Ghjhero Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 6 hours ago, maarsen said: My sources are the members of RASC. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. I am a member. As to passing through the ecliptic twice, the orbit is a hyperbola and the gravity of the sun as it passes close by flings it back out up throught the ecliptic again. There is a lot of info on the web. Just search for interstellar asteroid. Ah I see, yup a hyperbola would do it. Ive read a lot about the asteroid online, but I haven’t seen anyone directly compare it to Rama. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here. Are you saying it’s behavior simply mirrors Rama’s or are you implying the “asteroid” is indeed an alien spaceship? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A wilding Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 11 minutes ago, Ghjhero said: ... are are you implying the “asteroid” is indeed an alien spaceship? We will never know now .... Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1919/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 5 hours ago, Ghjhero said: Ah I see, yup a hyperbola would do it. Ive read a lot about the asteroid online, but I haven’t seen anyone directly compare it to Rama. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here. Are you saying it’s behavior simply mirrors Rama’s or are you implying the “asteroid” is indeed an alien spaceship? The behaviour does mimic Rama, but professional astronomers are shy about raising aliens as an explanation until all else is exhausted. Me, not so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghjhero Posted November 24, 2017 Share Posted November 24, 2017 1 hour ago, maarsen said: The behaviour does mimic Rama, but professional astronomers are shy about raising aliens as an explanation until all else is exhausted. Me, not so much. I’m gonna hope you’re wrong only because it looks like we’re not gonna have any chance of investigating further and finding out the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted November 24, 2017 Author Share Posted November 24, 2017 Bringing this around back to SpaceX, someone imagined how we could go chasing after the alien vessel... ahem, I mean interstellar asteroid... with a probe launched by SpaceX's BFR: Project Lyra: Sending a Spacecraft to 1I/’Oumuamua (former A/2017 U1), the Interstellar Asteroid. On page seven of the article, the authors suggest (among other ideas) sending a BFR/BFS craft using a Jupiter flyby followed by a close solar flyby to achieve the necessary hyperbolic excess velocity of 30km/s to intercept the object at a range of approximately 85 AU in 2039, following a launch in 2025. Note: Pluto varies between 30-40 AU, so the rendezvous point is way way out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted November 28, 2017 Author Share Posted November 28, 2017 Falcon Heavy first launch expected now in early January. Work preparing Pad 39A for it seems largely complete, should be done this week. Pad 40 is ready to resume launching Falcon 9's, beginning with a resupply flight to the space station. Whatever "Zuma" is, it's unknown when that one is going to launch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yukle Posted November 29, 2017 Share Posted November 29, 2017 How incredible is this?! A scale model of the solar system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted December 2, 2017 Author Share Posted December 2, 2017 I'm not sure if Elon is drunk tweeting again or if this (the 2nd tweet) is serious... He says he's serious... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted December 2, 2017 Share Posted December 2, 2017 16 hours ago, SpaceChampion said: I'm not sure if Elon is drunk tweeting again or if this (the 2nd tweet) is serious... He says he's serious... Well... that’s one way to draw attention to the launch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted December 2, 2017 Share Posted December 2, 2017 22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Well... that’s one way to draw attention to the launch. It is not just to draw attention but to prove a concept. I think he wants to put a large mass in orbit around Mars as proof that he can. What is the weight of a Tesla? If he can park a Tesla in orbit around Mars, he can park robots and space station bits just as easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted December 2, 2017 Share Posted December 2, 2017 3 minutes ago, maarsen said: It is not just to draw attention but to prove a concept. I think he wants to put a large mass in orbit around Mars as proof that he can. What is the weight of a Tesla? If he can park a Tesla in orbit around Mars, he can park robots and space station bits just as easily. So, why not try it with something that be useful in Mars Orbit. A Tesla Roadster is just orbital debris to worry about on later missions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted December 2, 2017 Author Share Posted December 2, 2017 The usual payload for a test launch is something like a useless metal cube of sufficient mass. So orbital debris regardless. I imagine they'll do something with the Roadster like encase it in lucite so it doesn't actually interfere with the launch and cause a rapid unscheduled disassembly. But hey, it already has dash cams and batter power, so they're going to send back video too. A Verge reporter is claiming Musk told him he "totally made it up" but didn't publish any screencap of the email. Eric Berger of Ars Technica then immediately confirmed the launch is real by speaking to Musk directly. It think what happened is the Verge reporter asked him obnoxiously if he was lying, and he responded sarcastically. Now they're making a big stink about it. Many SpaceX employees have also confirmed it is real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted December 2, 2017 Share Posted December 2, 2017 13 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said: The usual payload for a test launch is something like a useless metal cube of sufficient mass. So orbital debris regardless. I imagine they'll do something with the Roadster like encase it in lucite so it doesn't actually interfere with the launch and cause a rapid unscheduled disassembly. But hey, it already has dash cams and batter power, so they're going to send back video too. A Verge reporter is claiming Musk told him he "totally made it up" but didn't publish any screencap of the email. Eric Berger of Ars Technica then immediately confirmed the launch is real by speaking to Musk directly. It think what happened is the Verge reporter asked him obnoxiously if he was lying, and he responded sarcastically. Now they're making a big stink about it. Many SpaceX employees have also confirmed it is real. I did not know that. It makes more sense now. It’s also more fun than a mere chunk of metal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted December 2, 2017 Share Posted December 2, 2017 18 hours ago, SpaceChampion said: I'm not sure if Elon is drunk tweeting again or if this (the 2nd tweet) is serious... He says he's serious... Hahahaha. I freakin' love that guy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted December 3, 2017 Author Share Posted December 3, 2017 'Bad Astronomer' Phil Plait confirms the story and clarifies (as expected by anyone who understands the rocket science) this it's not landing on Mars, or going into Mars orbit, but on a Hohmann transfer orbit (an elliptical orbit around the sun) that'll take it out to Mars distance on the apogee and back to Earth distance on the perigee, repeatedly, forever (unless someone retrieves it one day or it hits something). It's apogee would coincide with Mars on the first orbit, but miss it on subsequent orbits (since it'll be less than a Martian year when it's back in that location), and possibly be decades before they coincide again, at a guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghjhero Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 First article I’ve seen to reiterate what has already been mentioned up thread about the possibility of the oddly shaped asteroid being a spaceship- https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/huge-object-passing-earth-could-be-alien-spacecraft-from-another-part-of-galaxy-say-scientists-a3716961.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 24 minutes ago, Ghjhero said: First article I’ve seen to reiterate what has already been mentioned up thread about the possibility of the oddly shaped asteroid being a spaceship- https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/huge-object-passing-earth-could-be-alien-spacecraft-from-another-part-of-galaxy-say-scientists-a3716961.html Yes, they're going to be scanning it for radio transmissions starting tomorrow. Presumably it would have already detected our radio transmissions on its way through, if it was looking and wasn't dormant. Assuming it is artificial. It's almost certainly natural and gained that shape through billions of years of interstellar travel (although how is another question). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 On 24/11/2017 at 4:48 AM, SpaceChampion said: Bringing this around back to SpaceX, someone imagined how we could go chasing after the alien vessel... ahem, I mean interstellar asteroid... with a probe launched by SpaceX's BFR: Project Lyra: Sending a Spacecraft to 1I/’Oumuamua (former A/2017 U1), the Interstellar Asteroid. On page seven of the article, the authors suggest (among other ideas) sending a BFR/BFS craft using a Jupiter flyby followed by a close solar flyby to achieve the necessary hyperbolic excess velocity of 30km/s to intercept the object at a range of approximately 85 AU in 2039, following a launch in 2025. Note: Pluto varies between 30-40 AU, so the rendezvous point is way way out there. Voyager I is currently 141 AU distant and travelling at 17km/s, so operating at that distance is no problem. They should definitely go for this, as we may never, ever get another chance to study such an object. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted December 12, 2017 Author Share Posted December 12, 2017 CRS-13 mission to ISS is currently scheduled for Dec 15th (10:33 EST). This mission is the 13th commercial cargo resupply flight for SpaceX, and not only will they be reusing a first stage booster from the CRS-11 mission (still sooty too), but they're also going to reuse a previously flown Dragon cargo vessel from CRS-6. This will also be the first launch from pad SLC-40 since the explosion destroyed the pad last year. SpaceX took the time to upgrade the pad considerably, optimizing it for F9 launches and using a new design for the throw-back tower to speed operations. Look to SpaceX's twitter feed for updates on launch date if they push it to later. If they do have to push it, it'll be to after Christmas for technical reasons due to unfavourable positioning of the ISS during that interval. Issues with the fairing that delayed launch of the mysterious Zuma payload has been resolved, and the next launches with it are an Iridium comsat on the 22nd from the west coast Vandenburg airforce base, and Zuma on January 4th target dates from pad SLC-40. Falcon Heavy launch with the Tesla Roadster headed out to Mars is still scheduled for early January. Should have a static fire test before the end of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted December 12, 2017 Share Posted December 12, 2017 7 hours ago, Werthead said: Voyager I is currently 141 AU distant and travelling at 17km/s, so operating at that distance is no problem. They should definitely go for this, as we may never, ever get another chance to study such an object. I would love to see them do this. Even if it is only a strange asteroid it is worth investigating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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