I would love to see the cost/feasibility of boosting to a stable/graveyard orbit. The ISS is massive and not built for that kind of maneuver, but it would be great to be able to preserve it for the future.
It’s too old to be retrofitted and it wasn’t designed to last forever.
The computer systems on board controlling all the essential systems, I’d have to assume given the age of the station and when everything was designed, they’d have used 32 bit computing tech because that was what was prevalent when the station launched.
A lot of people say “boost it into graveyard orbit” but another problem is that physically it was not designed to last forever, and just over general wear and tear, it will begin to disintegrate and rain fragments, so it is much safer to deorbit and decomm.
Just unfortunate that it can’t be preserved as a space-tourism destination or something of the sort. Would be neat if it was made into a museum something
You can’t do that because it will physically fall apart. That’s the main issue with boosting it up higher and just leaving it there. It was never designed to be existing for a thousand years, and eventually wear and tear will make the station naturally break apart. It’s significantly more dangerous for small fragments to drop over time as compared to a deorbit and decomm. At least the deorbit is planned, while the disintegration would be pretty random and not fun to deal with.
You can’t do that because it will physically fall apart.
Don’t know where you ever got that idea. It raises and lowers itself all of the time these days to avoid debris.
It could easily be raised to 2-5000 miles by adding energy from a similar small engine (with a decent-sized fuel tank) over a few months/years.
‘Wear and tear’ from what? Micrometeorites? The orbits of any ‘small fragments’ (of what?) would decay very slowly and instantly burn-up many centuries later.
Hm. Had a skim through the article and I hit this:
And it is unclear whether a spacecraft could even be launched successfully through the debris shell to enable travel to other planets. Humans would effectively be trapped on Earth by space junk, with multiple tonnes of vaporized metal being added to the upper atmosphere every day through re-entry^12.
This is a common misunderstanding of the scale of space and the scale of how much debris a "Kesseler syndrome" would entail. I checked the article referenced at the end and it was only in support of the "vaporized metal being added to the upper atmosphere" part of this statement, not the "trapped on Earth" line.
We would not be "trapped on Earth" by Kessler syndrome. The debris is only a problem for something orbiting within it, exposing it to continuous risk of collision for months or years on end. Simply passing through is very unlikely to damage a craft.
So an alarmist misunderstanding was inserted into the middle of this article without any reference backing it up, which makes me dubious about the rest of the article as well.
I’d have to read it more throughly, but the biggest annoyance with starlink is right after launch when they’re all clustered and super bright because they haven’t hit their normal positions. When you’re doing really long exposures, a satellite screaming through your field momentarily is easy enough to filter out those noisy frames.
Is light pollution from satellites great for earth based astronomy, no. Are they ruining astronomy like so much click bait leads you to believe, not in my opinion.
Different telescopes will have different impacts and separate from the direct trails general light pollution is absolutely a problem. The don’t build these things in the middle of no where for fun.
This isn’t a random science writer relaying a sci-fi conversation they had, it’s a respected astronomer with multiple publications in Nature.
The writing is at morning program levels of goofiness; it’s jarring. At 17 kg this meteorite would be worth over a million USD if it was gold. It’s like the writer is taking a piss at the poor guy who hoped to get some money out of it.
What if we originated on Venus? Then came to Earth as our ancestors messed up that planet. And we came here so we wouldn’t make the same mistake again? What if we are aliens that have the capability to know enough about science to be dangerous to the planets in the universe? Maybe reincarnation is simply finding a new planet to start over on, so that one day we can become decent enough to keep a planet going? /s
It is by definition not sarcasm. So it doesn’t need a /s
Sarcasm usually involves saying the opposite of what you really mean. But it’s hard to infer from text so you add the /s so people don’t downvote because they think you are serious.
I.e. the OC is soo sarcastic /s or Trump is a once in a generation genius!! /s
I don't think you've quite understood '/s'. The author was not serious with his post and indicated this fact with '/s'. By definition it is sarcasm as that's what the author defined it as.
It would make for a pretty cool setting for a story though. Set in the near future, first crewed missions to Venus find petroglyphs recording the last days of their ancestors
I’ve watch and read various version of Devilman, I enjoyed the series… But I could never remember the main plot or story, only the memes stuck to my brain.
At the end he fights Satan for an endless eternity, using a diminishing supply of other willing demons as spare body parts as he wears all his limbs out.
The shocks of their battle cause irreparable damage to Earth, and the last of humanity to perish with it.
At the end, he lies limbless, dead or comatose next to Satan on the moon, who asks him almost child-like for closure.
White glowing meteorites presumably sent from God crash into the Earth, wiping all demonic (and presumably all) life from it, similar to the book of revelations
It’s not. The photos with the horizon visible are photos taken during the descent, whereas the photos with only ground visible were taken as landing was imminent (or after landing).
There is a photo on the page that shows the horizon from a landed position, that's the one he's referring to.
It links to, and is displayed, here; with no indication that it's an artist's take on what it would look like. It seems to be D. Mitchell's stitching work from this Venera-13 clear-filter panoramic transmission with added perspective from the color-filter panoramic transmissions.
Preferably powerful enough to make make some nice northern lights, but not so powerful it fries the electric grid and take us all back to the stone age
The described impact of one of those particles got me thinking… I wonder how many “ghostly” encounters have been recorded in history that could be attributed to one of these particles actually hitting someone? I’ve seen several things on TV where the recorded sensation was like being punched in the gut, or ‘god’ tapping someone on the shoulder and driving them forward. However I’m a bit confused from the article – I’m not sure if this particle would travel right through you since it’s subatomic, or if it would actually feel like something hit you. Still, it’s fun to ponder.
These particles split into a crap ton of lower energy ones when they hit the edge of the atmosphere, nothing that makes it to humans has enough energy to be felt, even if they interact with you. (they probably won’t)
I’ve seen a Veritasium video about this where he said you can see flashes of light if these particles hit your retinas while your eyes are closed.
Apparently astronauts experience this a lot
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