!!Important!!

Mae Jemison Trains for Her Space Shuttle Flight : Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, participated in crew egress training for Space Shuttle Endeavour’s STS-47 mission during the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test. (via NASA)

The Moon is unconventionally beautiful

The Moon is round, blotchy, spotty, rough-skinned, 'imperfect'. Try and tell me The Moon isn't beautiful.

Take a picture of The Moon with your phone. Looks bad, right? Cameras have a habit of taking something beautiful and making it look bad.

[Image description: a dark, blurry iPhone picture of the Moon and some distant artificial lights. The only detail that can be made out is the crescent shape. End ID]

Some more facts about The Moon

The surface is darker than asphalt.

It isn't symmetrical. The farside has more craters and less maria than the nearside.

Some people see a face on it. This is known as 'The Man on The Moon'

It takes moonlight 1.2 seconds to reach Earth at the speed of light

Mars, from pole to pole (ESA’s Mars Express Mission)

I don’t know who needs to hear this but you’re neither lazy nor useless, fatigue is a symptom of your illness(es) and it’s completely reasonable that a fatigued person would struggle with the things you’re struggling with

I love listening to Apollo transcripts! I can’t wait!

Apollo 13: In Real Time!

Via Ben Feist on twitter: “Coming soon! Apollo 13 in Real Time! Includes 7,200 hours of mission control audio as they work to save the crew. Created by a small team including @steveslater1987 @dave_charney @ke6jjj Will launch in March. The 50th anniversary starts April 11. https://apolloinrealtime.org “ 

Artist’s impression and illustrations of ancient observations of Planets, comets, eclipse, moon, constellations, etc. (Images taken from the book: Astronomy for the use of schools and academies, Astronomy for amateurs, Elements of astronomy, A short course in astronomy and the use of the globes)

Credit: Internet Archive Book Images

A man takes a picture from a rooftop as the Endeavour Space Shuttle makes its way toward the California Science Center on October 13, 2012.⠀ ⠀ Via Time and Photographer Rick Loomis-Pool

My thoughts on the upcoming IFT-3 flight of Starship-Super Heavy

As of writing (12th of February), IFT-3 is currently scheduled to occur later this month, but it could still easily get delayed.

My prediction is that IFT-3 will probably achieve orbit and will probably conduct an internal propellant-transfer, but that the upper stage (SN28) will probably suffer a failure of some kind during reëntry, either being destroyed or deviating far from its targetted splashdown-zone.

It's safe to say that successful reëntry is unlikely on IFT-3. Here's why:

The Starship upper stage will be the largest reëntry-vehicle ever built.

This reëntry profile (a belly-first reëntry with four fins used for stability) is unique and has never been done before. Starship's belly-first orientation is inherently ærodynamically unstable, which is why it needs constant corrections from the four fins. It could get trapped in a nose-first or tail-first orientation, both of which might be more stable. Else, a loss of control would just result in endless tumbling.

We've already seen heatshield-tiles falling off during IFT-1 and IFT-2. In fact, more fell off the latter than the former due to higher ærodynamic pressures and engine vibrations.

A failure during reëntry would be consistent with the general pattern of testflight-failures established so far. Essentially, each flight is a failure, but less of a failure than the previous one.

Honestly, I don't know what could happen to the first stage booster (B10). SpaceX knows how to do boostback-burns and propulsive landings. It's seemingly just a matter of preventing the vehicle from blowing itself up. Engine reliability will probably determine the booster's success.

It'll be interesting to watch nonetheless.

The fate of the Artemis Programme now depends on the success of these test flights and in SpaceX rapidly developing and utilising this reüsable launch-system. Development has been ongoing for over five years now, and the vehicle has yet to reach orbit. The landing of astronauts on the Moon is scheduled for September 2026. How likely is it that SpaceX will have humans on the Moon in just two and a half years from now?