I have noticed that, originally, NASA used mythological names for its manned missions, such as Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, and evocative names for its robot probes, such as Mariner, Viking and Voyager. Now they are either bland descriptions, such as “Space Shuttle”, or acronyms of bland descriptions, such as “S.L. S” for “Space Launch System”. Compare this to Falcon, Dragon and Starship. Somewhere along the line, NASA lost its imagination
Hey, I’m already on board with the idea. You don’t have to sell me!
November 11, 2024 at 4:23 pm
resolute
If it’s se#xist to have female nose art on the aircraft, then maybe we can provide equal representation by hanging some truck nuts off the rudder?
November 11, 2024 at 11:58 am
Oldarmourer
Maybe soon they can, as it is you can’t even write ‘catch’ on a 500lb’er without some dipstick who’s never served and never will getting their panties in a bunch and crying “terrorists are people too”
The leftoid hordes would be okay with naked Nose Art so long as it was a blue-haired LIzzo clone with multiple tattoos and piercings. Excuse me while I go puke after bringing up that image in my mind…
“Garbage Scow”? One thing Elon should be building is a space garbage truck. Launch it to go to orbit (at numerous levels) and collect all that space junk the world has to track, then bring it back to Earth, or compact it to a ball and send it to the moon for recycling into habitat, etc. (Or, into a high orbit where it can be recycled for making things to go to Mars.) It really is a colossal waste of resources, all that stuff hanging in orbit, on top of the danger to man and machine actually working up there.
I’ve always wondered why that never happened given the sheer amount of junk parked up there, not even counting the thousands of high orbit satellite pieces the russians and chinese blew up ‘just because’, at least the US practiced interceptions on re-entering sats and helped them burn up easier.
Even just scooping up the biggest bits with a high tech ‘net’ and tossing them in the general direction of the sun would work, if our local gravity well can suck in comets and affect planetary orbits, it should be able to drag in a few thousand leftover boosters and dropped wrenches.
Of course space is really, really, really, really, really, really big (I’m probably short a couple of ‘reallys’) and there’s hundreds of thousands of little bits stuck in orbit, but you’ve gotta start somewhere, right ?
“tossing them in the general direction of the sun would work”
Just hope you don’t inadvertently create a slingshot trajectory!
November 13, 2024 at 5:23 pm
markm
Oldarmourer: Those tiny pieces of junk are thousands of miles apart. You’d use tons of reaction mass per piece you collected, whether it was a 100-pound defunct satellite or a tiny piece of an explosive bolt. Even the biggest pieces are not worth chasing, and most of it’s no bigger than a broken rivet.
Now, a broken rivet hitting at a speed of miles per second does a lot of damage. You could eliminate the tiny bits and make low earth orbit safer by unrolling 10 square miles of aluminum foil into a gigantic square or disk and driving it in a retrograde orbit. This wouldn’t be collecting the junk, but striking them with so much energy that it vaporizes the junk, and also some of the aluminum – but what I don’t know is if it might blast away unvaporized bits of the aluminum creating more space junk. But there’s no practical way to collect the junk instead of destroying it.
At any rate, the rate of losing satellites to collisions is very, very small so far. Until the junk becomes much denser, there’s no payoff in doing anything more about it than changing procedures and hardware to stop creating more. E.g., either find some better way to separate a satellite from the rocket than explosive bolts, or a way to contain the bits and take them back down with the rocket.
November 11, 2024 at 4:53 pm
Browncoat57
I read that our galaxy contains 100-400 billion stars.
Our national debt is approaching $36 trillion.
1 trillion = 1,000 billion.
That’s a big number.
26 Comments
Laddie, don’t you think you should…rephrase that?
clear ether
eon
EXACTLY what I thought of.
Kirk, is definitely NOT soft….
Me too, Love that one, Eon.
HAH!!!!! TREKKIES…UNITE!!!!!
(Klingon) Yerrrr, rrright….I should. I didn’t mean to say the Enterprise should be hauling garbage……I meant she should be hauled away AS garbage!
And Scotty proceeds to get the “festivities” started!!!! 😀 😀 😀
I have noticed that, originally, NASA used mythological names for its manned missions, such as Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, and evocative names for its robot probes, such as Mariner, Viking and Voyager. Now they are either bland descriptions, such as “Space Shuttle”, or acronyms of bland descriptions, such as “S.L. S” for “Space Launch System”. Compare this to Falcon, Dragon and Starship. Somewhere along the line, NASA lost its imagination
I suspect “Artemis” was concocted mainly to placate uber-feminists.
They likely concluded that naming one “Mohamed” would be a bridge too far, even in the throes of their “Muslim outreach”.
We’re probably lucky they haven’t named one “Plato” yet.
clear ether
eon
Along with the slide rules.
My choice for Dem cosmonauts is “Infinity” for obvious reasons.
Nowadays you’d have to call an Apollo pair ‘they’ and ‘them’…
LOVE the Nose Art! Wish the AF would bring it back, in all its glorious WW-II tradition!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/04/e9/2f/04e92f384d4ed6aa4ff8ea7f67685557.jpg
Zar Belk!
Glorious but oh, so-o-o s3xist, demeaning, and/or deplorable don’t cha know…
Hey, I’m already on board with the idea. You don’t have to sell me!
If it’s se#xist to have female nose art on the aircraft, then maybe we can provide equal representation by hanging some truck nuts off the rudder?
Maybe soon they can, as it is you can’t even write ‘catch’ on a 500lb’er without some dipstick who’s never served and never will getting their panties in a bunch and crying “terrorists are people too”
The leftoid hordes would be okay with naked Nose Art so long as it was a blue-haired LIzzo clone with multiple tattoos and piercings. Excuse me while I go puke after bringing up that image in my mind…
Somehow, having male nose art (for the lady crews), just won’t be the same…
Picture Lia Thomas or that boxer guy/girl/thing on Wart Hog II’s nose.
It’s not nose art for lady crews that makes me hesitant, it’s nose art for ‘pretending to be ladies’ crews…
I’m thinking tanks would be the appropriate canvas…
“Garbage Scow”? One thing Elon should be building is a space garbage truck. Launch it to go to orbit (at numerous levels) and collect all that space junk the world has to track, then bring it back to Earth, or compact it to a ball and send it to the moon for recycling into habitat, etc. (Or, into a high orbit where it can be recycled for making things to go to Mars.) It really is a colossal waste of resources, all that stuff hanging in orbit, on top of the danger to man and machine actually working up there.
Bonus points if the name of the ship is Quark. Yes I am old enough to remember the 70’s show about space garbage collectors.
I’ve always wondered why that never happened given the sheer amount of junk parked up there, not even counting the thousands of high orbit satellite pieces the russians and chinese blew up ‘just because’, at least the US practiced interceptions on re-entering sats and helped them burn up easier.
Even just scooping up the biggest bits with a high tech ‘net’ and tossing them in the general direction of the sun would work, if our local gravity well can suck in comets and affect planetary orbits, it should be able to drag in a few thousand leftover boosters and dropped wrenches.
Of course space is really, really, really, really, really, really big (I’m probably short a couple of ‘reallys’) and there’s hundreds of thousands of little bits stuck in orbit, but you’ve gotta start somewhere, right ?
“tossing them in the general direction of the sun would work”
Just hope you don’t inadvertently create a slingshot trajectory!
Oldarmourer: Those tiny pieces of junk are thousands of miles apart. You’d use tons of reaction mass per piece you collected, whether it was a 100-pound defunct satellite or a tiny piece of an explosive bolt. Even the biggest pieces are not worth chasing, and most of it’s no bigger than a broken rivet.
Now, a broken rivet hitting at a speed of miles per second does a lot of damage. You could eliminate the tiny bits and make low earth orbit safer by unrolling 10 square miles of aluminum foil into a gigantic square or disk and driving it in a retrograde orbit. This wouldn’t be collecting the junk, but striking them with so much energy that it vaporizes the junk, and also some of the aluminum – but what I don’t know is if it might blast away unvaporized bits of the aluminum creating more space junk. But there’s no practical way to collect the junk instead of destroying it.
At any rate, the rate of losing satellites to collisions is very, very small so far. Until the junk becomes much denser, there’s no payoff in doing anything more about it than changing procedures and hardware to stop creating more. E.g., either find some better way to separate a satellite from the rocket than explosive bolts, or a way to contain the bits and take them back down with the rocket.
I read that our galaxy contains 100-400 billion stars.
Our national debt is approaching $36 trillion.
1 trillion = 1,000 billion.
That’s a big number.