You presume he cares. I'm not sure he would let it get in the way of progress.
He did give up bitcoin because he thought it had too big a carbon footprint.
But he didn't research it (even though it was easily known).
It would be nice if there was a monetary advantage to fetching satellites and space junk. There might be some hope. Those satellites are not coming back. Still, for the millions of earth based astronomers, they'll have to deal with the residue of Musk's greed.
Larry
DevilHorse
NASA selected its next 2 missions today – both to Venus. That will be really exciting and raise Venus' profile in the public eye, maybe not all the way to Mars level, but will give us a pretty robust program there.
I for one was disappointed with the selection of the Venus missions over the missions to Io and Triton (the 2 missions that were given the shaft):
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...e-solar-system
The criteria used was feasibility and scientific value. So BOTH missions go to Venus? It sounds like someone caved in on one criterion only and that won the day. How else do you end up with one location? Landing on a planet seems a bit easier than landing on a moon of a planet; planets seem relatively slower with more uniform orbits. Venus has a lot more atmosphere to deal with, and is more of a mystery, and is likely to be much more corrosive on our equipment and likely to make success difficult. Perhaps they are looking to see what greenhouse effects look like. But looking for life like situations, and very different environments, they missed the mark because Io and Titan provided that. Perhaps Venus is just closer.
Also, with the suggestion of increased funding of NASA in the Biden budget, maybe the other 2 projects will have a chance.
Larry
DevilHorse
For Ingenuity Wonks, here is a clearer explanation of what went on with the 6th flight:
https://www.universetoday.com/151360...o-so-smoothly/
It looks like they did a good job of building robustness into the various mechanisms so Ingenuity could cope with minor failures in different 'departments' and still complete different steps.
Preparations for a 7th flight are being done. Here is a Preview:
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/
This 7th flight will be no earlier than Sunday/tomorrow.
They really should have an old fashion email server that you can subscribe to that sends out 'I'm about to take my next flight' emails for folks that want to follow this. It would be useful/popular I'd think.
Larry
DevilHorse
Well, none of the four missions are landers. One Venus mission is an orbiter and the other is an atmospheric probe that will then crash into the surface. The other projects aren't going to fly unless their teams decide to re-propose them at a later date.
I really like the strategy of choosing 2 Venus missions – they're very different but complimentary, both have outstanding scientific value, and will add up to more than the sum of their parts. And it's a planet that NASA hasn't sent a mission to in a long time, despite the proximity. I do think we'll get a Neptune orbiter selected in the next decade, which would definitely include a Triton component.
Ingenuity has now completed its 7th flight (that's 2 bonus flights):
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...ore/ar-AAKQdOI
Some video:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/s...a&action=click
I imagine that Ingenuity is covering much more territory than Percy is, but there is no indication of how close to each other they are now. At this time they seem to still be testing Ingenuity's capabilities, rather than scouting scientific areas for potential Percy ventures or making observations that Percy can't.
Larry
DevilHorse
Pursuant to the previous discussion of the Transit of Venus expeditions, this seems to be the best popular audience book on the topic: Andrea Wulff's "Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens." I just ordered it and am pretty stoked.
So, apparently yesterday we got some new images of Ganymede from the Juno flyby. A couple of the first images are posted here. I confess, I know little about Ganymede, but I find the pictures to pretty amazing. Apparently, color versions are coming.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Am I a planet # if I am Ganymede?
a) Rounded object due to its own gravity? It has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape). # check
b) Any nearest neighbors of similar size? It has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit. # grey area in my opinion. Jupiter has assorted (72) moons and space crud. Ganymede is OK, but it still looks pitted.
c) Orbits a star (sun)? # It's orbit is not an ellipse, it is a toroid around the sun. Fail.
Nothing stops it from having life on it. It can have an atmosphere and all of the billboards that can fit. The forest moon of Endor does great business. BTW, explain to me where in Star Wars is Endor? It appears no where in the movie?
Larry
DevilHorse
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Not sure if folks are keeping up with the Zhurong rover (the Chinese contribution to Mars on the surface exploration), but they recently planted a camera that shows the rover and base landing vehicle:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/11/asia/...scn/index.html
Very flashy looking.
I'm not sure of the value of the immobile camera that is so low on the ground though. Other than the two craft selfie, what else is the facility of the device. I'm sure we'll find out. (Gremlin cam?).
It also strikes me how much Zhurong copies the evolution of previous US built rover technology. The designs of rover delivery and the rover itself are a great complement to what NASA has been optimizing over almost 2 decades of rover evolution; they didn't start from scratch.
On another note, this forum has evolved from backyard Astronomy to everything in space that is not UFOs/UAP. If that is OK, we can continue as one forum. If not, we can split to Backyard Astronomy and observation (this Forum) vs. a new Forum for All things space (discussion of Space Program/Planetary Phenomenon/Space Stuff). Just wondering if anyone cares. I'm comfortable leaving as is.
How about that solar eclipse yesterday morning.
Larry
DevilHorse
CBAB, you're obviously a supporter of Pluto (who isn't?). So I offer the following:
plutoFun1.jpg
Larry
DevilHorse
Ganymede is great! In addition to being the only moon with its own magnetic field like mentioned upthread, it is one of the bodies very likely to have a large underground ocean of liquid water, although the oceans on Europa and Enceladus beat it out for "most likely to have life".
Of course, anything within the radiation belt of Jupiter may already be pre-fried. But obviously it would not be human. That level of radiation would cause a lot of mutations assuming DNA.
The radiation level at the surface of Ganymede is considerably lower than at Europa, being 50–80 mSv (5–8 rem) per day, an amount that would cause severe illness or death in human beings exposed for two months
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganyme...on_environment
Larry
DevilHorse