Going to the moon in 2024

[iego]

They should try "D" batteries. The "C" batteries are not working.

-John

[Justin]

NASA spots India's swing and a miss attempt at a moon landing.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-orbiter-s...-lunar-lander/

WASHINGTON — NASA, with the assistance of an amateur image analyst, has identified the crash site of India’s Vikram lunar lander, the agency announced Dec. 2.

NASA released images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) showing the impact site and resulting debris field from Vikram, which attempted to make a soft landing in the south polar regions of the moon nearly three month ago as part of India’s Chandrayaan-2 mission. Contact was lost with the lander during its final phases of descent, about two kilometers above the surface.

LRO first imaged the landing site Sept. 17, but the poor lighting of the area made it difficult to identify where the spacecraft had come down. The project released the full images, allowing others to examine them.

[Gman]

They said the debris field was visible, but I didn't see any images close enough or detailed enough for that. The impact site was much easier to see.

[Irving]

I've read that the physics behind a space elevator would work, and they are just working on the materials.

Would a space chimney work? Would we care about burning toxic chemicals if they went straight through the atmosphere and dumped out into space?
I have a feeling the physics behind that idea wouldn't work, or if they did work, some dummy would leave all 65 of the safety locks open at the same time and our atmosphere would be sucked off the planet from the ground up.

[Gman]

The atmosphere isn't going anywhere unless the sun strips it from the planet.

[Aloha_Shooter]

I've read that the physics behind a space elevator would work, and they are just working on the materials.

Would a space chimney work? Would we care about burning toxic chemicals if they went straight through the atmosphere and dumped out into space?
I have a feeling the physics behind that idea wouldn't work, or if they did work, some dummy would leave all 65 of the safety locks open at the same time and our atmosphere would be sucked off the planet from the ground up.

"just" working on the materials. The space elevator concept sounds great in theory. Anchor a conveyor belt with its center of mass in geostationary orbit and then just pick stuff up and carry it into orbit. Here's the problem: The materials need to be light enough to carry into orbit affordably and durable enough to deal with wind currents, airborne and orbital debris striking it. It has to be strong enough to hold itself PLUS whatever payload you hook on at perigee against Earth's pull.

A space elevator will be great and revolutionary if they ever solve those hard-core material and engineering challenges but there's nothing "just" about it.

As far as a space chimney goes, you have the same issues of material strength and durability. Instead of trying to build the longest chimney in the world, how about just moving the manufacturing processes that result in toxic gases into an orbital facility where you can operate the machinery remotely and trap any toxic emissions in an environmental shell that traps those fumes?

[Irving]

"just" working on the materials. The space elevator concept sounds great in theory. Anchor a conveyor belt with its center of mass in geostationary orbit and then just pick stuff up and carry it into orbit. Here's the problem: The materials need to be light enough to carry into orbit affordably and durable enough to deal with wind currents, airborne and orbital debris striking it. It has to be strong enough to hold itself PLUS whatever payload you hook on at perigee against Earth's pull.

A space elevator will be great and revolutionary if they ever solve those hard-core material and engineering challenges but there's nothing "just" about it.

As far as a space chimney goes, you have the same issues of material strength and durability. Instead of trying to build the longest chimney in the world, how about just moving the manufacturing processes that result in toxic gases into an orbital facility where you can operate the machinery remotely and trap any toxic emissions in an environmental shell that traps those fumes?

I probably used "just" because I had read some article claiming there was some breakthrough in the race for developing a material. It was most likely one of those articles about how "this" could be the next evolution in battery technology that changes the world; or how there is a comet lurking nearby that could destroy life on the planet. Both type of articles are written multiple times a year, without ever having anything to show for it in reality.

As far as the pollutants, I was thinking more along the lines burning trash that we haven't figured out how to reuse.

[Gman]

The chimney idea would have to put the gases so far out into space that they wouldn't return to earth/destroy the outer atmosphere. The problem with capturing gases is their tremendous volume. Attempting to pressurize them in space to reduce the volume would be quite difficult. It might be easier/cheaper to just clean up those emissions here or find a different solution.

[Irving]

Not to mention that the idea of just jettisoning our trash to another place is honestly a pretty lazy approach.

[GilpinGuy]

It might be easier/cheaper to just clean up those emissions here or find a different solution.

Totally agree, and we've become incredibly "clean" compared to just a few decades ago, here in the US anyway - other countries seem to get a pass on this for some reason, yet we get all the blame. Notice when you're near a classic car or an old VW and you're like "Damn, that thing stinks". Imagine 50+ years ago when they were all like that.

Not to mention that the idea of just jettisoning our trash to another place is honestly a pretty lazy approach.

Lazy, maybe. But practical. Earth is like 1/1,000,000,000,000th of one grain of sand on all of the beaches of Earth combined compared to just stars in this galaxy (I may a be a weeee bit off on the ratio). We're very, very close to "nothing" in the grand scheme of things. Our trash is even closer to absolutely nothing. A trillion tons of plastic is nothingness floating through space. Throwing stuff into space is a bit different than throwing it out of your car window. But we should certainly reuse what we have here and not just jettison it. After all, eventually, we'll run out of stuff to jettison.

Another way to think about anything we send into deep space is it is "a mouse fart in the wind". Completely insignificant. Human are so prone to thinking that they influence and control everything, and it's easy to think that. On a galaxy or even solar system scale..........please......