That think looks like a bomb from a sci-fi movie circa 1955.
Crew5 splashdown this evening (~9pm Eastern)
How long till they have crew in something that lands itself like a Falcon 9?
That would probably be SpaceX Starship which is engineered to re-enter atmosphere and make a powered landing. I think it’s supposed to have a maiden test flight at some point this year since it (and it’s first stage BFR) passed static fire tests like a month ago.
New Spacesuits for Artemis/Moon project(s):
And yes, I am laughing at the Spacesuit runway fashion choice:
Developed for the Artemis III mission, which will see the first woman and person of color walking on the Moon, the prototype suit was revealed at an event on Wednesday, March 15th. The prototype includes a dark gray cover, which was designed by costume designer Esther Marquis, who worked on the TV series For All Mankind, but the actual suit will be white for thermal reasons.
dtolman
5744
Nasawatch slammed it as a fashion show, not a real suit unveiling - and they are right.
Its the wrong color, it is missing critical connectors and attachment points, and it has unnecessary fabric which will trap abrasives - moon dust is basically a health hazard and the suit design should be such that it traps as little as possible in creases and folds.
Editer
5746
The whole Artemis program is such a clusterfrack. Reuse a bunch of old Shuttle hardware but still spend way more money than if Obama hadn’t cancelled the freaking Constellation program in the first place, and without the ancillary technology development benefits a new launcher would have led to.
Now we’re a couple of years out from sending Astronauts on an orbital flight around the moon, with no viable moon lander design despite finally having the Salvage One heavy lifter and capsule ready to go. (Yeah, Starship was selected. But it’s late, it’s a complex big bet on unproven tech, and it’s a rocket designed for one thing being used for another… Though it’ll definitely feel like an Astounding Science Fiction cover if it ever lands on the moon.)
And prototype space suit fashion show for astronauts with no landing vehicle.
The 60’s set very unreasonable expectations for space progress.
alternatively, the 70’s politicians killed space progress, at least human space progress.
Just keeps getting cheaper and easier to build satellites, and if they’re cheap and simple enough throwing a bunch in a big space catapult starts to look pretty efficient.
dtolman
5752
It might be setting the stage for VERITAS - but NASA pushed back its launch by 3 years, and practically zero’ed out its budget this year (fallout from the Psyche asteroid mission debacle at JPL, which is also managing VERITAS). So that stage keeps slipping away…
dtolman
5753
If you are in mid-latitude North America or Europe (as far south as Virginia in the US) the Aurora Borealis may be visible tonight!
For more southern places, if its dark at the horizon, try pointing your camera north and taking a long exposure (you might need a tripod). Even if not visible to the eye, might still get it on camera!
vyshka
5754
The sun laughs at your puny F5s earthlings!
So Oumuamau was just a rock farting hydrogen, eh?
Djscman
5756
One species’ hydrogen-farting rock is another species’ serviceable interstellar spacecraft. I hope our rocket scientists can make use of this new, uh, technology for our own probes, whether the farting propulsion is natural or artificial.
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