Here there be Dragons.....

For those interested in moving through lower atmosphere, making a lot of noise, and warfare. One theater screening date of The Cold Blue is May 23.

'Cold Blue' Shows the B-17 Bomber Like You've Never Seen It Before

I'd go...

 

From aviation-history.com, built numbers of US piston-powered bombers were approximately:

B-17 12,600
B-24 6,700
B-29 4,000

It may be that some of B-17 charm came from mid-1930s design based on best guesses. By mid-1940s things were much more aero-dynamic sciency. Also B-29 building bulge came very late in war, with last ones going directly from production line to scrapping.

A later documentary, if it happened, might put this trio into context of battle hardiness and total loads delivered. Both contributed to their historical roles.

 

Musky Dragon launched 60 communication satellites into LEO. Plan is for 12,000 more. Unintended consequences are possible:

SpaceX satellites pose new headache for astronomers

Just after dusk or before dawn, viewers under dark skies can already observe satellite passes. Those light shows promise to become much more ornate.

 

Unfortunately, it also drew a somewhat misleading response here.

'Should be' is not the same as "need to be". Yes, much of the very top end stuff ought to moved up there. But cost and capacity and accessibility mean that the great majority of the work will always be done from the ground.

Dark objects momentarily occulting point sources is not a primary issue here.

There was a bit too much diversion in that direction, yes, but we mustn't conflate lay people in the bright urban jungles with scientists and astronomers (including amateur).

Satellites tend to be shiny all the way around, at least optically. But in the radio spectrum, they tend to have their 'shiny side' pointed right at us.

 

Doing radio astronomy from surface of a planet covered with, and surrounded by radio sources? Ultimately it stops working.

Human information-transfer needs are probably much more important than radio astronomy. Fine. On to the Moon.

If there is radio 'background' there, it ain't us

 

There are numerous existing official Radio Quiet Zones, eleven listed here: Radio Quiet Zones – Cosmic Reflections

Other areas can also be quiet, especially remote islands. I'd hope that massive satellite networks don't stomp all over these.

 

Quiet zone list seems complete (I checked for FAST )

Quiet zones' functions are incomplete. Nobody even bothers to try radio astronomy below 1000 Mhz (500 Mhz?) on earth because backgrounds are too high. Too the moon...

 

B-24 love:

Happy Birthday To The Consolidated B-24 Liberator

 

There be auction of a 'flown' Apollo 11 artifact:


The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Timeline Book to be auctioned | Christie's



A non-bidding person apparently could look at this thing in person.

 

Terrestrial radio astronomy:

 

It has been argued that human (wetware) exploration of space has lagged greatly since 1972. Has been so argued here. Against that, technological exploration of space has been in-effing-credible since then. Including technologies beyond anyone's imagination at that time.

Only in the sense of human-body tossing could it be said that 'we' have turned our backs on space exploration. I did not see any summary/celebration of what has been learned from space tech in 50 years since Apollo, even though it seems appropriate. Perhaps Scientific American or National Geographic has something in work...

 

It has also been argued that two specific pieces of wetware, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, very seriously hobbled the dryware exploration projects by consuming such a huge chunk of the available resources, leaving the rest of the field greatly underfunded.

 

Persistently putting bodies into LEO, and building structures to house them were not small things. Those boxes have been checked at perhaps excessive costs.

Count me among those saying real human habitation on Moon is logically next. It will cost 'ISS-scale' money.

Going to Mars prior will yield photos of flags and footprints, and overpriced samples returned. Competing superpowers are not in a propaganda hunt here, so might we not fall back on logic for sequentially more distant body tossing?

 

Virgin Galactic completed 4th flight to above 80 km, this time with billionaire Branson on board. After one (or a few) more, the paying customers will get their trips featuring about 3 minutes of floating-around time.

The Spaceport in New Mexico is interesting in several ways. I have not seen it mentioned that it is about 140 km from Trinity site of 1945 fame. With a bit of time travel, that would have been a heckuva view.

Next up is Blue Origin’s New Shepard, planned July 20, from Van Horn TX. It will fly above 100 km, has not carried people before, but will have billionaire Bezos on board and Wally Funk, a qualified but never flown Mercury-era astronaut. One seat goes to an unnamed auction winner who paid quite a lot.

Much has been made of Blue Origin’s higher peak altitude, specifically above von Kármán line, the most widely accepted definition of ‘space begins here’. For arriving meteors, it is also the level where glowing starts. From their perspective, ‘space ends here’. But one must remember that Alan Shepard’s (old Shepard, if you will) 1961 May flight peaked at 200 km.

As readers may be considering one of these excursions, let’s compare. My impression is that each provides about 3 minutes of weightlessness. Views from 80 vs. 100 km up are probably similar (horizon about 1000 km away), but VG (on a clear winter day) will reveal more snowy mountains. BO flight lasts about 10 minutes, while VG is an hour, mostly attached to carrier jet toodling up to ‘drop height’ about 13 km. G forces of each would not exceed 3 (civilians being squishy) but I don’t know if they differ.

A larger difference would occur if BO has a rocket problem, and the capsule would run away by its solid rocket booster, pop parachutes, and land ‘firmly’. Customers hope to avoid that (I suppose), but it would really be the closest thing to an astronaut experience.

Alan Shepard was first up in Mercury program, which used repurposed Redstone and Atlas ICBMs. Nobody gets rides like that anymore.

 

US' lower definition of 'space' and rewarding astronaut wings may have come from X-15 program. In which 12 enormously qualified and brave pilots drove those dragons. Michael Adams died, and Neil Armstrong is most remembered for other things. The other 10 deserve better.

Nobody gets rides like that anymore.

 

Not trying to throw sand at these excursions, I'm reminded of earlier NASA 'vomit comet' trips:
Zero Gravity for Zero Dollars: Best Student Discount Ever | WIRED



Bob Wilson