The Final Frontier or Ye Olde Space-Exlporation Thrade

[Ensign Steve]

This is the official thread to talk about advances in space exploration that don't have to do with Mars.

[Ensign Steve]

I'm trying to post this cool story but it won't let me. Not as a new thread, not as a reply, not even as an edit. I'm heartbroken that the official space travel thread is off to such a shaky start. :sadjd:

[livius drusus]

[The Lone Ranger]

Discovery landed today, completing its last-ever flight. Endeavor and Atlantis are scheduled for one more launch each. After that, the Space Shuttle program will be officially over.

I remember watching the test flights of the Enterprise, and the first launch of Columbia. And the destruction of the Challenger.

Kinda sad that the Space Shuttle program is ending.

[livius drusus]

I'm not a big NASA junkie, but I've found myself more saddened than I expected to feel over the end of the Shuttle era. I went to Cape Canaveral to see one of the early launches when I was a kid. We had to wake up before dawn to get a good viewing spot on this swampy patch near the base. We collected jelly fish in paper cups and waited, and waited, and waited...

Then the launch was canceled and I had to go back to Rome without having seen the Shuttle take off which was totally going to be all my "what I did on my summer vacation" papers.

[wei yau]

On our recent vacation, we were leaving the Port of Miami. A bunch of gathered on the deck at the appropriate time and watched the contrail of the Space Shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. We were pretty damn far away, so all you could see was a rising plume of shuttle-stuff, but it was the closest I'd ever been to a shuttle launch.

And apparently, the closest I'll ever get.

[Dingfod]

Space, who needs it?

[Ari]

A space geek friend went to see the recent launch. He was there at least once before but it was canceled.
I have vague memories of seeing the shuttle land and also of it on a 747 for transport when I lived near Edwards Airforce base. Although I was 3 at the time so those memories are paper thin.

[Dingfod]

Williams Shatner woke up the Discovery crew with this a few days ago:

YouTube - "Capt. Kirk" Wakes...

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

and I had to go back to Rome

Our hearts bleed for you.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Space, who needs it?

I do. I have too damn much stuff and it is taking up all my available space.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Ari

I have vague memories of seeing the shuttle land and also of it on a 747 for transport when I lived near Edwards Airforce base. Although I was 3 at the time so those memories are paper thin.

Growing up in the valley, I was woken up on plenty of mornings by the sonic boom. Even after they moved the landings to Florida, sometimes it would have to go to Edwards if the weather in Florida was too yucky. So awesome!


Okay, so anyway here is the story that I wanted to poast yesterday:

BBC News - Voyager: Still dancing 17 billion km from Earth

At the astonishing distance of 17.4 billion km, the Nasa probe is the most far-flung object made by humans.

But it seems age and remoteness are no barriers to this veteran explorer.

Voyager is executing a series of roll manoeuvres to get one of its instruments into the optimum position to measure particles sweeping away from the Sun.

Controllers at the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, report a perfect response from the probe.

"I liken Voyager to an old car," said project manager Suzanne Dodds. "It's got simple electronics, not a lot of fancy gadgets - but because of that it can operate for longer; it's not as finicky."

Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 on a tour of the outer planets. Since completing that mission, it has been making the push for deep space.

The probe is heading in the general direction of the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy and will, in the next few years, leave the space dominated by the influence of our Sun and enter the province between the stars - interstellar space.

Did you fucking read that? INTERSTELLAR SPACE! Go humanity!

[Gonzo]

2001: A Space Odyssey

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

We collected jelly fish in paper cups and waited, and waited, and waited...

Then the launch was canceled and I had to go back to Rome without having seen the Shuttle take off which was totally going to be all my "what I did on my summer vacation" papers.

You could have written about collecting jelly fish?

--J.D.

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by Gonzo

2001: A Space Odyssey

YouTube - League of gentlemen Vs 2001 by...

--J.D.

[Gonzo]

Space Monkey

[Crumb]

MESSENGER will enter Mercury orbit tonight!

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_roo...ils.php?id=161

[Ensign Steve]

NASA - First Image Ever Obtained from Mercury Orbit

Early this morning, at 5:20 am EDT, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down.

I dunno. It kind of looks like the moon to me.

[livius drusus]

Huh. Mercury looks a lot like the moon. I always imagined it more molten.

[BrotherMan]

[Ymir's blood]

Get out of my head, BroMan!

[Crumb]

April Fool? No Foolin’…

[BrotherMan]

That's crazy. Awesome. Incredible. Amazing. And if I didn't know any better (and, honestly, I don't) I'd swear Ensign Steve set this thrad up just for that post.

[Ensign Steve]

[Kyuss Apollo]

Stories about Mercury always bring to mind an old short story by Alan E. Nourse, Brightside Crossing. Great old story, no monsters, just man and machine versus an impossible terrain.