so, Artemis test flight AKA Should Launch Someday, 16-Nov-2022

[maw lod qan]

If we are wishing for "camera views" mine is one out there in the satellite graveyard to see that main booster coming back down.

Why not? Space X shows them trying to catch the fairing pieces!

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, malc-c said:

Impressive launch, but shame that in the 21st century they couldn't have fitted cameras with downlinks to give us the same sort of images we get from Falcon 9 and SpaceX launches.

Blame some bean counter who didn't think it would be worth the added expense and didn't make it a contract requirement.

[Dark Adaptation]

Aggghhh I missed the launch live feed. Ah well. 😪😁

Looks like our big roman candle finally launched!

Edited November 16, 2022 by Dark Adaptation

[DaveL59]

4 minutes ago, Dark Adaptation said:

Aggghhh I missed the launch live feed. Ah well. 😪😁

Looks like our big roman candle finally launched!

you can at least get to watch it via youtube and at least you know it actually will rather than joining a live stream and just hoping it will 🙂 

[Dark Adaptation]

Just now, DaveL59 said:

you can at least get to watch it via youtube and at least you know it actually will rather than joining a live stream and just hoping it will 🙂 

True, true. Knowing that it will actually launch is a big plus 🤣

[ONIKKINEN]

Scott Manley made a decent video on the launch with all the interesting bits in case someone missed the launch live:

 

[Ags]

4 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

in case someone missed the launch live

Launch? What launch? Did I miss something? 🙄

[ONIKKINEN]

2 minutes ago, Ags said:

Launch? What launch? Did I miss something? 🙄

It did actually launch this time. Seems kind of surreal to see it go as i gave up on it years ago when delays were followed only by cuts to functionality and more delays.

[Paul M]

Beautiful sight. Just the vocabulary gets me all nostalgic. Transfer orbits burns and stuff like that.

I'm torn, torn I tell you, between my appreciation of the human spirit and a nagging "but why?"

Shoulda gone straight for Mars. I'd have driven it there if they'd asked

Anyway, I'm off to rewatch an Apollo 11 launch video. Perhaps the greatest moment in TV if not human history.

[Dark Adaptation]

Nah, I'm dreaming, it didn't launch 😁

[DaveL59]

29 minutes ago, Dark Adaptation said:

Nah, I'm dreaming, it didn't launch 😁

nope, it was all done with VR and computer animations, just like the moon landings way way back in a big warehouse with some grey coloured sand. I mean, that flag fluttering, gotta have been staged, right? 😉 

Oh and that big loud flaring object in the sky, they de-mothballed their concorde, gassed it up and did a fast climb with full afterburners lit 😄 

Edited November 16, 2022 by DaveL59

[Dark Adaptation]

9 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

nope, it was all done with VR and computer animations, just like the moon landings way way back in a big warehouse with some grey coloured sand. I mean, that flag fluttering, gotta have been staged, right? 😉 

Oh and that big loud flaring object in the sky, they de-mothballed their concorde, gassed it up and did a fast climb with full afterburners lit 😄 

There, see, I thought so. Some huge conspiracy theory! 😀😉

[DaveL59]

2 minutes ago, Dark Adaptation said:

There, see, I thought so. Some huge conspiracy theory! 😀😉

easy too, cover of darkness to get concorde back to its parking spot and she can climb to 60,000 ft so would look about right.

SRB's? easy, a couple fighters paralleling and peel away left/right at the right moment and there you have it 😉 

[Paul M]

It all makes me wonder; what progress has there been in manned spaceflight in the last 50 years?

Other than the awesome launches I was never a fan of le Shuttle. It (mostly) got in the way of of purposeful manned missions. Ditto ISS; a placeholder if ever there was one.

I just watched/listened to original Apollo 13 footage. I need something that betters " Houston, we have a problem" and "Farewell Aquarius and we thank you!". 

We need something that it worthy of a decent film. Sadly, and sincerely,  Bruce Willis won't be our hero but Tom Cruise is waiting for the script

 

[DaveL59]

10 minutes ago, Paul M said:

Tom Cruise is waiting for the script

 

Nah he's too short to be an astronaut isn't he? 😄 

[Carbon Brush]

Can't help but think back to 1969 and how it was a huge achievement. Now I just expect it to work.
In the early orbital flights NASA and others were still learning about zero G short term survival and working.
They were learning about the ionosphere and radiation, and the earth magnetic field.

Remember, they didn't even have a remotely portable colour video camera available in 1969 for Apollo 11. All the in flight and lunar surface videos were b/w.

The superb colour still photos and colour videos cine were done by exposing coated flat strips of plastic based material, returned to earth then treated with chemicals.
Yes film cameras.

The pocket calculator was still in design. Though I may be wrong. I bought a 'Sinclair scientific' calculator in late 1974 - and had to build it myself.
TI had something scientific around that time that cost easily a couple of weeks wages.

The on board instrumentation and control had to be minimal compared to what we expect today. The level of integration in electronics meant anything complex was huge and power hungry.
Memory in anything digital? Think in terms of hundreds or a thousand bits/bytes. Not the numbers that won't fit on the page we see today.
Computing speeds a millionth or less than we expect today.

A half century later and much is outwardly the same.
There are no doubt some new alloys and composite materials in places.

But compare a 1930s rag and string (wood frame and canvas) built biplane to a 1950s jet pushing supersonic.
Compare a 1960s road car (carb fed engine, basic ignition, no exhaust clean up, water soluble body) with something in the past 10 years.

Has rocket technology advanced a lot in half a century?
 

 

[Paul M]

1 minute ago, DaveL59 said:

Nah he's too short to be an astronaut isn't he? 😄 

I'm only 5' 9" (age and hard work have robbed me of 1/4"!) but I just volunteered to fly their Mars mission. So long as the pilot's seat is adjustable and I can reach the pedals...  

[Paul M]

3 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

Remember, they didn't even have a remotely portable colour video camera available in 1969 for Apollo 11. All the in flight and lunar surface videos were b/w.

It might not have been Apollo 11, I don't think I remember that at only 6 years old, but I remember my techie father getting us the first (rental!!) colour TV in the neighborhood to watch Apollo in colour. My mother went mad when the footage was in B&W 🤣

[DaveL59]

I agree @Carbon Brush tech has come on a very long way. Back in the mid 70's I had a TI58 programmable calculator, great it was and by comparison the on-board computers in the apollo missions were akin to the slide rule. Memory, sure mag-core maybe?

Let's not forget battery tech too, after all they didn't have solar cells or LiPo etc. Hate to think tho what'd happen if a lithium battery went runaway up there, it'd all be over pretty fast 😮 

I think where a lot of the critique has come tho is after all those past missions and developments in how to do things, it took so long to just get it off the ground. It's just a stretch limo version of the old shuttle fuel tank with a cherry on top in many ways, or looks like it. Perhaps if they'd gone for a different design/appearance folks would get that it's very new so be less frustrated at the delays and problem and abandonned launches.

[Dark Adaptation]

Actually, @Carbon Brush, you've got a good point. Technology has advanced rather a lot, and our expectations by the same amount, like you said.

Still, we can poke a little fun, right?  

[DaveL59]

so back on track, Angry at Goonhilly, tracking Artemis 🙂 

 

[Dark Adaptation]

Think we'll get live footage as it goes around the moon and all that?

[Gfamily]

2 hours ago, Paul M said:

It all makes me wonder; what progress has there been in manned spaceflight in the last 50 years?

Calling it 'crewed spaceflight' is a significant progress for one !!!

Not much less seriously was the following... 

• At our Astro Club meeting this evening, I mentioned that it was the 49th anniversary launch of the last Skylab mission. This lasted almost 3 months and gave rise to a significant reappraisal of the workloads expected from astronauts.
• Less significantly, at the nom nom level, there have been advances in astronaut nutrition options - feeding a very "tech  crew" for 10/20 days is very different to the expectations of a 'sci /maint crew' for multiple months 

 

[CCD-Freak]

I would imagine there will be lots of pictures.  The spacecraft has cameras all over it inside and out. 

 

 

[Dark Adaptation]

59 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

I would imagine there will be lots of pictures.  The spacecraft has cameras all over it inside and out. 

 

 

Well, that's good then. Would hate to have a mission to the Moon and no pictures.

(But I'm being silly--why wouldn't there be pictures?)

Let's hope for some wonderful compositions.