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Space exploration: Where do we go from here?

aparch said:
To pinpoint where the very slight air leak is coming from on ISS, NASA will have the crew stay in the Russian module (close to the Soyuz escape capsule), and seal up the other modules to see which one is losing air pressure.
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Immerse it in water and see where the bubbles come from.
 
It is... kinda.

Pacific Spaceport Complex
41520 Pasagshak Rd, Kodiak, AK 99615
https://maps.app.goo.gl/WcMJsVerSSKRhaRB6

Also, launching that far North is much more difficult. The closer to the equator, the easier it is to get into space. The reason for such a northerly launch site is because this would be best to put what you're launching into polar orbit. But, it's going to take a LOT more thrust to do it.
 
Maybe, maybe, maybe 2020 will go down in deep history as the greatest year of all.

High in the toxic atmosphere of the planet Venus, astronomers on Earth have discovered signs of what might be life.

If the discovery is confirmed by additional telescope observations and future space missions, it could turn the gaze of scientists toward one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Venus, named after the Roman goddess of beauty, roasts at temperatures of hundreds of degrees and is cloaked by clouds that contain droplets of corrosive sulfuric acid. Few have focused on the rocky planet as a habitat for something living.

...

The astronomers, who reported the finding on Monday in a pair of papers, have not collected specimens of Venusian microbes, nor have they snapped any pictures of them. But with powerful telescopes, they have detected a chemical — phosphine — in the thick Venus atmosphere. After much analysis, the scientists assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source.
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Warning, stream-of-consciousness rambling ahead...


I didn't like this section:
"We are unable to find another chemical species (known in current databases[SUP]23,24,25,26[/SUP]) besides PH[SUB]3[/SUB] that can explain the observed features" "Thus, it's phosphine.. So let's start talking about what could produce this. Spoiler, it's life! Q.E.D."​

My stupid *** remembers a little from IR spec, mass spec, and NMR. When you have contamination, you can get absorption or peaks that can occur in weird places, especially NMR. I figure: These techniques aren't entirely analogous to Chemistry BS-level spec; the authors aren't morons and accounted for this; and Nature isn't going to publish non-peer-reviewed garbage with any kind of regularity (especially on something as monumental as "Sh-t's decaying on Venus guys, dafuq?")

I'm just surprised that a group of researchers who have seemingly spent their lives on finding signatures of chemicals indicative of life haven't found a way to distinguish the fingerprints of PH3 from the rest of the noise (especially when this same research group confidently stated phosphine is an almost proof-positive signal of life just months ago). I know, that's an incredibly naive mouthful. It's just a breathtaking leap to go from "We can't find a pathway for phosphine synthesis on Earth" to "Phosphine is absolutely a marker of life" to "We found phosphine on Venus. Life!" And only then put out a call for help to make sure it's phosphine. Doesn't that seem like they skipped a few steps in the scientific method? If anything, this entire paper is just an opening sentence to an abstract. They're presenting the theory they want to test. So maybe that's what this is, the opening line in the thesis of their life's work.

I really think the better approach would have been "We found what we think is phosphine on Venus. We need help confirming both the data and distinguishing it from other species" before they get into the discussion of life. It just seems... I don't know. The curmudgeon in my brain just keeps asking, "Isn't this backwards?" Perhaps this was a race-to-publish. It just seems off and a lot to stake a hell of a lot of your career on.

This is the best take I've seen so far:
https://twitter.com/BBCAmos/status/1305528812847927296?s=20

"If you want me to put money on it, I'd say there's an abiotic pathway that simply hasn't been identified yet. The team has worked very, very hard to find it, and is now asking the worldwide scientific community: 'What have we missed?'"

It sums up my thoughts exactly after reading the paper. Which was exhilarating, but needs to be taken with that optimistic but skeptical view. Of course, the media, like a junkie, tossed caution to the wind and went after that sweet, sweet next hit. Then again "Something farted on Venus, we want to find out who"* one way to drum up grant money and jump to the head of the queue for telescope time. I'm going to laugh when this comes back as "She who smelt it, dealt it" and it was some sort of terrestrial contamination or bad data processing.


That said... this section gave me goosebumps:
The lifetime above 80 km on Venus (in the mesosphere[SUP]22[/SUP]) is consistently predicted by models to be <10[SUP]3[/SUP] s, primarily due to high concentrations of radicals that react with, and destroy, PH[SUB]3[/SUB]. Near the atmosphere’s base, the estimated lifetime is ~10[SUP]8[/SUP] s due to thermal decomposition (collisional destruction) mechanisms. Lifetimes are very poorly constrained at intermediate altitudes (<80 km), being dependent on abundances of trace radical species, especially chlorine. These lifetimes are uncertain by orders of magnitude, but are substantially longer than the time for PH[SUB]3[/SUB] to be mixed from the surface to 80 km (<10[SUP]3[/SUP] yr). The lifetime of PH[SUB]3[/SUB] in the atmosphere is thus no longer than 10[SUP]3[/SUP] yr, either because it is destroyed more quickly or because it is transported to a region where it is rapidly destroyed (see ‘Photochemical model’ in Methods, Supplementary Information, Extended Data Figs. 8 and 9, and Supplementary Tables 2 and 3).

*I really hope that's what the Fark headline was
 
The EmDrive Just Won't Die

More than 20 years after its introduction, the EmDrive is still being tested in labs around the world, including DARPA. But the controversial thruster's do-or-die moment is quickly approaching.

When DARPA put money behind the controversial EmDrive in 2018, it looked like a big gamble. Many physicists had dismissed the revolutionary space drive as simply fake science. Now its EmDrive project is greenlit for Phase 2, DARPA told Popular Mechanics in February this year. Meanwhile, other teams are hoping to reach a final demonstration of the technology later this year.

"This is a technology which could transform space travel and see craft lifting silently off from launchpads and reaching beyond the solar system," says Mike McCulloch, a lecturer in geomatics at the University of Plymouth, U.K., and leader behind DARPA’s EmDrive project. “We can also get an unmanned probe to Proxima Centauri in a (long) human lifetime, 90 years.”

But DARPA is tempering that idealistic vision.

“Theoretical model-based predictions of performance have led to new thruster designs, and these new designs may help inform future development and testing activities,” a DARPA spokesman told Popular Mechanics.

With two ongoing studies rigorously testing the EmDrive’s “impossibility,” the controversial drive that’s hung around astro-engineering circles for more than two decades is only months away from its do-or-die moment.
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McCulloch has developed a theory of Quantized Inertia (QI), which explains the effect and how it could help with human space travel. McCulloch has spent much of the past 18 months honing this theory and checking how its predictions match results in the laboratory.

Jose Luis Perez Diaz in Madrid, Spain, and Martin Tajmar in Dresden, Germany, are carrying out the experimental side of the project. Tajmar confirms that he plans to publish two papers in February 2021, one on the “normal” microwave EmDrives and the other on the laser-based EmDrives. On the experimental side, Tajmar is still working on eliminating every possible source of error.

“We are still improving our balances and testing continues, “ says Tajmar. “In particular we are working on further reduction of magnetic field interactions with the environment, which was the major side-effect that we discovered in previous testing.”

When asked whether he might have an alternative explanation for the apparent thrust seen in previous tests, Tajmar only says to “Wait for the papers…”
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There's quite a bit more to dissect including skepticism but the article is much too long to paste all of it. Very interesting stuff that possibly dx or Kep might be more able to critique.
 
Slap Shot said:
The EmDrive Just Won't Die

...

There's quite a bit more to dissect including skepticism but the article is much too long to paste all of it. Very interesting stuff that possibly dx or Kep might be more able to critique.
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Way above my pay grade, but this suggests it is woo.

The inventor claims that the device (engine) works by saturating a resonant cavity with microwave radiation; the radiation exerts pressure on the walls of the cavity. This is closely analogous to making a car move forward by sitting inside it and pushing the steering wheel, or using a fan to blow a sail;[SUP][3][/SUP] momentum just doesn't work like that.
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Your anus joke here.

(Uranus) is currently located within the constellation of Aries, the Ram, about a dozen degrees to the east (left) of the brilliant planet Mars. It's already one-third up from the eastern horizon by 11:30 p.m. local daylight time and will reach its highest point — more than two thirds up from the southern horizon — just before 4 a.m.

It is best to study the accompanying chart first, then scan that region with binoculars. Using a magnification of 150-power with a telescope of at least three-inch aperture, you should be able to resolve it into a tiny, blue-green featureless disk.
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Here is a very good star chart.

Edit: and I saw it, easy peasy, with my binocs. At 4:45 am ET it's way up in the sky. Draw an arc from Mars to the Pleiades, go about one third of the way up. You will pass a 2-star "pointer" formation about 1/2 the distance between Mars and Uranus. I will try again with my small refractor telescope tomorrow night (problem: I have no finder because it is placed for my useless right eye).
 
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I’d love to get a really nice telescope for this. Spend a couple grand on something nice when we have kids. Owning a shi—tty telescope as a kid helped inspire me.

I saw the red spot on Jupiter once through a nice telescope. It’s incredible.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
I’d love to get a really nice telescope for this. Spend a couple grand on something nice when we have kids. Owning a shi—tty telescope as a kid helped inspire me.

I saw the red spot on Jupiter once through a nice telescope. It’s incredible.
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I have a terrible scope (10-year service gift from company) too and was thinking the same thing. But I live in light pollution hell so why bother?

Someday in AZ.
 
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Kepler said:
I have a terrible scope (10-year service gift from company) too and was thinking the same thing. But I live in light pollution hell so why bother?

Someday in AZ.
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You’d be surprised what driving an hour will do.

Minnesota tan has some class 6 dark spots within a couple hours IIRC.
 
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