# The Great Ongoing Space Exploration Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** science-math\ **Created:** [November 16, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703 "2020-11-16T12:18:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 94
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1862 "2025-02-09T19:00:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > semi-competent space contractor Alas, that they meet this qualifier is doubtful. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1863 "2025-02-10T00:48:23Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Artemis:foul? Things get weirder: > **[Boeing has informed its employees that NASA may cancel SLS contracts](https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts/)** > > The White House has not made a final decision yet on the large rocket. > > So, uh, some kind of weird back-handed lobbying effort? Or maybe a cigar is just a cigar: Boeing is correctly realizing that SLS may be on the chopping block (or at least being downsized), and the internal announcement is just giving fair warning to the employees. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1864 "2025-02-10T01:10:07Z")
Apparently, T-Mobile is now offering free Starlink text messaging for anyone on any carrier in the US (if you sign up): > **[T-Mobile Starlink Satellite Phone Service: A New Era in Connectivity](https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/satellite-phone-service#sign-up-form)** > > Register now to be among one of the first to experience T-Mobile Starlink direct-to-cell technology, connecting you almost anywhere you can see the sky. Interestingly, they’re using Starlink trains in their advertising: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/PgfHlHX.png "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/PgfHlHX) Similar to this and many other shots: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/NpDeOaa.png "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/NpDeOaa) The satellites are _not_ predominantly lined up like that–but the “Starlink trains” are commonly seen because the launches are so frequent, and it takes time for the latest batch of satellites to spread out. So they’ve become almost a representation of Starlink itself, which T-Mobile decided to abstract into their advertising copy. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1865 "2025-02-10T01:37:04Z")
Well, it’s not quite as intrusive as painting “Coca-Cola” across the face of the moon. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1866 "2025-02-10T01:49:28Z")
I’ll bet that with just a little effort, they could spell out a message in dot-matrix letting. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1867 "2025-02-10T19:30:12Z")
It may be the realization that the political appointee charged with hunting down and rapidly eliminating everything he consders to be wasteful government spending is the same person as the CEO of the spaceflight company offering the only alternative to what your project is supposed to deliver. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1868 "2025-02-10T23:21:55Z")
I doubt there would be any proposed lunar program at all, if the appropriations pork weren’t being spread throughout multiple congressional districts. I don’t think an alternative program based on Starship would even get approved. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1869 "2025-02-10T23:37:17Z")
The political winds were obvious even before the current administration. They must have been preparing for it at some level. Richard Shelby is gone, Boeing’s reputation is in tatters, the rocket has proven incapable of even launching the things it was designed for (Europa Clipper), and so on. Arguably, Blue Origin is the more relevant force here. One could claim that the government shouldn’t be dependent on a single outside provider for heavy-lift launch. But now that Blue Origin is flying, we have another vehicle that’s roughly Falcon Heavy level, if not Starship. Sure, SLS is a lot bigger than New Glenn, but the latter is still capable enough to play a useful role in lunar missions. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2025, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1870 "2025-02-19T07:25:20Z")
Another spacecraft about to try landing on the moon: > Landings are as tricky as ever, but the lunar orbit shots are great. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1871 "2025-02-20T18:37:54Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I haven’t seen any coherent explanation for what this is about. About the best I can come up with is that nothing will actually change at all, and this is just a way of Trump claiming credit for something that was already going to happen. Which could _loosely_ be described as SpaceX saving the stranded astronauts, but that isn’t exactly the fairest way of describing the situation. An exchange between an astronaut and an asshole nut: > **[Elon Musk throws slur-filled tantrum after astronaut calls him out for 'lie'](https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-2671189536/)** > > X owner Elon Musk threw a tantrum on Thursday after being called out for falsely claiming that President Joe Biden deliberately stranded astronauts in space.During an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Musk claimed that Biden had left two... ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1872 "2025-02-22T12:31:38Z")
Yesterday I was reading: > The team overseeing NASA’s [James Webb Space Telescope](https://www.space.com/21925-james-webb-space-telescope-jwst.html) (JWST) has been directed to prepare for up to 20% in budget cuts that would touch on every aspect of the flagship observatory’s operations, which are managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Maryland. The potential cut comes even as the space observatory is more in demand than ever before, with astronomers requesting the equivalent of nine years’ worth of Webb observing time in one operational year. > **['It's extremely worrisome.' NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential...](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/james-webb-space-telescope/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-faces-20-percent-budget-cuts)** > > Such a dramatic cut to a flagship space telescope still in its prime will be felt across the mission's entire operations, affecting science. While today I was reading: > [China](https://www.livescience.com/tag/china)’s space agency is building a new space telescope that will rival current top-tier observatories. Known as the China Space Station Telescope (CSST), it will not only be as powerful as the cutting-edge [James Webb Space Telescope](https://www.livescience.com/james-webb-space-telescope) (JWST), but will also be fully repairable and upgradable from space. > **[China is building a space telescope to rival the JWST — and it could survive...](https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/china-is-building-a-space-telescope-to-rival-the-jwst-and-it-could-survive-in-orbit-decades-longer)** > > Chinese scientists have announced details on the upcoming China Space Station Telescope (CSST), a cutting-edge observatory that will rival the JWST. It’s clear that one political party is quite willing for the the U.S. to become a second tier country in science, while China forges ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1873 "2025-02-22T13:14:46Z")
That Chinese scope is in no way a rival for the JWST, or even the Hubble. It’s a wide-angle survey scope with a 2 meter mirror and only near-infrared capability. The JWST has a 6.5 meter mirror (10x the area) and goes far deeper into the infrared (which means that, due to redshift, it can see farther away). I’m sure it’ll be a perfectly fine scope, but it doesn’t even occupy the same category of instrument. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2025, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1874 "2025-02-22T13:27:10Z")
How do budget cuts to the JWT work considering that the telescope is not exclusively an American project? I’ve no doubt the US puts in the lion’s share of the budget so is this another shakedown or will this actually reduce the amount of science that scientists from around the world get on JWT, regardless of the amount of money that other countries put in? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2025, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1875 "2025-02-23T02:30:27Z")
Have we found a Strange Star? (A star between a neutron star and a black hole in density…neutrons break down into quarks and they support the star from becoming a black hole.) They have been speculated but some think we might have evidence of one recently. Which is really cool but I do not know if this is enough evidence or a fake or a misreading of data. Any opinions? > **[Did astronomers just witness the formation of a 'strange star?'](https://phys.org/news/2025-02-astronomers-witness-formation-strange-star.html)** > > There are plenty of types of stars out there, but one stands out for being just a little weirder than the others. You might even say it's strange. According to a paper from researchers at Guangxi University in China, the birth of one might have... ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1876 "2025-03-01T05:24:03Z")
There are currently three private missions on their way to the moon, all landers: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/SOPScCx.jpeg "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/SOPScCx) Two of them from the US, one from Japan. The ESA is such a disappointment. Here is the current list of lunar missions, which does _not_ include the ones en route: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/8ViaXQl.png "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/8ViaXQl) The ESA has _one_. The US has missions from _six_ different private companies alone, not to mention NASA or the USAF. Oh, those ones from Italy and Luxembourg? The Italian one was a cubesat launched with a bunch of others on Artemis I and the Luxembourg one was not much more than a radio beacon permanently bolted to an upper stage of a Chinese rocket. How is it that Europe is such an also-ran when it comes to space? They aren’t poor, stupid, or anti-science. Even Japan is kicking their butt. Is it that everyone in Europe that _didn’t_ migrate to the New World had such deep seated anti-exploration tendencies that they’ve passed it on through dozens of generations? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1877 "2025-03-01T05:35:21Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > How is it that Europe is such an also-ran when it comes to space? They aren’t poor, stupid, or anti-science. My guess (only a guess) is it is difficult to convince 27 countries to chip in money for very expensive space programs that probably will not net any one country an advantage worth investing in. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1878 "2025-03-01T06:48:43Z")
Elon announced via X/Twitter, that the Starship refueling demo needed for HLS, and that the Artemis program has been waiting years for, has been deferred until next year. Although Elon won’t talk about the reasons, it’s widely known within NASA that there are significant delays with the Raptor 3 engine. For Starships and boosters using the Raptor 2 engine, it was necessary for weight and space savings, to delete the heat exchanger that removes water vapor from the preburner exhaust streams. Those streams are used to pressurize the propellant tanks. When water vapor is injected into the tanks, it solidifies into ice when mixed with the cryogenic liquid propellant. Elon’s solution to this is to use big strainers, but they’re not completely effective, and several Raptors have failed after ingesting ice. The ice makes orbital refueling impossible, so it can’t be attempted until the heat exchangers are restored. But that can’t happen until the lighter and smaller Raptor 3’s are available for mass production. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1879 "2025-03-01T17:57:29Z")
Granted, although it hardly seems as if it’s Starship that’s holding up the Artemis program. SLS and Orion aren’t exactly sitting there ready and waiting. For Starship, I would guess that the most critical problem has been heat shielding. Starship upper stages have been making it back to the ground, but too damaged to possibly be reused. I’ve remarked multiple times that the entire Starship concept lives or dies on whether they can get reentry to work well enough that the stages won’t be hanger queens needing weeks of refurbishment. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1880 "2025-03-01T18:06:24Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > How is it that Europe is such an also-ran when it comes to space? They don’t care as much? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703/1881 "2025-03-01T18:55:43Z")
We can scratch one asteroid probe. > **['I think we all know that hope is fading.' Private Odin asteroid probe is...](https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/i-think-we-all-know-that-hope-is-fading-private-odin-asteroid-probe-is-tumbling-in-space)** > > The company AstroForge is working to try and recover the asteroid probe before time runs out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703.md?page=93) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-space-exploration-thread/925703.md?page=95)