Saturday launch of Falcon 9 uncertain
With a delay of the static fire test from today to tomorrow, launch of the next Falcon 9 is now questionable for Saturday.
The company has not said one way of the other, so Saturday’s launch is still possible, assuming Thursday’s static fire test comes off successfully.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
With a delay of the static fire test from today to tomorrow, launch of the next Falcon 9 is now questionable for Saturday.
The company has not said one way of the other, so Saturday’s launch is still possible, assuming Thursday’s static fire test comes off successfully.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
What did you think about the recent radio show Jimmy Church did on Coast to Coast with the guy who claims Stanley Kubrick filmed and orchestrated the Moon “landing” in 1969? I always believed we went to the moon until this guy mentioned
the “Van Allen radiation belt” way out past the ISS. He said it would require lead shielding on the moon capsule to be
6 feet thick in order to prevent frying the astronauts. Then he said the Russians have said it will take them until 2030
to put together the technology and rocket power to land on the moon.
Also, that famous earth rise photograph–wasn’t that shown in the film 2001- A Space Odyssey?
Ann Wilson wrote: “Also, that famous earth rise photograph–wasn’t that shown in the film 2001- A Space Odyssey?”
You are probably thinking of the “reborn” astronaut, Dave Bowman, as he watches over the Earth. Or maybe the sun rising and its rays touching the obelisk to set off the signal.
Ann wrote: “He said it would require lead shielding on the moon capsule to be 6 feet thick in order to prevent frying the astronauts.”
The Van Allen belts are strong, but not *that* strong. Otherwise there would have to be similar shielding on the ISS. Whenever the ISS flies (sails?) through the South Atlantic Anomaly, it (and other satellites in similar orbits) receives a dose of radiation similar to the bulk of the Van Allen belt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
The Van Allen belt does have higher radiation than the surface of the Earth, but it will not fry astronauts that pass through as they escape Earth orbit or come back to Earth. The higher radiation dose to the astronauts is accounted for when planning a mission, there is a radiation-exposure budget, and there are dosimeters to verify that the astronauts did not exceed exposure limits.
There were concerns that a large coronal mass ejection (back then I think they were called ion storms) could cause very high doses, but that did not happen on any of the missions.
This also applies to satellites headed for geostationary orbit (GEO) or are escaping Earth orbit. The Van Allen belts do not fry the electronics, but a satellite stuck in a transfer orbit will get a high exposure over the course of several months (several scores of passes through the belt), as was the concern with the Air Force’s Advanced EHF 1 satellite (it was raised out of the belts before much or any damage occurred).
Go back to believing that we went to the moon. If we hadn’t, the Soviet Union would have immediately and vigorously called us on it.