What's happening in space (that's interesting)

I think this remains to be seen. I personally doubt it will ever happen and/or that any mission we send up there ends up as a TPK.

Happens in Space a fair amount. There was the time an Astronomer booked some Hubble space telescope time and forgot to add in the precession to the coordinates.

So Hubble happily snapped photo’s of the random area in space it was told. With the actual target coordinates having moved on years ago.

:)

Hmm. Maybe a Cold War era Yalta summit to divide the solar system up?

One of the cooler aspects was the two “CubeSats” launched with the lander that were used to provided real-time telemetry about the landing. Normally would have to wait several hours to know if it succeeded or not.

Not to mention that Tesla are the safest cars in the world.

Plus the hypocrisy of NASA sending astronauts on Russian rockets, were drinking is such huge part of the culture is just breath-taking.

Elon smoking pot on the podcast was dumb, but implying it is going to impact SpaceX commitment to safety is even dumber.

Are you saying that the cosmonauts or the ground crew are drunk when they launch? Cite?

No that is the wrong analogy. I think the odds are pretty great that a number of Russians making the Soyuz rocket, are either drunk at work or suffering from a hangover from the night before.

People with alcohol addictions tend to resent having them pointed out, and may become combative.

[edit]

So calling Russians drunks may have a different effect than the one you’re hoping for.

Back to the moon! Seems like a good use case for making use of the private sector to expand space capabilities. NASA did the high cost initial groundbreaking (many years ago), now they fund creation of moon transport private infrastructure, in the future that infrastructure can be used for more than just NASA missions.

Can the US claim some space on the moon yet? How long until we can move there?

CIG has already sold all of the Moon rights.

Hahahahah! That is hilarious.

Technically not in space, but still: so cool! (Sound on!)

Well sending them there is the easy part…

NASA streaming live as a probe arrives an asteroid. It’s going to touch down and take a sample for return in 2023.

Edit: More info

Also happening today: SpaceX launches 64 satellites into space on one rocket, with a booster that’s already been used twice. It’s their 19th launch of the year, surpassing their previous annual record of 18 from last year.

Is it touching down, or just reaching out a sampling arm? And with the size of the asteroid, is there even enough gravity to touch down?

It kind of bounces and samples while it’s in contact. To do an actual landing, you have to be very slow and careful

Hayabusa2 rover landing procedure:

Three times now! Watched it launch from my porch but couldn’t see it land - night launches are much better from a far away spectator standpoint.