Astronomy: Perseids tonight!

[Kathy Li]

Just wanted to remind folks that we're hitting the height of the Perseids tonight! If you've ever wanted to wish on a shooting star, you'll get hundreds of chances to do so. Hoping you have clear skies for viewing!

Apologies to those in the Southern hemisphere for whom this information is sort of a big shrug.

[Darth Revan]

Really? cool but to bad i mised it i could have wished something absoultly great. well i guess i will see the next one. [If i can] who knows i might not!!!

[Kathy Li]

Well, they'll last until about August 25th, so there are still chances. It's just that Thursday was when you'd get the most of them. I'm being plagued with overcast skies (like the whole sky is covered with clouds), so I can't see them either. I'll probably have to wait for the them to come around next year.

[Marissa]

Have any of you heard about how Mars is supposed to come as closest to the moon as it has for about 5,000 years or so? I think that its supposedly going to be closest on August 27th.

[Kathy Li]

Interesting NASA announcement:

Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will again explore the surface of the moon. And this time, we're going to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. There are echoes of the iconic images of the past, but it won't be your grandfather's moon shot...

[Aurora]

Hmm. . .

Personally. . .

I don't believe that will come to pass, but we'll see.

[Peter Murray]

Kathy said:
There are echoes of the iconic images of the past, but it won't be your grandfather's moon shot...

Both my grandfathers were dead before the Apollo project started - one died before V-2 rockets were invented! (No actual connection there.)
I watched the televised Moon landings, not my grandfathers! Huh.

Hopefully, this time, something long term will result from the Moon project.

[Kathy Li]

What I like about the announcement is the cheerful optimism that one can combine Apollo tech with Shuttle tech and hopefully get out of it something that will be a good basis for Mars landings.

[Buran]

Whyever wouldn't it be possible? I think we can certainly do it. There are good reasons to continue using the systems we have; in fact, the Shuttle program makes use of a lot of what was left from Apollo:

- the launch pads, 39A and B, are the same two used for the Saturn rockets used by Apollo

- the Vehicle Assembly Building was designed to hold four fully-assembled Saturn 5 rockets in its high bays, which is why the Shuttle seems to be swallowed up in the huge space

- the crawlers and mobile launch platforms were originally designed to move stacked Saturn 5s as well as the launch tower, which at the time was not completely fixed on the pad the way it is today

- the firing room and mission control center were used for Apollo flights and only relatively recently did the Houston mission control center receive a complete overhaul

- much of the technology used in the Shuttle was originally developed for Apollo, and descends directly from that program

- many of the early astronauts who flew on the Shuttle worked on Apollo (for instance, one of the Apollo 13 astronauts flew Enterprise on approach and landing tests, and John Young, who was one of the Apollo moonwalkers, commanded the first Columbia mission in 1981)

- Apollo and predecessor programs helped develop much of the technology and procedures used today, such as how to rendezvous with another vehicle in orbit, and how best to handle spacewalks

The list could be made far more exhaustive, of course. We've been talking for a long time about returning to the Moon, but I can honestly say that this is the first time I've ever really felt like the effort is being made to go back. We're now actually talking about how best to modify the current infrastructure, both on the ground and already in space, to support manned lunar flights.

I have long been an optimist and a dreamer, and I think that we really will go. It's just a matter of time. One of my personal dreams is to see the earth from space before I die, and I hope that some day the cost of a suborbital or orbital hop will decrease to the point where I can afford it. That dream is now far more accomplishable than it once was.

I plan to be there the day the first crew to return to the Moon since 1972 lifts off, and I don't feel ashamed at all to say "I support space exploration and support it to the fullest".

Don't we need something to dream about? I think so. Don't we all deserve to be able to stand there on the Moon, right along with whoever's actually physically there, and wonder? And maybe, just maybe, have the chance for ourselves or our descendants to treat travelling to the Moon as more of a common occurrence than we do now.

It wasn't supposed to be this way ...

[Kathy Li]

I didn't mean by "cheerful optimism" that they couldn't do it. Just that they were talking about some relatively big engineering feats in this casually cheerful, "of course it will happen" way, and mentioning shuttle and Apollo elements together in a way (not being a space program follower) I'm not used to seeing in combination.

I think the technological difficulties are the least of it. The biggest issue, of course, is paying for it. (sigh). I'd love to see it happen, too. But I wouldn't be disappointed or any less thrilled if a commercial Russian Soyez-based venture managed to do it first.

[Buran]

The Russians can't afford it. The Russian program has been strung along over the years by payments from the US program. Every year or two, the Russians come along and ask for handouts from the United States saying that if the money stops coming, the Soyuz spacecraft will stop launching.

And they have us where they want us: the X-37 CRV (the seven-person rescue vehicle that would have become the ISS lifeboat) was cancelled even though it was quite far along in development and working rather well. There has to be a constant presence of a vehicle docked to the station that can evacuate the entire crew, or enough vehicles to evacuate the entire crew (a six-person crew could be evaluated in two capsules, for instance). The Space Shuttle cannot remain in orbit the entire time a crew is at the station; it can only stay in orbit for around two weeks.

In other words, if we stop handing over the money, that's it for the ISS.

Russia's not going to the Moon or Mars any time soon. They killed their space program when they destroyed their existing government back in the late 80s.

In fact, "Buran" was the Soviet version of the US space shuttle. Cancelled after one flight. Because of lack of money.

---

Oh, and as for how it will be paid for?

After the Space Shuttle ceases operating, that will free up a lot (probably will happen around 2010-2015) and some other programs will be rearranged a lot with various funding changes made; some that will benefit the new program will receive more, while some will receive less. Other miscellaneous changes and funding level changes will also be taken into account.

The first flights of the CEV will probably take place, my guess, between 2011-2014. (They're saying 2012, but delays are common... the Shuttle should have begun flights early enough to save Skylab, in 78-79, but by the time flights actually started in 1981, it was too late. A shame. Skylab could have been so much more).

[edited to consolidate double-post. --kli.]

[mythbusterfan]

this is prolly a little off topic but...

any ways i had an astronomy class this last semester and it was AWESOME we got to learn about black holes and stars and planest and stuff it was cool.