The Space Thread - Launches, Events, Live Streams, Governments, Corporations, drama in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace

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I am placing my bet now. One of the women is Pregnant. And if she is, she absolutely cannot remain in orbit. Radiation and the limited gravity could be a death sentence for the fetus.
That would be deeply funny, but my money's on the Japanese guy who asked for a private consult with the flight surgeon before this started. The NASA people have stated it some kind of extended microgravity adaptation problem.
 
I didn't know the Soyuz seats had to be so customized to the sitter, interesting fact but I guess with the thing being so small but still holding 3 cosmonauts they have to eke out every square cm they can.
It's because they want the best support possible in the seat while making it as small as possible because the Soyuz reentry capsule is fucking TINY even compared to Apollo, with Dragon being much bigger than that. (In total with the orbital module Soyuz has a bit more space than Apollo)
Sort of. It's really a lot to do with the Soviet design philosophy and design of the Soyuz spacecraft. The Soyuz spacecraft was originally designed to fly a crew of 3 without pressure suits (note the Shuttle did fly without pressure suits from sTS-5 until the Challenger disaster). Which, became sort of common practice for the Soviets following the Voskhod program. Voskhod-1 being the first multi-crewed space flight, with a crew of 3. Which used a modified Vostok capsule. All of this was because of the Soviet space program being practically derived from the R-7 Semyorka.

It was with the Soyuz-11 disaster, where with a valve leak the crew would be lost marking the first in space death. Resulting in the Soyuz capsule flying with a crew of 2 (with pressure suits) until Salyut-7 with Soyuz T-3.

There are also a lot of reasons as to why special seats are needed. Shock absorption being one, especially as landing on ground is basically crashing, with as much effort as possible being done to cushion the landing.

Yes, they can be moved between spacecrafts (if they fit). You can put a Soyuz seat in a dragon (plenty of space, but it will be uncomfortable and you better damn hope the Dragon remains pressurized because of the Soyuz suits not being compatible with Dragon. Of course, this isn't the same thing with a Soyuz as they are already super cramped, and as I've explained it's basically a miracle that a third seat is possible. The Soyuz capsule also has a height limit of around 6'2.
I am placing my bet now. One of the women is Pregnant. And if she is, she absolutely cannot remain in orbit. Radiation and the limited gravity could be a death sentence for the fetus.
There are actually quite a lot of reasons as to why an issue could arise. One of the most notable is that of Space Adaptation Syndrome, where the person will suffer space sickness.

Which makes this more likely:

The NASA people have stated it some kind of extended microgravity adaptation problem.
Because of how a lot of the side effects of microgravity aren't really known. We can't predict how people will appear. Which is why with some mission profiles for the Shuttle there were requirements for all astronauts to have flown and not demonstrated any adaptation problems (this being with missions that would have carried the Centaur upper stage as it needs to be deployed immediately because of boil off).
 
The Artemis II is being rolled to the launch pad at 39B


They are preparing for a manned launch to the moon, for a orbital mission.


*edit* it didnt fall apart and made it to the launch pad. Mission is a go.

Launch window for Lunar interception opens Feb 6.
 
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Welp, Blue Origin pulled it off, a picture-perfect launch, booster landing, and satellite release on The NG-2 flight. It took BE a helluvalot longer then it took SpaceX, but they have made what looks to be a damn fine orbital class rocket, and with their experience in viable life-support capsules look poised to take a good chunk of the human spaceflight market both military and commercial, as well as a growing piece of orbital satellite launches.
Good for them, always great to have multiple SLVs in service at once.
The Artemis II is being rolled to the launch pad at 39B


They are preparing for a manned launch to the moon, for a orbital mission.


*edit* it didnt fall apart and made it to the launch pad. Mission is a go.

Launch window for Lunar interception opens Feb 6.
Finally.

Let's get a lunar flyby done 😎
 
More fuel for the fire that the reason the unspecified medical issue at the ISS was a Pregnancy.


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – The astronauts evacuated last week from the International Space Station say a portable ultrasound machine came in "super handy" during the medical crisis.

During their first public appearance since returning to Earth, the four astronauts refused Wednesday to say which one of them needed medical attention and for what reason. It was NASA's first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight.


NASA's Mike Fincke said the crew used the onboard ultrasound machine once the medical problem arose Jan. 7, the day before a planned spacewalk that was abruptly canceled.
 
NSF: TerraWave enters the scene with lasers and game-changing data speeds (archive)
Blue Origin has unveiled TeraWave, an ambitious satellite communications network poised to deliver symmetrical data speeds of up to 6 terabits per second (Tbps).

This capability dwarfs current consumer satellite broadband offerings and positions TeraWave as a high-performance backbone for enterprise, government, and data center users rather than a direct rival to mass-market services.

Ars Technica: Blue Origin makes impressive strides with reuse—next launch will refly booster (archive)



 
I thought you couldn't get hard in space. Have I been lied to this whole time?
 
I thought you couldn't get hard in space. Have I been lied to this whole time?
The Russians allegedly tested it out and had some success. The main difficulty is that our bodies are designed to work against gravity, so in microgravity you'll be pumping your blood away from your lower extremities, but if you can get an erection while standing on your head (and god bless you if you can), you'll be able to get one in space.
 
It's very funny but doubtful. I thought the Japanese guy was already pegged as the sicko because of some issue before flight? I'll try to find a source.

Here:

It has been reported that Kimiya Yui asked for a private-channel medical consult the morning of the day the "medical issue" was revealed by NASA. While the main flight-control radio channels are public-domain and open, for privacy reasons there are separate, encrypted, private channels for crew to be able to talk to a doctor without the world knowing about the content of that conversation. Yui apparently asked for one of those.

If Yui was supporting the EVA as you describe, and he's the one with the "medical issue," it makes even more sense for NASA to have stopped the EVA.

As long as we're all speculating, IMHO appendicitis fits the bill most neatly here. A mild case that's sore but not threatening to burst - yet. They'd be able to do a speculative diagnosis from symptoms, but not confirm it with what's on the station. And while it may have been mild enough that they didn't need to bring him down right now, you'd want him down soon in case it takes a turn for the worse. A burst appendix can be fatal without immediate and critical care.
 
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This will be the first ever flight of an Orion with a life support system and an "improved" heat shield, neither of which have ever been validated outside a lab, which four people are now relying on for survival.

During Apollo Days and earlier programs NASA ran end-to-end full-stack unmanned test flights of every system before entrusting human lives to it, even if it meant conceding ground to the Soviets in the short-term. During the Shuttle Era they conceived to design a machine that could not perform unmanned flights so they risked putting the essential minimum number of people in it for the first flight (a full-stack test). Now in the Artemis Age we can again test our whole system without any people on board, but for some insane reason we're going to send the full mission crew on the first ever test flight of a bunch of unvalidated life-critical subsystems.

At this point we can only wish them Good Luck because Good Sense is not in the budget.
 
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This will be the first ever flight of an Orion with a life support system and an "improved" heat shield, neither of which have ever been validated outside a lab, which four people are now relying on for survival.

During Apollo Days and earlier programs NASA ran end-to-end full-stack unmanned test flights of every system before entrusting human lives to it, even if it meant conceding ground to the Soviets in the short-term. During the Shuttle Era they conceived to design a machine that could not perform unmanned flights so they risked putting the essential minimum number of people in it for the first flight (a full-stack test). Now in the Artemis Age we can again test our whole system without any people on board, but for some insane reason we're going to send the full mission crew on the first ever test flight of a bunch of unvalidated life-critical subsystems.

At this point we can only wish them Good Luck because Good Sense is not in the budget.
The death pay out would probably be cheaper then running the mission twice.
 
This will be the first ever flight of an Orion with a life support system and an "improved" heat shield, neither of which have ever been validated outside a lab, which four people are now relying on for survival.

During Apollo Days and earlier programs NASA ran end-to-end full-stack unmanned test flights of every system before entrusting human lives to it, even if it meant conceding ground to the Soviets in the short-term. During the Shuttle Era they conceived to design a machine that could not perform unmanned flights so they risked putting the essential minimum number of people in it for the first flight (a full-stack test). Now in the Artemis Age we can again test our whole system without any people on board, but for some insane reason we're going to send the full mission crew on the first ever test flight of a bunch of unvalidated life-critical subsystems.

At this point we can only wish them Good Luck because Good Sense is not in the budget.
Contrary to my prior stance, maybe the whole crew should be black
 
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