Latest Posts by thebryanscout - Page 8

The Apollo Soyuz Test project was the first docking of an American spacecraft to a Soviet one. With the historic docking occurring in July of 1975, the mission was the last flight of the Apollo Command and Service module, and the only flight of Mercury 7 astronaut Deke Slayton, who had been grounded from the Mercury and Gemini programs as a result of a heart murmur. American spacecraft would later dock with Russian spacecraft once more when Commander Hoot Gibson docked Space Shuttle Atlantis to the Russian Mir space station in the mid 1990s as the beginning of the Shuttle-Mir program. The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and NASA would later work together once more not too long afterwards to build the International Space Station, a merger project which originally was two separate space stations called Mir-2 and Freedom as well as the planned European and Japanese modules onboard Freedom, and Canadian hardware such as the Canadarm (no seriously, that's legitimately what it's called).

Soylent Green is people!

Do not eat Soylent Green!

A movie with a message that was ahead of its time.

Oh yes.  I'm familiar with this suit. It's called the MIT BioSuit. Unlike other spacesuits of the past which provide the minimum atmospheric pressure needed for well, survival, the MIT BioSuit provides the pressure through mechanical counter pressure. For those of you who don't understand such terms, its really, really skintight.

Although this may resemble science fiction, this is an artist depiction of a possible space suit of the future. Many aerospace accomplishments were forged in the minds and imagination of science fiction.

I was headhunted by a big pharmaceutical company. They're gonna pay me a buttload of money!

Dr. Bernadette Rostenkowski, The Big Bang Theory

I watched it happen! I MADE it happen!

The Ninth Doctor

Just got done making this.

Back from the dead motherfuckers!

Michael De Santa, Grand Theft Auto V

You were in a four G inverted dive with a MiG-28?

Charlotte Blackwood, Top Gun (1986)

I flew with your old man. VF-51, the Oriskany. You're a lot like he was. Only better... and worse. He was a natural heroic son of a bitch that one.

Viper, Top Gun (1986)

Excuse me-So you're the one?

Charlotte Blackwood, Top Gun (1986)

I've lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them were good.

The Twelfth Doctor

I am the Doctor, and you are the Daleks!

The Eleventh Doctor

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-forever.

O'Brien, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980)

Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash!

Stinger, Top Gun (1986)

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let them live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”   ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos

I'm really excited for the arrival of New Horizons at Pluto!!!! Is there anything that you could share with us about it? I know you work at NASA so have you learned anything else that the public may not know?

I’m also super excited for the New Horizons probe to reach Pluto! - you’re not the only one to ask about this - I’ll gladly share what I know! Thanks for the great question:

Facts About New Horizons Approaching Pluto:

Transmission: Data Communications takes 4 and a half hours to reach earth. The data is sent across space at 1 kilobit per second… that is super slow, but also super efficient (see power bullet below). When the probe flies by Pluto all of its instruments will begin taking data. that data will then take 16 mounts to send back to earth.

Power Generation: The Probe is powered by Nuclear Power - known as an RTG (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator)! unlike solar power, Nuclear power does not degrade as it gets farther from the Sun. If the probe had solar panels, they would be many of times larger than the probe because sunlight is 1,000 times fainter at Pluto than it is at Earth.

Power Supply: The New Horizons probe runs on only 250 Watts / 30 Volts - that’s less power than a blender. This power restriction means that all of New Horizon’s systems are optimized for low power, which is why transmission takes so long.

Science Payloads: The New Horizons probe has 7 Science Payloads:

LORRI - The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is a long-focal-length imager designed for high resolution and responsivity at visible wavelengths.

SWAP - Solar Wind At Pluto (SWAP) is a toroidal electrostatic analyzer and retarding potential analyzer (RPA).

PEPSSI - Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) is a time of flight ion and electron sensor.

Alice - is an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer that makes one (of two) photographic instruments comprising the Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation (PERSI).

Ralph - The Ralph telescope, 6 cm (2.4 in) in aperture, is one of two photographic instruments that make up New Horizons‍ '​ Pluto Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation (PERSI).

SDC - The Student Dust Counter (SDC), built by students at the University of Colorado Boulder, will operate continuously through the trajectory to make dust measurements.

REX - The Radio Science Experiment (REX) will use an ultrastable crystal oscillator and some additional electronics to conduct radio science investigations.

The LORRI Imager: LORRI - or the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager - is what will be giving us awesome images of Pluto’s surface and its moon Cheron. Even with the Hubble space telescope we were only able get very bad images of Pluto, but with LORRI and the other imagers we will be able to see fine details. Look at this comparison of a Hubble image and an image taken with LORRI on july 8th. It is important to note that this image is still 6 days away from closest approach and 5,328,000 miles away from Pluto - AND it is now our best image. (calculated from escape speed * time. sources below)

Pluto & Charon From Hubble:

Pluto & Charon From LORRI on New Horizons:

On Board Spectrometers: The New Horizons probe has 4 on board spectrometers - these analyze light to see what the source material is made of. They will be useful in determining what Pluto is made of, what Pluto’s atmosphere is made of, and the composition of structures of the Pluto’s surface. New Horizons instruments such as Alice, Ralph, PEPSSI, and SWAP all have one of these devices.

Random Things It Contains: The probe also contains 2 CDs of those who helped the mission, two US quarters and flags, and the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh - the man who discovered Pluto in 1930. At the time scientist were looking for an elusive Planet X - which we now know doesn’t exist - that is what prompted Clyde’s discovery of Pluto (Image Below):

Thanks for the great questions everyone, you’re a really awesome and curious bunch! Feel free to ask about any space stuff that you are curious about. If you see anything wrong with my posts please let me know! I’m here to promote scientific literacy and I wouldn’t want to spread false information.

Credit/Sources: Hubble, NASA & John’s Hopkins, Vox, Wikipedia, Whole Sale Items (for compairison to house hold items power), (Also I work at NASA, so I just know some of it)

I saw this one over the weekend.  I had to post it.  Looks like we solved the mystery of Bigfoot.  Now we can focus on the elusive Loch Ness Monster.

Approaching Pluto Date: 13 Jul 2015

One of the final sequence of images before closest approach to Pluto.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

All the Enterprises.

"Watch the birdie!"

Gus Grissom and fellow astronauts in a candid moment. This photo does not seem to have made it past NASA PR screens.