Falcon Heavy

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,845
Smarter Every Day version.

BINAURAL AUDIO IMMERSION
My audio jack doesn't work, so I'll have to wait to use headphones. But I really liked the analysis and explanations that were provided.

The delays also drive home how far away from the launch/recovery pads the VAB is.
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,325
https://www.space.com/39646-tesla-roadster-gets-interplanetary-id.html
It is official. That SpaceX Falcon Heavy payload has been assigned an interplanetary ID: Tesla Roadster (AKA: Starman, 2018-017A). The Trajectory name is tesla_s3.

The computations were done by the Solar System Dynamics Group, Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The Horizons on-line tool can be used to generate ephemerides for solar-system bodies.
Heavy sigh.
Gorman said she is, however, uneasy with the symbolism.

"It feeds into a cult of personality which is at odds with the 'space for all humanity' narrative that we in the space world frequently use to justify space exploration," Gorman said. "And let's face it, there's no getting away from the fact that a red sports car is all about boys and their toys. The car is a signifier of wealth and masculinity. We've been trying so hard to leave behind the era where the archetypal astronaut was an elite white male, and we've just stepped right back into it."
I could ask what you think she would like instead but that would be wrong.
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,325
Does anyone care what 'Alice Gorman at the College of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University in Australia' thinks anyway?
She's a space archaeologist called Dr Space Junk, that should count for something.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/p...unearths-the-cultural-landscape-of-the-cosmos
At boarding school, Gorman’s confidence in her science abilities was knocked; when she got a low mark in physics, she decided that there was no way she could become an astrophysicist. At university, in Melbourne, she studied classical archeology.
...
A few years later, already deep into studying space junk, she was thrilled to discover the work of the late scholar William Rathje, who, like most archeologists, believed that one person’s trash is another’s treasure, and that studying rubbish can challenge received ideas about what has value and why.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,845
She's a space archaeologist called Dr Space Junk, that should count for something.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/p...unearths-the-cultural-landscape-of-the-cosmos
Sounds to me more like she's a self-proclaimed "pioneer" with delusions of grandeur. Her demonstrated inability to separate her political correctness from her "analysis" of things in her "field" just shows that she can't be counted upon to draw any meaningful conclusions from anything that won't be thoroughly tainted by her own biases.
 

BR-549

Joined Sep 22, 2013
4,931
I don't think it's the pay.....I believe it is the tenure. Accountability disappears with tenure. A protected academic class.
 
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