astronauticalaspirations

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Gemini 3 Interior

Grissom Memorial, Spring Mill State Park, Mitchell, IN

#spacecraft interiors #gemini 3 #spacecraft #gemini spacecraft #gemini program

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This was precisely my reaction when Dr H tried to explain this diagram at 8 am on a Monday.

So we have pure iron, and we add carbon and we call it steel. Ok cool, so then we also have cast iron, which is where you take iron and add more carbon. Yeah okay. And then we get pig iron, which is where you take iron and add even more carbon to it. So with steels we get high carbon steel and low carbon steel. Low carbon steel has more carbon than iron but less than iron. High carbon steel has less carbon than iron but much more than iron.

#i don't actually remember what day we did that but suffice to say those morning materials lectures were a trip #i do remember getting told the million dollar man was named steve austin because of austenite #not sure if that's true but its a nontrivial part of what i retained from that particular lecture #materials science #steel

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happy friday i worked all day on this

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Cassini: looking Saturn in the eye (October 11, 2006)

#planet #saturn #cassini mission #saturnian hexagon

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#nuclear jet engines when?

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Industrialize first, settle later!

“where should we first settle in space?”

mars: normie. equal chance of industry or enthusiast. spacex stan. has lego rockets

moon: out of the loop, confused. middle aged dad who wanted to be an astronaut as a kid

venus: freak, outcast, pervert. either deep industry or totally uninformed. had a life changing experience on mushrooms

o’neil cylinders, asteroids: contrarian transhumanist. web programmer, main space involvement is twitter arguments

gas giant moons: entirely delusional, lost in a beautiful dream. aerospace undergrad + KSP gamer

exoplanet: deranged and evil. has cut out seed oils to try to regain ancient magic powers. reads dark poorly written sci fi shorts on ao3. has 0 understanding or interest in space industry

#space colonization #space industrialization

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Yeah, we just really don't know. I assume the first Mars missions will do animal gestation experiments, as will the first long-duration stays at Artemis Base Camp.

We'd already have these answers if the Centrifuge Accommodations Module hadn't been cancelled, of course.

i think gravity is a pretty strong argument against mars and for asteroid/cylinder habitation. like, probably spending all your time in mars gravity makes you very sick eventually. and if it doesnt it DEFINITELY fucks up embryo development, right? weirdly from what i can find they havent done any full embryo development experiments yet. like. mice only take 3 weeks to gestate. send a girl mouse and a boy mouse into space. check if their babies are fucked up. how hard could it be. so anyway once youre on a planet you cant get more gravity. but if youre on an asteroid just rotate the asteroid baby

#space colonization #artificial gravity

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Don't know if this made the rounds on Tumblr this week, but JAXA is planning to include a pressurized rover to begin operations on Artemis VII. Moreover, President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida announced that a Japanese astronaut will be the first non-US person to make a lunar landing. They didn't state whether that would be on Artemis III or a later mission, so it sounds like they didn't take all the crew assignment authority from NASA.

There's some obvious geopolitical reasons for putting Japan ahead of Canada or Europe, but I'll leave those as an exercise to the reader.

#artemis program #jaxa

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A total eclipse of the Sun on July 29, 1878. Illustrated by Etienne Leopold Trouvelot.

(New York Public Library)

#astronomical events #solar eclipse

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Space Shuttle Enterprise on SLC-6 launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Photographed by George R. Fry

Date: February 20, 1985

UCLA Library Digital Collections: uclalat_1429_b3279_301653

#spacecraft #space shuttle #enterprise #pre flight #vandenberg launch site

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had a dream last night that i got to excitedly talk about apollo 12 to a group of interested people... this is getting out of hand

#i got to rant about spacecraft sizing to my friends today #your dreams are possible

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"The Saturn I S-IV stage (second stage) for the SA-7 mission being prepared for shipment to Cape Canaveral, Florida. The S-IV stage had six RL-10 engines, which used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as its propellants, arranged in a circle. Each RL-10 engine produced a thrust of 15,000 pounds for a total combined thrust of 90,000 pounds. The SA-7 mission was launched on September 18, 1964 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and its S-IV stage made the second orbital flight."

Date: January 8, 1964

NASA ID: link

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NASA designer Vic Vykukal demonstrates the AX-3 hard-shell spacesuit, 1977.

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“I am not in the habit of looking back. When I do I am somewhat amazed that the only child of a dentist and a school teacher from a small town in Oklahoma was able to attend the Naval Academy, serve in the Air Force and fly in space four times.

Through it all… I kept my eyes on the sky. I still do and I hope I always will.” Tom Stafford.

We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race (2002) p. 269 by Thomas P. Stafford with Michael Cassutt.

RIP to an Apollo great (1930-2024)

Credit: Ralph Morse for Life Magazine

Credit: NASA S69-30252 (1969)

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From the author, Don Davis:

“One of my earliest Space Colony paintings was based on the giant ‘Model 3’ cylindrical habitats envisioned by Gerard O'Neill. I imagined the clouds forming at an ‘altitude’ around the rotation axis.

At this time the scene is bathed in the ruddy light of all the sunrises and sunsets on Earth at that moment as the colony briefly enters the Earths shadow, out at the L5 Lagrangian point where stable locations are easily maintained. Oil on canvas panel disposition unknown.”

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Starship's Third Flight Test l John Kraus, SpaceX l 14032024

#spacecraft #launch vehicle #starship #superheavy #starship ift 3 #spacex

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#interstellar travel