups of Earth during flyby

A sequence of images taken by one of the MCAM selfie cameras on board of the European-Japanese Mercury mission BepiColombo as the spacecraft zoomed past the planet during its first and only Earth flyby on 10 April 2020.

► Learn more about BepiColombo: https://www.fromspacewithlove.com/bepicolombo/

📸 Copyright ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

If humans aren’t meant to travel to other planets then why does my skeleton feel too heavy to exist comfortably in Earth gravity???? Explain that sweaty

Detroit Free Press, Michigan, August 31, 1934

The most complex flying machine ever created

Underappreciated Space Shuttle photos

Endeavour being serviced in the OPF

Columbia, STS-62. The OMS pods can be seen glowing due to interactions with atomic oxygen in an unusually low perigee of 195km. The hexagonal outline of the Extended Duration Orbiter Pallet is also visible.

Atlantis, STS-98. Approaching the ISS.

Endeavour, STS-54. Reflections in the window.

Challenger, rolling out before STS-6.

Mission Specialist Kathryn Thornton looking out the window while aboard Endeavour, STS-49.

Discovery, stacked ahead of STS-41.

Atlantis, STS-44. Bumped camera.

Discovery ahead of STS-128.

Challenger, STS-41B. Launching for the heavens (zoom in).