Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: Hot Flatus on 07 May, 2020, 01:26:36 pm
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https://www.meteorwatch.org/iss-international-space-station-times-uk-may-2020/
I know some of you will be interested
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Got a photo somewhere of ISS+Shuttle, from 90s.
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https://www.meteorwatch.org/iss-international-space-station-times-uk-may-2020/
Ultra bright pass at 22.53 coming from the west.
4 minutes after you should see the supply vessel chasing it at higher speed
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THAT was awesome. Never been able to see it from Amsterdam before. Way too much traffic normally.
Thanks for the heads up.
Next pass is 2308 UTC, 0008 BST, 0108 CEST, if anyone is still awake.
J
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Apparently the supply ship was ahead of it. I couldnt see it. Too cloudy
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We went out into the sticks and saw them both. I was going to say that you wait for a space station and
three two come at once. My immediate thought was that the second one looked more like the space station than the first one. It was definitely bigger and brighter. Thanks for confirming that.
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A couple of nights ago as it passed east I saw a couple of satellites flying about. There really is a huge amount of stuff up there.
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Got my times wrong, try adding about 20 minutes to them, so 2328/0028/0128.
Apologies.
J
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To much cloud here :-\
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We had a cloud :(
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYlDSyiXYAAJTcI?format=jpg&name=large)
I had... some small clouds... and an ISS...
Not as good a pass as the one 90 minutes ago, but I'm really pleased I got the shot.
J
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22.55 ISS
then supply ship at 23.06
Tonight
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How often do these supply ships go up there? I assume it isn't the same one.
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22.55 ISS
then supply ship at 23.06
Tonight
Where do you get your supply ship info from?
It isn't anywhere obvious on Heavens Above.
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How often do these supply ships go up there? I assume it isn't the same one.
Depends.
This is the 9th from JAXA the Japanese space agency.
ROSCOSMOS aim to send up 3 Progress supply craft per year, plus 2 Soyuz crew missions.
ESA launched 5 of it's Autonomous Transfer Vehicle craft to the station, all launched on Arianne 5 rockets from French Guyana. With the conclusion of the 5 launches, they have no further launch plans to Station. The ATV lives on as part of the logistics module on the new NASA Artemis project to return to the moon.
NASA has the CCS contract program, which has missions from Space X (dragon module, launched on the Falcon 9, now Dragon 2, also launched on Falcon 9), and Cygnus, which comes from Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC), and is launched by United Launch Alliance (ULA) on an Atlas 5 rocket.
The exact number of each varies.
Then there comes the more complicated one. There is also the Commercial Crew Program, which involves Boeing and Space X. Space X have their Crewed Dragon (Human rated version of Dragon 2), and Boeing have their CST-100. As yet neither have flown with a crew on board. But that's about to change.
At 2033 UTC/2133BST/2233CEST on 27th May 2020, a Falcon 9 from LC-39A will launch carrying 2 NASA astronauts. It is due to dock with Station at 1529UTC/1629BST/1729CEST on the 28th. This will mark the first time Astronauts have flown to the space station other than from Baikenour for 9 years, since the the shuttle was retired in 2011. It's also the first time NASA have launched only 2 crew on a mission since STS-4 in June 1982.
Boeing's CST-100 kinda fucked up on it's test flight in 2019, meaning they are losing this race, and don't expect to launch humans until 2021.
Launches to the station are more common than you may think, and with a variety of different craft.
Then there are the various launches that don't involve Station. Including the race to infect the planet with Kessler syndrome from the likes of SpaceX and One Space...
Space is busy right now...
J
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Where do you get your supply ship info from?
It isn't anywhere obvious on Heavens Above.
https://www.meteorwatch.org/iss-international-space-station-times-uk-may-2020/
ISS Detector App on Android also supports this.
J
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22.55 ISS
then supply ship at 23.06
Tonight
Where do you get your supply ship info from?
It isn't anywhere obvious on Heavens Above.
See the OP ;D
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This is the 9th from JAXA the Japanese space agency.
For completeness, JAXA launch the HTV Series on the H11B rocket, they plan a total of 10 launches, the final one planned for Feb 2021.
They launch from Japan. They take slightly longer to get from earth to Station. They are using a number of orbits to raise the craft up to ISS altitude.
Soyuz craft have an option of approximately a 6 hour route, and a 2 day route. Progress tends to take the 2 day route.
Crew dragon is using a route that takes approximately 20 hours.
J
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They launch from Japan. They take slightly longer to get from earth to Station. They are using a number of orbits to raise the craft up to ISS altitude.
My contact at ESA ground control tells me that HTC docks on Monday, exact time TBD. It must dock at least 2 days prior to dragon arriving.
J
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22.55 ISS
then supply ship at 23.06
Tonight
Where do you get your supply ship info from?
It isn't anywhere obvious on Heavens Above.
See the OP ;D
Ah! So!
;)
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(http://www.alfiecat.co.uk/yetacf/P5230015.jpg)
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I didnt look out for it tonight. Very cloudy.
Supply ship docks on monday
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(http://www.alfiecat.co.uk/yetacf/P5230015.jpg)
That's not the ISS
That an Imperial Tiefighter!!! :o
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It was cloudier to the SE, so we didn't have a long time to track it, plus I initially had the camera settings wrong. Pillock!
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Don't know if this site has been mentioned before. Makes tracking a bit easier as it shows relative position of the fly overs to your dwelling.
https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ (https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/)
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Don't know if this site has been mentioned before. Makes tracking a bit easier as it shows relative position of the fly overs to your dwelling.
https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ (https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/)
Excellent.
Thanks.
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19 starlinks tonight
good link, thanks
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I didn't see many of the Starlink ones, but the ISS has just gone over, with something, presumably the supply ship, trailing it about 20 sec behind.
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Is tonights 'incredibly bright' pass going to be brighter than tomorrows 'Ultra bright' one?
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I read the Space- launch will be visible from the UK twenty minutes after launch.
Where should I look in the sky?
I guess as I'm in London there is not much hope of seeing it.
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I read the Space- launch will be visible from the UK twenty minutes after launch.
Where should I look in the sky?
I guess as I'm in London there is not much hope of seeing it.
see the link from the OP. That website will have info.
J
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9.33pm launch...so about 15 mins after that. From W I think.
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9:48 is what I have seen.
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9.33 launch plus 15 mins flight time= 9.48
I'll try and update this thread if launch is late
https://www.meteorwatch.org/crew-dragon-watch-the-launch-then-see-it-fly-over-uk/
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MAte of mine from McLaren days is an aero engineer at Space-X.
Fingers crossed!
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We're gonna give this a go. 5min walk to a small hillock, and the star map on the meteor-watch page seems to give enough info for this newb.
Hopefully some geeks will be up there too, and we can just watch where they're pointing their massive telescopes ;D
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CANCELLED
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CANCELLED
Bugger. Just tuned into NASA TV to watch, and its been scrubbed. To much electrical activity in the atmosphere.
New launch date is Saturday.
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We're gonna give this a go.
bollox. sorry everyone ::-)
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2022 UK time Saturday...
J
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2022 UK time Saturday...
J
Broad daylight! :facepalm:
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I’m a little reluctant to ask this, but I have a good deal of respect for some of the people posting in this thread, and others posting similar stuff on other platforms, in relation to this. And I am not of a scientific bent. So please bear with me.
What I don’t get is: how is this Space-x business not an enormous willy-waving show for Elon Musk? How/why is that something to be uncritically applauded?
I saw Helen Sharman on the news earlier, saying that Musk’s involvement frees up NASA funds so that they can go on and explore further into deep space, etc, because, well, low orbit stuff is boring - been there, done that, etc.
Isn’t there something just a little politically suspect in all this? Have we got to the point where we place responsibility of some element of our collective future in the hands of a man like Musk?
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I’m a little reluctant to ask this, but I have a good deal of respect for some of the people posting in this thread, and others posting similar stuff on other platforms, in relation to this. And I am not of a scientific bent. So please bear with me.
What I don’t get is: how is this Space-x business not an enormous willy-waving show for Elon Musk? How/why is that something to be uncritically applauded?
I saw Helen Sharman on the news earlier, saying that Musk’s involvement frees up NASA funds so that they can go on and explore further into deep space, etc, because, well, low orbit stuff is boring - been there, done that, etc.
Let's be honest. Elon Musk has no redeeming features. He is a vile disgusting excuse for a human.
Unfortunately, we are in a position where the game of politics in Washington has effected what the smart people at JPL and Marshall etc... are able to do. Every nut, every bolt, every resister and diode, it's all controlled by bean counting bureaucrats in Washington who have no fscking clue what is actually involved in getting into space. Meanwhile in the wild west that is Silicon Valley, a bunch of rich tech bros with too much money have been trying to find something to do with it. Private space flight has been pretty unregulated, so they can get away with it. Whether it's Musk and SpaceX, or Jeff Besos and Blue Origin. Because they are largely funding it from their great piles of money, they aren't having to worry about the bureaucrats double checking it all, this has allowed them to make a few mistakes, blow stuff up, and not worry that the purse will be closed. This has allowed the smart people at SpaceX, and let's face it Elon isn't the one with the slide rule and the CAD system, he's just paying the bill, to test things we would never otherwise see. Such as the reusable first stages.
The reality is, they have pretty much nailed the journey from LC-39A to Station. They can do it cheaply, and so far, reliably. As such, there's little point in jumping through the hoops of NASA internal red tape. Things like the Apollo program were more expensive than they needed to be because of policies that required everything to be made across the whole of the US, so all states could benefit. Have a look on gootube at the journey the Apollo rockets took just to get to the Cape. There's no way doing it in house at NASA could be that cheap.
Helen Sharman is right, using Space X as a taxi to get Astronauts to Station does free up money for other projects. And those other projects include a return to the moon as the next stage. NASA's Artemis project will see an uncrewed vehicle go out to the moon and back to prove we have relearned the lessons (and it is relearned, the institutional memory of Apollo is long gone), then a bit later there will be a crewed mission round the moon, and then after that, a landing. They also want to look at the next steps beyond the ISS. This is likely to include a station at the Langrage point between Earth and the Moon. Artemis is on financial life support, congress has made multiple attempts to kill it off. It's got all sorts of cost saving compromises in there, the 1st stage is using old shuttle booster tanks. If you were to open up a blank page in CAD and start designing a mission to the moon, this is not how you would do it. But the bean counters. The fucking bean counters.
The history of rocketry has a dark side. Elon Musk is a vile human, but the men who designed the rockets of the space race were card carrying nazi's. The rocket that carried Tim Peak to orbit was designed originally to carry nuclear warheads into space to rain down death. We can celebrate humankind's achievements. That above me right now 3 humans are whizzing past at 28Mm/ph, is miraculous. That we have an entire planet, just a few Mm away populated entirely with robots. That I can look out the window, look up at the moon, and know there are human footsteps there. This is absolutely phenomenal. But we shouldn't forget that not everyone involved is a saint. Space flight has been of huge benefit to humanity, and we are only now touching the surface of what those possible benefits are. But unfortunately to get there has meant turning a blind eye to nazi's. It's meant turning a blind eye to the misogynistic racist piece of shit that is CEO of spaceX. I wish it wasn't true. I wish there was no taint to space exploration. I am not apologising for any of the vile people involved. Their behaviour is inexcusable. But it's the decisions of the meeting rooms of Washington that have left little choice if we are to get to space.
Isn’t there something just a little politically suspect in all this? Have we got to the point where we place responsibility of some element of our collective future in the hands of a man like Musk?
Fortunately Musk is not the only effort humanity has here. Of the Commercial Crew Program, there is also the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, which is due to launch sometime in 2021. It has been set back due to cultural problems at Boeing (see 737max...), but before we get too happy, Boeing is an arms company, as well as facilitators of considerable amounts of pollution. There are other projects like Dream Chaser from Sierra Nevada Corporation. You've probably never heard of SNC, but they have been involved in weapons manufacture too. Currently they are only contracted for cargo flights to the ISS, but they are trying to develop a human rated craft for crewed flights too.
Space exploration is expensive, incredibly expensive. Which means that funding either has to come from governments with all the bureaucratic bollocks that involves, of from private sector sources that have more money than sense. Most people who get to have several billion of what ever currency sat in the bank, have not got there by being nice people. The discussion of whether or not billionaires should even exist should probably be moved to the politics section of the forum.
Oh and don't think ESA has any cleaner conscience, they are contracting all sorts of arms companies to manufacture their various bits and pieces. Turns out the skill set for launching explosive stuff to kill people isn't that dissimilar to the skill set for launching humans and satellites into space...
J
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If you're waiting for saints to take us to the stars, don't hold your breath.
While I admit Musk is no paragon of virtue, it seems like you've an axe to grind. Here (https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html) is a different perspective. (tl;dr: Musk is not a moron with lots of cash - he does have a few brain cells to rub together)
YMMV
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Thank you for your helpful reply QG.
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Thank you for your helpful reply QG.
A wealth of information in there.
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For those in the UK wanting to Watch tomorrow night, info on timings etc...
https://www.meteorwatch.org/crew-dragon-watch-the-launch-then-see-it-fly-over-uk/
J
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9 minutes...
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Blimey - we now have commercial manned space flight. Never thought I would see it in my lifetime. This is a really big thing. Now its been done more will follow.
I love the fact that the recovery vessel for the first stage is called "Of course I still love you", got to be a Culture ship name nod.
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I love the fact that the recovery vessel for the first stage is called "Of course I still love you", got to be a Culture ship name nod.
There's a sister ship on the west coast called "Just read the instructions".
Iain Banks fandom is one of Musk's redeeming features, like getting extremely clever people together, giving them plenty of money and letting them get on with cool shit. But he's not Tony Stark, he's Lex Luthor.
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QG in her (utterly justified) humanistic annihilation of space flight only missed out that the space shuttle was hamstrung in it's design by the desire for it to be an unstoppable (as in too unpredictable to counter) weapon delivery system. The desire for cross range capability knackered all hope of meatsack survivability. Energia/buran was on every human level worse because it cost just as much in a country/agglomeration/whateverthefuckitwas that could afford it even less
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I love the fact that the recovery vessel for the first stage is called "Of course I still love you", got to be a Culture ship name nod.
There's a sister ship on the west coast called "Just read the instructions".
Iain Banks fandom is one of Musk's redeeming features, like getting extremely clever people together, giving them plenty of money and letting them get on with cool shit. But he's not Tony Stark, he's Lex Luthor.
That he is. That he is.
I went out with the camera to try and get a shot of the ISS, and Dragon. Dragon was lost in the light pollution if it was visible at all.
On the plus side, I did get the ISS:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZS9kfGWAAAJmSi?format=jpg&name=orig)
I took 11 photos over the feed into, the pass, and the few minutes after. They can be seen in this twitter thread for those curious:
https://twitter.com/quixoticgeek/status/1266845525044838400
J
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2020 meets 2001
https://youtu.be/tdrXYgHanA8 (https://youtu.be/tdrXYgHanA8)
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2020 meets 2001
https://youtu.be/tdrXYgHanA8 (https://youtu.be/tdrXYgHanA8)
Awesome!
I love the way that Dragon follows convention with red and green lights for port and starboard.